In this era of the Internet and globalization, financial markets have become increasingly volatile and crisis prone. Accompanying this financial market volatility, individual financial centers are also increasingly becoming unstable and unpredictable in terms of their relative importance in their regions. Although there is considerable stability in the ordering of financial centers over time—as New York and London demonstrate—significant changes in the rankings of financial centers at national, regional, and global levels do occur. The spatial switching of financial dominance from place to place can be seen all around the world: for example, Sydney has replaced Melbourne in Australia, Toronto has overtaken Montreal in Canada, São Paulo now dominates Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, and Johannesburg has succeeded Cape Town in South Africa. In the United States, Chicago gave way to New York early in the past century, and Los Angeles is now surpassing San Francisco.