FOREIGN BANKING IN THE AMERICAN URBAN SYSTEM OF FINANCIAL ORGANIZATION

Foreign banks in the United States are major sources of investment cap ital and producers of financial services. Foreign banking is localized in a few metropolises. Six major international banking centers serve as American nodes in the system of global flows of capital and financi al services. The asset structure, size, type, and national origins of foreign banks in these centers reveal investment motives. New York is the primary foreign banking complex. The magnitude of its foreign bank ing segment together with the diversity of bank sizes, nationalities, and types contributes to its distinctiveness. Its traditional role as the focal point of interaction between the securities and the domestic banking industries has been augmented by rapid expansion of foreign b anks in the 1980s. In Chicago, foreign banking has grown together with its fast-growing financial markets. Foreign banking in Los Angeles an d San Francisco is dominated by Japanese banks, which are mainly engag ed in traditional bank lending. They intensified oscillations in the C alifornian economy by financing the real estate overbuilding of the 19 80s. In the Southeast, foreign banking has rapidly increased in Atlant a and Miami. Atlanta's foreign banks are mainly engaged in commercial and industrial lending rather than in production of global financial s ervices. Miami's much larger number of small foreign banks produce ser vices related to flows of trade and investment between the United Stat es, South America, and Europe.