The concept of glocalization reminds us that the outcomes of
globalization are path-dependent. Flows of information across the
internet move from hub to hub in particular places, and, within networks
of supposedly hyperglobalized sectors, such as finance, significant
agglomerations of activity crystallize. The City of London, for example,
by virtue of its history at the centre of the largest global empire yet
known, functions as a major financial centre. Inertia of place is important
and ‘sunk capital’, both in a socio-cultural and an economic sense, plays
an important role in producing localities with specialized functions and
character. At the supply end of the global economy, for example, the
non-homogeneous distribution of natural resources such as oil, good
land, forests, fishing grounds and so on continues to determine the
comparative advantage of regions and localities and the way, therefore,
that globalization influences ‘development’. But historical patterns also
play an important role as global flows move across them. Ask yourself
why, for example, Latin America’s economy largely comprises earnings
from natural resource exports to the core economies of the world. Is
it simply because Latin America has many natural resources, such as
forestry, metals and minerals, or is to do with the pattern of trade that
was established when the regional economy was brought into the orbit
of the global capitalist system? (See Murray and Silva, 2004.)