The purpose of this essay is to present a new database and index for urban immigrant destinations and contrast it with existing rankings of world cities. Most world city rankings privilege economic measurements, ignoring immigration as an important component of world city formation. We argue that immigration is a powerful example of 'globalization from below' and needs to be integrated into our understanding of global city dynamics. By linking global cities and immigration, this research highlights those cities that are experiencing dramatic socio-cultural changes brought about by large and often diverse streams of immigrants.With the systematic assessment of urban immigrant destinations, cities that are often ignored in the global cities literature (such as Dubai or Tel Aviv) may invite more scholarly attention. Our research also demonstrates that many global cities are largely bypassed by immigrants. Thus, the value of ranking urban immigrant destinations lies in revealing a range of urban outcomes from the hyper diversity of London to the largely bypassed nature of Tokyo. Since a systematic study of the world's urban immigrant destinations does not exist, this study begins to fill the empirical void and in the process we hope to generate new ways of conceptualizing socio-cultural change in global cities.In cities around the world, unprecedented levels of global immigration challenge us to assess how and where immigrants are influencing the political, economic, social and cultural dimensions of cities. This huge task is beyond any one scholar or research team but will best be carried out by a number of detailed urban case studies (for example see Ley and Murphy, 2001; Anisef and Lanphier, 2003;Stepick et al. , 2003; Price et al. , 2005). The goal of this research is to expand the range of criteria used to assess the 'globalness' of cities, to inspire others to include immigration in world cities research, and to call attention to cities experiencing dramatic social and demographic change due to immigration.It is impossible to understand the processes of globalization without studying cities, since they are the central locale for globalization. Urban geographers and sociologists, among others, have attempted to give meaning and coherence to the rapid and dramatic changes to cities in the past 30 years (for example, Hall, 1984;Sassen, 1991; Knox and Taylor, 1995;Clark, 1996; Short and Kim, 1999;Nijman, 2000;Robinson, 2002;Samers, 2002). There appears to be consensus that cities and the dynamics of urbanization have been changed by the intensification of global processes. The most important cities -the command and control centers for economic, political or cultural globalization -are called world cities. World cities have been defined as: major sites for the accumulation of capital; command points in the world economy; headquarters for corporations; important hubs of global transportation and communication; intensified

This paper examines recent proposals for memorials and monuments on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Demands for memorials are increasingly at odds with the Mall's important role as open green space and public protest space. This article analyzes the broader issues embodied in the competing purposes of this highly visible public space by considering the recent controversy over the World War II Memorial. The controversy focused primarily on the location of the memorial. Opponents contended the World War II Memorial would interrupt or destroy the iconography of the National Mall. Supporters argued that the location selected for the memorial was consistent with its importance in U.S. history and that it deserved such a prized location in the central axis between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. The article then analyzes the politics behind the site selection, and examines the debate about the impact of the memorial's location. It concludes that the location of the memorial was not accidental but intentional, and thereby reveals a purposeful re-writing of the Mall's symbolic space to suit a specific vision of the war and its meaning in American history. The article also contends that the location of the memorial represents an emerging social-political agenda that is prioritizing the Mall as a place of commemoration at the expense of open space, and, perhaps, at the expense of public protest space. [

In this paper I examine the paradox of democracy and hypersecurity in one of the most significant urban public spaces in the USA, the National Mall in Washington, DC. I explore the 2002 comprehensive security plan for the National Mall. The security plan has generated heated public debate over how to improve security in a post-September 11 world, and protect highly symbolic space, while also preserving the open character of the USA's most visible and used public spaces. I conclude that so far issues of terrorism and national security have trumped concerns about public access on the National Mall. As a result this could both change the symbolic landscape as well as impede active forms of political protest, marches, and demonstrations. These changes are significant, yet have occurred without genuine public debate and participation in the planning process.

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