Global Cities

Religious diversity in the world's major cities is, first and foremost, a phenomenon of globalization. The global circulation of people and their cultures forces urban dwellers to encounter different collective identities, often defined by language, race, ethnicity, or religion. Cities have always been places where strangers interact. Members of different faith communities have been sharing the social spaces of modern urban communities for as long as modern societies have existed. The question of how these “cultural strangers” get along—sometimes peacefully and sometimes less so—is key to understanding contemporary urban life and culture.

There are numerous meanings of the term global city. One kind of definition fixes the category based on the roles cities play in the worldwide capitalist system. For example, a global city is a location of significant command and control functionality, or a global city is a hub of significant capital flows. Another kind of definition focuses on the global circulation of people. In this view, a global city is one with a significant immigrant population. The latter type of definition is followed here for contemporary cities, but this was also true historically for imperial cities and their outposts. In discussing religion in global cities, this entry touches on the spatial semiotics of urban neighborhoods in global cities and gives examples from several contemporary cities of how religion shapes global cities.