Dangers of global aspirations?

Here on the skyscraper forum, with our passion for cities and the partisanship so many of us feel for our own, it is no great surprise that we:

• are fascinated with a "pecking order" for cities, and love to rank them

• glorify global cities with statistics (population, tallest buildings, economic importance) and put them at the apex of our thinking

• look for ways to make our own cities more global, more world class

But while we get involved with this very real urban excitment, factors are at play that are putting tremendous pressures on our true global cities, affecting their city and metro populations, and, no doubt, their qualities of life. With a growing planet, those pressures....and the negatives...can and will only increase.

So is it possible to look at the down side to globalization. Are there elements at play in the real global cities that will actually serve more as a detriement than a benefit to these communities. Is is possible that our global cities will develop a mind-boggling list of the most impressive sort of attributes....and yet be utter failures as a place to live, work, and even perhaps, visit?

WILL THERE BE A DOWN SIDES TO THE CONCEPT OF MAJOR BLOCKBUSTER GLOBAL WORLD CLASS CITY....AND, IF SO, WHAT WOULD THOSE DOWNSIDES BE?

Will there be "non global" cities that are happy they chose not to go the global route? What is it in our desire for that star urban status that will have us saying, "be careful what you wish for..." ????

PLEASE NOTE: I went out of my way not to mention any particular city here. I'm personally more interested in how the concept of globalization plays out in some negative ways as opposed to the individual cities within it happens.>