This paper describes the uncharted terrain of the 'remote city', an ubiquitous modern urban space. Concentrating on four cities to the north-east of Tokyo and New York, it argues that worldliness is hardly a monoply of 'world cities'; that historical narratives of connection not only construct the 'locality' of many places, but establish imperatives for regular re-engagement. The remote, local, historical and small are revealed as aspects of globality, rather than alternatives. The worldly narratives of Bangor and Lewiston, Maine (US), and Hakodate, Japan, are contrasted not only with each other, but with the studied non-worldliness of the larger but still remote Japanese city of Niigata. The essay ends with a possible explanation for why 'heroic' or local worldliness actually flourishes in an era of the global mundane.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Arase, D. (1998) Building Japan Sea economic cooperation: the role of local authorities, in: Y. Yafeh, E. Harari and Ben-Art, E. (Eds) Lessons from East Asia for the Development of the Middle East in the Era of Peace, pp. 176-190. Jerusalem: The Truman Institute.
2.
Arase, D. (2001) Japan Sea regionalism: the role of sub-national authorities, in: N. Sum and M. Perkmann (Eds) Globalization and Regionalization: The Building of Cross-Border Regions, pp. 190-207. London: Routledge.
3.
Bouchard, K. (2002) Lewiston's Somali surge, Portland (Me.)Press-Herald, 28 April ( http://www.portland.com/news/immigration/204281ewiston.shtml).
4.
Chaturvedi, S. (1996) The Polar Regions: A Political Geography. Chichester: published in association with the Scott Polar Research Institute by J. Wiley.
5.
Chmelecki, L. (2002) Supremacists disgust, anger local residents, Lewiston Sun-Journal, 26 November (http://www.sunjournal.com/projects/somali/index.asp).
6.
City Of Hakodate (1997) International star-shaped citadel cities summit (http://www.city.hakodate.hokkaido.jp/∼kikaku/english/$summit/01.htm).
7.
City Of Hakodatf (2000) Second international star-shaped citadel cities summit ( http://www.city.hakodate.hokkaido.jp/∼kikaku/english/$summit/default.htm ).
8.
City Of Hakodate (2003) Third international star-shaped citadel cities summit ( http://www.city.hakodate.hokkaido.jp/∼kikaku/english/$summit/02.htm ).
9.
Claiborne, R. (2003) An unexpected influx, ABC World News Tonight Online, 21 September (http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews/Somali_influx020921.html).
10.
Cotton, C. (1980) City, town, and village: the continuum reconsidered , in: K. Ball Hatchet and J. Harrison (Eds) The City in South Asia: Pre Modern and Modern, pp. 324-342. London: Curzon.
11.
Crowley, B.L., Macdonald, M.J. and Newman, P. (2002) Putting AtLantica back together again. Presentation to the commons foreign affairs committee, Halifax, 26 February, AIMS Commentary (http://www.aims.ca/commentary/atlantica.html).
12.
Cutshall, A. (1949) Urban settlement in Hokkaido, Economic Geography, 25(1), pp. 17-22.
13.
Davis, D.H. (1934) Present status of settlement in Hokkaido, Geographical Review, 24(3), pp. 386-399.
14.
Delafons, J. (1997) Politics and Preservation: A Policy History of the Built Heritage, 1882-1996. London: E & FN Spon.
15.
Elders Of The Somali Community (2002) Somalis in Lewiston, Lewiston Sun-Journal, 8 October (http://www.sunjournal.com/projects/somali/index.asp ).
16.
Fletcher, D. (2003) Diversity rally draws thousands more than racists , Lewiston Sun-Journal, 12 January ( http://www.sunjournal.com/projects/somali/).
17.
Gray, M. and Markusfn, A.R. (1999) Colorado Springs: a military-anchored city in transition, in: A. R. Markusfn, Y. S. Lee and S. Digiovanna (Eds) Second Tier Cities: Rapid Growth beyond the Metropolis . pp. 311-332. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
18.
Howell, D.L. (1992) Proto-industrial origins of Japanese capitalism , Journal of Asian Studies, 51(2), pp. 269-286.
19.
Hozic, A. (2002) The Balkan merchants: resurrecting the old trade routes in southeastern Europe. Unpublished paper, Einaudi Lectures, Institute for European Studies, Cornell University.
20.
Hudson, A. (1999) Offshores onshore: new regulatory spaces and real historical spaces in the landscape of global money, in: R. Martin (Ed.) Money and the Space Economy , pp. 139-154. Chichester: Wiley.
21.
Hudson, A. (2000) Offshoreness, globalization, and sovereignty: a postmodern geopolitical economy?, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 25(3), pp. 269-283.
22.
Hurst, S. (Ed.) (2003) Russian Far East News, March, American-Russian Center ( http://www.arc.uaa.alaska.edu/Archives/March_2003.htm ).
23.
Irland, L.C. (2003) Papermaking in Maine: economic trends, 1894-2000 . Margaret Chase Smith Center for Public Policy (http://www.umaine.edu/mcsc/paperconf.htmpresentations ).
24.
Isserman, A.M. (2002) Defining regions for rural America, in: Federal Reserve Bank Of Kansas City (Ed.) The New Power of Regions: A Policy Focus for Rural America, pp. 35-54. Kansas City, KS: Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
Jones, F.C. (1958) Hokkaido: Its Present State of Development. London: Oxford University Press.
27.
Katz, E. (1999) Local self-government in the United States, Issues of Democracy, 4(1) (http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itdhr/0499/ijde/ijde0499.htm).
28.
King, A. (1990) Urbanism, Colonialism, and the World Economy. London: Routledge.
29.
Klassen, B. (1987) Rahowa: This Planet is All Ours. Riverton, WY: Creativity Book Publisher.
30.
Levine, B. (2003) Interview, Portland Phoenix.com (http://www.portlandphoenix.com/movies/top/documents/02686638.asp ).
31.
Lewis, M. (2000) Becoming Apart: National Politics and Local Power in Toyama, 1868-1945. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Center.
32.
Markusen, A.R., Lee, Y.S. and Digiovanna, S. (1999) Second Tier Cities: Rapid Growth Beyond the Metropolis . Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
33.
Newman, P.B. (c. 2001) Atlantica: remapping Maine for the new economy (http://www.atlanticagroup.com/newsarticles/AtlanticaDraft.doc ).
34.
Piot, C. (1999) Remotely Global: Village Modernity in West Africa . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
35.
Powell, M. (2002) In Maine town, sudden diversity and controversy , Washington Post, 4 October, p. A01.
36.
Promotion Committee For International Ocean City Hakodate (c.2003) Principal concepts for Hakodate's ocean city (http://www.city.hakodate.hokkaido.jp/∼kikaku/suisankaiyo/pdf/eng_p3_p4.pdf).
37.
Raymond, L. (2002) A letter to the Somali community, Portland (Me.)Press-Herald (http://www.pressherald.com/news/immigration/021005raymondletter.shtml).
38.
Reardon, P. (2002) A yankee mill town globalizes, Chicago Tribune, 13 June (http://www.chicagotribune.com ).
39.
Robinson, J. (2002) Global and world cities: a view from off the map , International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 26(3), pp. 531-554.
40.
Rozman, G. (1999) Backdoor Japan: the search for a way out via regionalism and de-centralization, Journal of Japanese Studies, 25(1), pp. 3-31.
41.
Saunders, M. (1996) The conservation of buildings in Britain since the Second World War, in: S. Marks (Ed.) Concerning Buildings: Studies in Honour of Sir Bernard Feilden , pp. 5-33. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.
42.
Schlesinger, J. (1997) Shadow Shoguns: The Rise and Fall of Japan's Postwar Political Machine. New York: Simon & Schuster.
43.
Short, J.R., Breitbach, C., Buckman, S. and Essex, J. (2000) From world cities to gateway cities, City4(3), pp. 317-340.
44.
Siegel, B. and Waxman, A. (2001) Third-tier cities: adjusting to the new economy. Reviews of Economic Development: Literature and Practice No. 6, US DevelopmentAdministration, Washington, DC.
45.
Skelton, K. (2002) Media from around country converge on Lewiston , Lewiston Sun-Journal, 21 August ( http://www.sunjournal.com/projects/somali/).
46.
Smith, D.C. (1972) A History of Lumbering in Maine, 1861-1960. Orono, ME: University of Maine Press.
47.
Smith, M.P. (1998) The global city-whose social construct is it anyway? , Urban Affairs Review, 33(4), pp. 482-487.
48.
Swyngedouw, E. (1997a) Neither global or local: 'glocalisation' and the politics of scale in K. Cox (Ed.) Spaces of Globalization: Reasserting the Power of the Local, pp. 137-166. New York: Guilford.
49.
Swyngedouw, E. (1997b) Excluding the other: the production of scale and scaled politics in: R. Lee and J. Wills (Eds) Geographies of Economies, pp. 167-176. New York: Arnold .
50.
Tanaka, K. (1973) Building a New Japan: A Plan for the Remodelling of the Japanese Archipelago [Nippon retto kaizo ron]. Tokyo: Simul Press.
51.
Taylor, S. (2003) Governor calls for solidarity, Lewiston Sun-Journal, 11 January (http://www.sunjournal.com/projects/somali/ ).
52.
Tilove, J. (2002) Nomads in America: Somali immigration transforms a New England city, Newhouse News Service (http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/story1a082002.html).
53.
United Nations (1999) World Urbanization Prospects, The 1999 Revisions. United Nations.
54.
Wood, R.G. (1935) A History of Lumbering in Maine, 1820-1861. Orono, ME: University of Maine Press.
55.
Zha, D.J. (2003) Chinese migrants in Niigata: a research update , in: T. Akaha (Ed.) Human Flows across National Borders in Northeast Asia, Seminar Proceedings , United Nations University, Tokyo , Japan, November 20-21, 2002, pp. 42-60. Monterey, CA: Center for East Asian Studies.
