2009 Insight: Connecting Globally, Prospering Locally

To compete, we must connect. Boil down the lessons we learned at the 2009 Greater Philadelphia Leadership Exchange in September, and that’s what you get. Don’t think of a region as a factory cranking out products, the experts tell us. Think of a region as a network, a hub, a circuit board – pick your metaphor, as long as it reflects that Greater Philadelphia can thrive only by connecting people and businesses with a global economy that is far bigger than any one city or region.

That’s why “connectivity” is the theme of this edition of Insight. It’s what everybody wants. Start with businesses: they want to connect along what sociologist Saskia Sassen calls “specialized circuits” that span the globe. In these pages, we join Sassen as she follows the links between Sao Paulo’s coffee traders and New York’s commodities brokers, or Mumbai’s developers and London’s dealmakers.