In Michelle Huang’s book Walking Between Slums and Skyscrapers(2004) she discusses the concept of dual compression, expressing the effects ofglobalization on local space speaking of Hong Kong. Huang shows us that the urban globalization and the use of urban spaceare in direct conflict with the needs of the city’s local population. Huangshows the reader that the elite that run the city are far removed from the cityitself, having globalization’s bird’s eye view and eliciting the image ofcontrol of city space, whereas most of the cities’ inhabitants are living inovercrowded public housing as a response to the demand for space created by globalization.

   The narrative given by city officials is that mega projects like the ChekLap Kop international airport, monumental skyscrapers, Disney Hong Kong and glamorous shopping districts are a requirement of a successful global city, regardless of the compression of living space for the city’s inhabitants (14).Additionally, Huang shows the reader that although the narrative envisions economic success for residents of Hong Kong through globalization, the reality is that economics does not trickle down effectively or fairly to everyone, further enhancing the divide in social and economic status in the city (56).Huang concludes her comparison between neoliberalism and urban residents by telling us that in the landscape of global capitalism the walkers of Hong Kong and many global cities are unable to articulate their pain and fear. They are caught between possibilities and uncertainties in the increasing space- time compression of the global city (56).

   Bringing Huang’s insight into the case of Manila, a prime example of compression through globalization is given in the 2011 article “Gates and borders, malls and moats: A photo essay of Manila”, by Trevor Hogan and Caleb J. Hogan. In this photographic and journalistic essay, the authors show us the widening gap of socioeconomic disparities in housing, the use of public space and local compression created by the global demand for space in one of the most densely populated cities of the Global South. The Hogan photos record how a refugee family from Mindanao set up shop-houses on the grounds of the mosque in Quiapo, using the mosque itself as informal housing, and as a way to combat poverty and a lack of secure employment. In another area of Quiapo self-built housing teeters over canals of the Pasig river area ripe with sewage and toxic waste, a testament to the tenacity of locals that are subjected to the adversities of a deteriorating infrastructure and globalization’s compressive effect on housing for the poor. The authors also show us that the same Pasig River area that contained the densely populated shanties also contains an area referred to as Air Con City, where mega malls and sky-scrapers dominate the landscape, utilizing public space for private commerce. There are no communal areas to these spaces; they are gated and contain no courtyards or public areas where those that don’t belong there can walk or observe without restriction. As Huang described for Hong Kong, the space-time compression of Manila too constrains the liberatory capacity of its global city walkers.

   As Manila continues to expand rapidly under globalization more transnational features of architecture appear. The Hogan photographic essay takes us to Fort Bonifacio, a product of the global city. This master planned community is a city within a city created through public- private partnerships containing a mall with fountains and sitting areas as well as apartments and a luxury housing development with a Disney themed entrance just around the corner. The authors finish by questioning how this space will be sustained with such gross socioeconomic inequalities represented in the area. This city’s fragmentation into off-worlds of exclusive evil paradises again lend the urban walker who attempts to traverse between the slums and dream worlds of Manila.

   In Arnisson Andre C. Ortega’s article “Desakota and Beyond: Neoliberal Production of Suburban Space in Manila's Fringe (2012)” we are shown how neoliberal economics produce political hierarchies and power relations that transform suburban areas into the urban fringe. Ortega maintains that suburban space is temporary, and that it offers just the right combination of politics,resources, investment, labor markets and infrastructure to devalue current uses and redraw spatial configurations that offer more opportunities in profitability.

   In metro Manila, the accelerated emergence of gated communities is a symbol of this neoliberal restructuring. Ortega describes how the global flow of capital, property investment and transnational ideas have all contributed to this new ideal of competitive individualism and market values all while rejecting previous Filipino vernacular forms of social unity. Ortega also details how the free flow of capital and free trade zones are protected by law regardless of their local social norms and the exclusion of local Filipinos.

   In another of his articles, “Manila’s metropolitan landscape of gentrification: Global urban development, accumulation by dispossession & neoliberal warfare against informality” Ortega addresses creative destruction aspect of neoliberal urbanism. Neoliberal policies change Manila’s political and social order by destroying institutions that promote equality, and by redistributing spatial boundaries to promote global capitalist growth and development at the expense of the city’s migrant population. Restructuring is evident in the large master planned gated communities that have replaced agricultural land on the fringe of metro Manila as the elite distance themselves from the local compression of globalization.

   In Manila, local community groups work together to unite the slum communities of metro area’s like Quiapo and the Pasig river, to fight for rights to the city. Generation after generation have lived in these area’s due to there proximity to the city center. Local organizations battle to eliminate the exclusionary practices of the developers and the displacement of manila’s urban poor from the slums they have claimed as their only viable option in a global city that is already compressed due to urban restructuring.