At a time when fears of recession thicken the air, Time looks at three cities that are driving the global economy and, in fact, are made by and are making globalisation: New York, London and Hong Kong, collapsed in the somewhat unwieldy shorthand, Ny-lon-kong. Michael Elliot tracks how these cities are overlooked when explanations are found for the robustness of emerging market economies even during fears of a slowdown in the developed world: “Connected by long-haul jets and fiber-optic cable, and spaced neatly around the globe, the three cities have (by accident — nobody planned this) created a financial network that has been able to lubricate the global economy, and, critically, ease the entry into the modern world of China, the giant child of our century. Understand this network of cities — Nylonkong, we call it — and you understand our time.” The three cities have much in common. They were all once centres of manufacturing, and managed a transition to services. All were significant ports — Hong Kong still is. And all have a multicultural population: in 2006, 31 per cent of London’s residents had been born outside Britain; in New York 34 per cent had been born outside the US; and Hong Kong has traditionally been a magnet for immigrants. But men and women of the financial sector, writes Elliot, can choose to live anywhere — what has drawn them to these cities is great connectivity and a conducive local environment made of ease of doing business and a vibrant cultural scene. It matters because: “If the 19th century was the age of empire and the 20th one of war, so the 21st century, to date, is an age of finance. It is the banks and investment houses, the mutual funds and money managers, taking in their clients’ cash and spreading it around the world, who have made today’s global economy what it is.”

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