Abstract In this paper the focus is on the explanation of divided cities. We will make clear that many elements of older theories are still very relevant when divisions within cities have to be explained. This is obviously still the case in a world which is described by a large number of geographers and urban sociol- ogists as increasingly globalising. A main argument could be that in the last three decades or so the process of globalisation has become enormously influ- ential in explaining changes within cities, but in this paper we want to modify this notion. Our argument will be that attention for globalisation is useful, but that we should never exaggerate the influence of this process in a city as a whole and in parts of that city. In other words: we want to challenge the importance of globalisation when explaining divided cities or urban change in general. Keywords Globalization Æ Contingencies Æ Divided cities Æ Neighbourhood change 1 Introduction The urban mosaic is in a continuous process of change. Immigrants cluster together and mix with others; ethnic and racial groups are segregated in ghettos This paper is partly based on two books edited by Peter Marcuse and Ronald van Kempen. The first one (Globalizing Cities: A New Spatial Order?) was published by Blackwell in 2000 (Marcuse & van Kempen, 2000a), the second one (Of States and Cities: The Partitioning of Urban Space) was published by Oxford University Press in 2002 (Marcuse & van Kempen, 2002). R. van Kempen (&) Urban Geography at the Urban and Regional research centre Utrecht (URU), Utrecht University, PO Box 80115, 3508 TC Utrecht, The Netherlands e-mail: r.vankempen@geo.uu.nl 123 J Housing Built Environ (2007) 22:13–31 DOI 10.1007/s10901-006-9064-3 ORIGINAL PAPER Divided cities in the 21st century: challenging the importance of globalisation Ronald van Kempen Received: 20 November 2006 / Accepted: 20 November 2006 / Published online: 3 January 2007 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2006