Measurement of the World City Network

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to describe the construction of a set of data that can be used to measure intercity relations. Building on a specification of the world city network as an 'interlocking network' in which business service firms play the crucial role in network formation, information is gathered from global service firms about the size of their presence in a city and about any 'extra-territorial' functions of their offices. This information is converted into data to provide the 'service value' of a city for a firm's provision of its service in a 316 (cities) X 100 (firms) matrix. These data are used to measure the global network connectivity of the cities. In an initial analysis, the paper concludes with a simple correlation exercise that shows New York and London to be `exceptions' rather than 'exemplars' amongst contemporary world cities.