In the case of metaphors used within geography to describe the relationship
between the global and the local, several have been fairly commonplace, and
each has different sets of implications associated with it. One of the most frequently
used has been that of scale as a hierarchical ladder, with the implication
being that one ‘climbs’ up the scalar hierarchy from local to regional to national
to global, or down it from global to national to regional to local. In such a
metaphor, the various scales are considered to be like the rungs on the ladder and
there is a strict progression between them