Assembling / Worlding Cities

This article explores the assembling and worlding of cities as both aspirational and evaluative processes in which cities are assembled, compared, and “positioned.� These practices involve the global circulation of expertise, best practices, models, and technologies related to how best to develop and govern cities. From specific examples from the authors’ research, it is argued that the two distinct but overlapping notions of assembling and worlding help us conceptualize the contemporary urban–global condition. Building on the article’s insights, we end this Urban Pulse with some questions for future global urban studies.