Specification of the World City Network

TLDR

World cities are often regarded as part of an urban system, yet the literature has not explicitly specified such a network, and its relevance for theory and policy is briefly noted. The paper aims to identify the world city network as an unusual three‑level network comprising cities, the world economy, and advanced producer service firms. They formalize the network by defining four intercity relational matrices—elemental, proportional, distance, and asymmetric—based on the global location strategies of advanced producer service firms that interlock cities. The study finds that advanced producer service firms are the primary actors driving world city network formation, enabling the first application of standard network‑analysis techniques to world cities.

Abstract

World cities are generally deemed to form an urban system or city network but these are never explicitly specified in the literature. In this paper the world city network is identified as an unusual form of network with three levels of structure: cities as the nodes, the world economy as the supranodal network level, and advanced producer service firms forming a critical subnodal level. The latter create an interlocking network through their global location strategies for placing offices. Hence, it is the advanced producer service firms operating through cities who are the prime actors in world city network formation. This process is formally specified in terms of four intercity relational matrices—elemental, proportional, distance, and asymmetric. Through this specification it becomes possible to apply standard techniques of network analysis to world cities for the first time. In a short conclusion the relevance of this world city network specification for both theory and policy‐practice is briefly discussed.