Berlin: Towards a global city?

Since 1990, the debate on urban restructuring in the new German capital cit y Berlin has frequently raised the question of whether Berlin is developing towards a global city type of urban region. Many European metropoles would like to be classified as global cities in order to enhance their reputatio n in the framework of interurban competition. The vision of Berlin as an up coming global city had become part of the urban government's programme of i nnovation and technology development by 1999. This article provides a criti cal assessment of the global city vision of Berlin. The paper concentrates on two important aspects of the global city's economy: supraregional econom ic control capacity and the concentration of high-level business services. The findings are based on an empirical analysis of Berlin's interregional c apital links and of the urban economy's functional structure, comparing Ber lin, Hamburg and Paris. The conclusion is that Berlin hardly has a chance o f becoming a 'true' global city in terms of a strategic economic centre wit h internationally extending control capacities like London and paris.