GaWC Project 50

Transnational Relations of Brazilian Cities: A Contribution to Urban Development Policies

Funded by: National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) - Brazil and supported by LAGET (PPGG, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ)) (2006-2007)

Grant Holder: Eliana Consoni Rossi working in conjunction with Professor Bertha Becker at the Geography Department of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro - Brazil (UFRJ)

This Postdoc Project is a follow-up and a deepening of the PhD research. There, the transnational relationships of selected Brazilian cities where studied based on the GaWC methodology adjusted to the regional analysis (GaWC Project 40). Beyond the PhD thesis, the research resulted in three papers: “Banking networks accross Brazilian cities: Interlocking cities within and beyond Brazil”, “'Gateway cities' in Globalization: How banks are using Brazilian cities” and “Transaction links through cities: 'decision cities' and 'service cities' in outsourcing by leading Brazilian firms” (GaWC Research Bulletins 147, 148 and 175).

In this new project, we explore the use of that knowledge for urban development policies purpose. The main goal is to contribute for the planned insertion of Brazilian cities in the globalization process. We carry on studying globalization through advanced producer services (APS). For the present research, we have two hypotheses. First, we will conceive globalization an overseen process. Second, and an addition, logistics will be understood as an APS. Because of the logistics nature been much more close to the production geography than the traditional APSs, it may be an important APS when the target is planning. Our specific goals are (i) to update the Brazilian banking data and analysis of the PhD research; (ii) to include other urban agents (APSs) to study transnational relations of Brazilian cities; (iii) to compare the updating outcome with previous one with the bearing of identify – or suggest – the causes of the eventually changes; (iv) to point the results that may help building action sceneries and to select real case studies as research follow-up. The results will be published in report and article format.