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Measuring Centrality and Power Recursively in the World City Network: A Reply to Neal
Abstract
In a recent article, Zachary Neal (2011) distinguishes between centrality and power in world city networks and proposes two measures of recursive power and centrality. His effort to clarify oversimplistic interpretations of relational measures of power and position in world city networks is appreciated. However, Neal’s effort to innovate methodologically is based on theoretical reasoning that is dubious when applied to world city networks. And his attempt to develop new measures is flawed since he conflates ‘eigenvector centrality’ with ‘beta centrality’ and then argues that ‘eigenvector-based approaches’ to recursive power and centrality are ill-suited to world city networks. The main problem is that his measures of ‘recursive’ centrality and power are not recursive at all and thus are of very limited utility. It is concluded that established eigenvector centrality measures used in past research (which Neal critiques) provide more useful gauges of power and centrality in world city networks than his new indexes.
... Within this research trend, measuring the hierarchy and centrality of cities per the intensity of the network connectivity is gaining importance [12][13][14][15]. The commuting population and information have previously drawn much attention with improvements in physical infrastructures, such as roads and railroads, and development in both private and public transportation means. ...
... According to this theory, social structures are interactive relational structures, not simply combinations of individuals [44][45][46][47][48]. Members of a society influence each other through interactions, and a social structure is an interactive relational structure rather than a simple combination of individual independent attributes [49]. This theory was further developed as a spatialcognition system that analyzes regional connection structures and became the basis of deriving centrality, connectivity, and nodularity between regions by changing inter-regional commuting information into an interaction matrix [12][13][14][15]50]. The next step was the development of social network analysis, which is based on graph theory; it expresses the relationship between an individual and groups as nodes and links and quantitatively analyzes the structures of such relationships. ...
With the recent exponential growth in inter-regional movements of population and information, there is an urgent need for accurately measuring the connectivity and centrality of cities. This study aims to investigate the differences in centrality between different scales of a dataset and to propose a calibration method to minimize the gap between the measures from the two scales. Although urban and regional centrality is examined by analyzing regional commuting datasets, this study proposes that it should be measured using nationwide data to validate the centrality results. To demonstrate this, the differences in regional centrality between different spatial scales of commuting trips for two data groups are shown: Seoul regional data and nationwide data. In this structure, the centrality levels of the 25 districts of Seoul were calculated for both groups. The results clearly show the differences in the centrality levels of districts in both groups: Seongbuk district ranked 10th in the local dataset but fell to 18th in the nationwide dataset; Geumcheon district ranked 22nd in the former but rose to 9th in the latter. The ratio of inner commuting in Seoul is thus relatively low, and each district has dynamic connections with other provinces. Furthermore, the results of a linear regression analysis, which was conducted on a local dataset to obtain similar results as those obtained using a national dataset, demonstrate the significance of a wide-ranging commuting dataset for regional centrality analysis of a specific region.
... Furthermore, Neal (2011) indicated that the eigenvector and Bonacich centrality methods could not find the key nodes from networks when eigenvalues become high. Boyd et al. (2013) extended Neal's theory by introducing a new parameter. In this method, eigenvector centrality is relevant to recurrent centrality, but it is not relevant to power. ...
... Although Neal's alter-based centrality considered the relationships between nodes, it still has some shortcomings (Neal, 2013a(Neal, , 2013bBoyd et al., 2013) which are as follows: ...
Purpose
This study aims to review the literature on graph-theoretic mining methods for node importance in both static and dynamic world city networks, which is correspondingly categorised by graph-theoretic node importance mining on network topologies and transmission mechanisms.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors overview the graph-theoretic indicators of node importance: centrality and power. Then, the methods of graph-theoretic node importance mining on network topologies are assessed with node relevance, centrality- and power-based measurements, heterogeneous fusion and other miscellaneous approaches. The latest progress in transmission mechanisms is also reviewed in this study involving network evolution, node immunisation and robustness in dynamics. Finally, the findings are analysed and future directions in this field are suggested.
Findings
The method development of node importance mining is driven by complex application-based problems within a transmission mechanism. Fusion measurements, based on centrality and power, are extended by other graph mining techniques in which power has a significant role. In conclusion, the trends of node importance mining focus on power-embedded fusion measurements in the transmission mechanism-based complex applications.
Originality/value
This is the first systematic literature review of node importance from the view of graph-theoretic mining.
... Furthermore, Neal [7] indicated that the methods of eigenvector centrality and Bonacich centrality could not find out the key nodes from networks when the eigenvalues get high. John et al. [30] extended Neal's theory by introducing parameter c. So that they turned the equations from Av=λv to cAv=cλv. ...
... Although Neal's alter-based centrality considered the relationships between nodes, there are still some shortages [18,30,31], e.g., the partial recursion is not enough for node importance evaluation of world city networks; it does not consider the degrees of all nodes; and the parameters only reflect the degree and connection strengths but ignore the weights of them. These shortages weaken the accuracy effects. ...
The study of world city networks becomes one of the hottest research areas. Mining the important nodes has been important research questions in network evaluation of world city applications. In this paper, we firstly summarized the characteristics of world city network and evaluated their centrality and power of control. Then, the node importance evaluation methods based on network topologies were surveyed from three prospects of node relevance, shortest path and other methods. The latest progresses in transmission mechanism were also reviewed in this paper. At last, some extensions of the node importance evaluations were analyzed and some future works are suggested.
... In the study of world city networks, Zachary proposed the concept of recursive centrality and recursive control, which he later changed to Alter-based centrality (AC) and Alter-based power (AP) [46,47]. He believes that centrality refers to resource concentration and diffusion. ...
Intercity travel by residents promotes the regathering and dissemination of social and economic factors. Based on big data from Tencent’s location-based service, 346 cities above the prefecture level in China were chosen as study objects, with 2018 as the study time node. To construct the intercity residents’ travel network, complex network analysis and GIS spatial analysis methods were used. Furthermore, when analyzing the structural characteristics and spatial differences of Chinese residents’ intercity travel from different time perspectives (the whole year, daily, Spring Festival travel rush, and special holidays), Gephi network analysis tools and ArcGIS spatial analysis software were used. The following are the major findings: daily and the whole year intercity travel by Chinese residents, as well as intercity travel during special holidays and the Spring Festival, all exhibit the “diamond” structure, with Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou-Shenzhen, and Chengdu-Chongqing at the core. The distribution of lines in and around the “diamond” is large and concentrated from the perspective of the hierarchical nature of the residents’ intercity travel network. Significant increases in high-intensity population flow lines within the “diamond” can be seen during Spring Festival travel and holidays. The number of cities involved in the inflow line is significantly greater than that involved in the outflow line, as demonstrated by the number of residents in the first point of travel, indicating that there is a difference between the central cities flowing into and out of the network. The first flow of the central city is the most visible during the Spring Festival travel period. Most cities in the resident intercity travel network have relatively low degrees of centrality, closeness centrality, and betweenness centrality, and the number of cities with large values of the three is small, and they are concentrated in the apex and interior of the “diamond” structure.
... Social network theory identifies network structures in terms of nodes (points) and links (connections) between each pair of nodes described in graphic theory using measures, such as centrality, density, structural holes, and centralization [28][29][30][31][32][33]. This method is used to elucidate the structural relationship of the network by focusing on the interrelationships between the nodes [13,[34][35][36][37]. Centrality describes how an important position is occupied by each node within a networked structure [38,39]. ...
Innovation City projects, aimed at balanced national development in South Korea, have relocated public institutions from the Seoul metropolitan area to provinces, decentralizing population and economic functions, over the past decade. This study measured changes in regional centrality (the central and local location or hierarchy of objects in a network) at the 14 cities where Innovation City projects were constructed. Commuter Origin-Destination data were analyzed using Rstudio. In the case of connectivity centrality, 13 out of 14 regions saw a rise in centrality values; among them, Busan, Daegu, and Ulsan belong to large cities. This suggests that the impact of Innovation City projects on established metropolitan areas may not be very significant. Five of the 14 projects increased the value of eigenvector centrality, while 10 increased the centrality ranking. This means that the absolute traffic volume of Innovation Cities across the country had increased, while the centrality of areas around these cities declined, suggesting that Innovation Cities should pursue co-prosperity with surrounding areas. In this way, Innovation Cities can have a positive impact on surrounding areas, and positive externalities of relocation projects are maximized. However, such development effects are confined to Innovation City areas, negatively influencing balanced regional development.
... Many international studies have conducted urban network research based on urban networks and mobile space theory. However, spatial linkages and interactions between regional cities and urbanization processes cannot be measured simply through urban networks [10,11]. ...
China is urbanizing rapidly, but current research into the spatiotemporal characteristics of urbanization often ignores the spatial and evolutionary associations of cities. Using the theory of spatial polarization and diffusion, together with a systematic analysis method, this study examined the spatial development process of urbanization in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region of China during 1995-2015. Results showed clear patterns in the scale and hierarchy of regional urbanization. Shanghai ranked first as the regional growth pole, while Nanjing, Hangzhou, and Suzhou ranked second. The spatial linkage index of urbanization showed that 10 cities (including Shanghai, Suzhou, and Hangzhou) constituted the densest spatial linkage network. The diffused area often became spatially polarized before the polarization then weakened as a new diffusion stage developed. The study also revealed that the spatial correlation urbanization differences in the YRD generally decreased. The polarization index revealed increasing spatial integration and correlation of urbanization in the YRD. This study proved that each city had a different spatial role in relation to other cities during different stages of development. Investigation of the driving mechanism of regional urbanization indicated that industrial modernization and relocation within the region provided the main endogenous driving force for the formation of spatial polarization or diffusion. Our research provides important scientific support for regional development planning. Furthermore, our analysis of the impact of spatial correlation within cities or a region could provide an important reference in relation to the regional environment and public health.
... Aside from the 1985 edited book, much of the work cited immediately above has appeared in journals squarely in the interdisciplinary area of urban studies, including Urban Studies, Cities and Community, Journal of Urban Affairs, and Cities. Other examples of urban studies scholarship conducted by those under Chase-Dunn's direct or inherited influence include work on measuring world city centrality (Boyd, et al. 2013), the likelihood of overurbanization in post-Maoist China (Song and Timberlake 1996), Asia's rising world cities (Ma and Timberlake 2008), and testing world-system effects on the size of countries' informal labor sector (Roberts 2014). While Chase-Dunn's influence was directly personal in some cases-as a mentor and/or collaborator, in other cases it was not. ...
... However, with some exceptions in the literature [46,[49][50][51][52], only few researchershave followed this approach.More recently, some studies used centrality indicators and applied some of the Network Analysis methodologies.Alderson [1] used block modeling techniques to reinforce the general position and the role played by cities in the global system. Derudder [11] used a graphical approach of clustering techniques through a Clicks analysis.Following this evolution, the importance of centrality as an indicator of WCs' power has been reinforced [6,39].Neal Zachary [41] introduced some centrality indicators in this field [40] which evoked recent discussions around this new approach.Other researchersanalyzed this concept over time, resorting to new analysis techniques [29,30,33].The earliest studies of cities' centrality did not directly examine position within a network of cities, but rather used cities' internal features as a proxy indicator of centrality: counting headquarters and corporate service firms [23,45] and even occurrences of major events like the Olympics or the 1995 Rolling Stones World Tour [47]. Hierarchical rankings of cities based on these features were assumed as being the mirror of cities' centrality in an unobserved intercity network (these features indicate the consequences of such positions of centrality). ...
... Centrality measures are typically assumed to be positively associated with supply chain performance (e.g., Autry & Griffis, 2008; Bellamy et al., 2014; Borgatti & Li, 2009; Kim et al., 2011 ). However, we note that even in SNA's original context of sociology , the assumption of higher connectivity to a group consistently translating into increased knowledge and influence has been questioned (e.g., Boyd, Mahutga, & Smith, 2013; Neal, 2011 ). Therefore, to keep this investigation open to the broadest scope of results that might emerge from the data, we compose the following three research questions in lieu of seven explicit hypotheses: The last question reflects a hypothesis that one or more of the SNA measures may prove near-equivalent in explanatory power, as these seven measures had been developed to quantify nuances that exist in the relationships between people. ...
The potential of social network analysis (SNA) to characterize supply network structure is of growing interest in supply chain management, although the related literature provides few empirical investigations. This study identifies those SNA measures most closely associated with supply chain efficiency, using archival inter-firm relationship data collected from U.S. public companies in multiple industries. In a three-stage procedure, a DEA model is applied to measure firm- and chain-level efficiencies, followed by a correlation analysis to group SNA variables into clusters of high correlation. These clusters are used in a step-wise regression algorithm to identify those variables most relevant to productive efficiency while accounting for multicollinearity. The supply network structural characteristics that emerge as significant are consistent with many hypothesized relationships in the literature, although not without exceptions, such as an interesting tradeoff between the benefit of connectedness and a penalty for closeness.
... Recently, more advanced techniques such as Bonacich's power were applied (Choi et al., 2006), while Neal (2011) devised tailored notions of centrality and power as tools for describing cities' position or status in the system. A recent debate between Boyd et al. (2013) and Neal (2013b) shows the vibrancy of the discussion on the remit of different centrality measures. There are a wide variety of measures available now, each capturing different dimensions of 'centrality' in a global urban network. ...
Systematic research on world cities neglects immigration, despite its significance to world city formation. In this article, we test a foundational, but untested, premise of world cities research: that global centrality in the world urban system is associated with larger, more diverse immigrant populations. Using an international sample of cities, we conduct multivariate regressions of Benton-Short et al.’s Urban Immigrant Index on the Globalization and World City Network measure of advanced producer service firm centrality and two other measures of global urban centrality, controlling for competing explanations of international migration. Our findings reveal that cities that are more central to the network of advanced producer service firms have larger, more diverse immigrant populations than less-central cities. World cities are thus not only key sites for corporate control of the world economy, but they are also central in international flows of immigrant labor, as Sassen hypothesized nearly 30 years ago.
Urban Positionality refers to how differences in position and power shape identities, influences and access in the urban network or space of flows. Accurate determination of urban positionality is helpful for a city to formulate reasonable development goals and strategies in the context of close cooperation and stiff competition with other cities. Clearly, the same city may have different positionality in different networks, and different perspectives or methods will lead to different understanding of the positionality of cities. As an attempt by a new angle to enrich the understandings of urban positionality, this paper constructs a regional urban network using intercity calling data, and comprehensively analyzes the positionality of each city in the urban network through the lens of alter-based centrality and national-local perspectives. The results show that: (1) In an urban network, the influence of geographical location on urban positionality continues to remain significant, especially with respect to the centrality of the city; (2) The power space of the urban network has the characteristics of hierarchy and territoriality; (3) Rescaling is an important method to improve the positionality of cities at all levels; (4) Borrowed size is an important way for smaller cities to improve their positionality. At the same time, as an extension of the study, we believe that for some old industrial areas, the positionality transformation of city is as important as industrial transformation, as a regional development strategy.
This paper critically reviews the urban systems literature adopting graph‐theoretical conceptions of 'network analysis'. A network‐analytical approach allows specifying and measuring how cities interact, the importance and roles of cities in these interactions, and some of the key characteristics of the urban system as a whole. Throughout the paper, the focus is on ‘world city network’ research. After an overview of how network analysis first entered this literature and subsequently developed into a vibrant research agenda, the paper clarifies the use of network analysis by comparing two different network approaches. This is then used to discuss the potential and challenges/pitfalls associated with the use of network analysis, respectively. It is argued that the combination of careful abstraction and the methodological opportunities offered by network analysis offers geographers a powerful methodological toolkit. At the same time, a permanent appraisal of the real versus the alleged potential of network analysis is needed.
The world city network (WCN) research has been promoting the evaluation algorithms in complex networks. The study of urban network focuses on the measurements of city position in the WCN. In previous study, a set of algorithms such as centricity evaluation, power evaluation and their recursive power are proposed to support the WCN research. In this paper, we propose a novel global recursive based node importance evaluation (GRNIE) algorithm for WCN, which improves the performance in evaluating the network centricity and power by being applied to the Friedmann Basics Network. The results of the experiment show that the proposed GRNIE outperforms the previous algorithms (i.e., degree, recursive centricity, recursive power) in task of classification with the improvements of 72 %, 32 % and 20 % respectively in accuracy.
In recent years, global concern has arisen regarding the significant changes in economic centrality in the Chinese urban system induced by informatisation, globalisation and regionalisation. This study aimed to establish a quantitative method based on a comprehensive analysis of economic centrality in the urban system and to apply this to a case study of the Chinese urban system. This paper, based on the analysis of three key factors – hinterland or large spatial scale; co-operation with a division of urban economy or competitive substitution relationship; and reliance on its own resources or a service network (in the case of an enterprise) – argues that economic centrality in an urban network is complex and is based on the size, network and headquarter economy (HQE) of a city. This paper demonstrates that the increasing importance of the network economy and the HQE does not displace that of a city’s size, thus indicating that a city’s size is still relevant but no longer a primary factor. The results prove that the methods used in this study permitted an effective analysis of the economic centrality in the Chinese urban system. The authors, therefore, hope that this paper can provide a frame of reference for analysing economic centrality in urban systems of developing countries.
This paper builds upon world city network studies using the interlocking network model to introduce an additional way of measuring inter-city connectivity. Using firms' service values for cities to indicate directions of potential workflows, a new measure of asymmetric network connectivity is specified to include uneven power relations in the analysis. This is then employed in analyses of the latest service values matrix (175 firms × 526 cities) for 2013. Two types of analyses are performed. First, the aggregate measures of asymmetric network connectivity are computed and compared to the conventional measure of global network connectivity. Results show an accentuation of the hierarchical tendencies in the world city network. Second, the asymmetric connectivity is disaggregated into its three components - dominant, equivalence and subordinate - to produce a set of further measures. Results tend to distinguish dominant ‘global places’, often financial centres, from places where firms ‘have to be’, largely capital cities of medium-sized states.
In a 2011 paper, I introduced the conceptual distinction between positions of centrality and power in world city networks and offered a new measure—now called alter-based centrality—designed to quantify the network positions of cities. Here, I respond to some conceptual and mathematical critiques of those ideas raised by Boyd et al. (2013) in their Comment on Neal (2011). On the conceptual side, I clarify the definitions of centrality and power, the relevance of exchange power in world city networks and the appropriate depth of network measures in this context. On the mathematical side, I clarify the relationship between alter-based centrality and other measures, and explore the limitations of two alternatives: eigenvector and beta centrality. This Reply concludes by noting that each measure has its own strengths and weaknesses, but that researchers should aim to use measures that are no more complex than necessary.
The world's great cities are important nodes in the world economy. Major theorists (Friedman, Sassen, Castells) conceptualize global cities as the command and control centers for contemporary global capitalism. The authors' research offers a view of the global system based on a careful examination of the relations and connections between world cities and how those patterns change over time. Formal network analysis allows the authors to interpret data on flows of airline passengers between the world's great cities for six time points between 1977 and 1997, focusing on the changes in network characteristics (especially centrality hierarchies and clique membership) for the entire global city system. Although New York, Paris, London, Tokyo, and a few other major European and North American metropolises dominate this urban hierarchy throughout the two decades, the network roles and positions of other places shift considerably. The article concludes that research on world city networks once again demonstrates that global urbanization patterns are characterized by the uneven development dynamic anticipated by world-system analysis.
Abstract The research looks at the structure of the Internet backbone and air transport networks between 82 cities in 2002, using Internet backbone bandwidth and air passenger traffic data. Centrality measures on individual city's hierarchy in the Internet and in the air traffic networks were significantly correlated, with London in the most dominant position in both networks. A quadratic assignment procedure (QAP) showed a structural equivalence between two systems. The division and membership of the clusters in both networks also showed similarity; both networks had a strongly cohesive North American-European cluster with the London-New York dyad as the strongest linkage in the global flow of information and people. These findings suggest that current trends in Internet infrastructure concentration reproduce and maintain global inequality and hierarchy among world cities.
This paper reports results from an analysis of the relationship between the structure of the city-to-city network of global airline passenger flows and the interstate world system. While many scholars suggest that the broader parameters of the world system structure the urban hierarchy embedded within or articulated to it, others argue that the urban hierarchy is decoupling from the world system. The analyses show that there has been some modest convergence in the distribution of power in the world city system. Moreover, they suggest that the mechanism for this convergence is the upward mobility of cities located in the semi-periphery and the east Asian region. The paper closes by considering the implication of these findings for a larger understanding of the relationship between globalisation, the structure of the world city system and its articulation with the world system.
A new measure of centrality, CF, is introduced. It is based on the concept of network flows. While conceptually similar to Freeman's original measure, CB, the new measure differs from the original in two important ways. First, CF is defined for both valued and non-valued graphs. This makes CF applicable to a wider variety of network datasets. Second, the computation of CF is not based on geodesic paths as is CB but on all the independent paths between all pairs of points in the network.
Globalization has renewed interest in the place and role of cities in the international system. Recent literature proposes that the fate of cities (and their residents) has become increasingly tied to their position in international flows of investment and trade. Data on the branch locations of the world’s 500 largest multinational enterprises in 2000 are subjected to two broad types of network analytic techniques in order to analyze the “world city system.” First, 3,692 cities are analyzed in terms of three measures of point centrality. Second, blockmodeling techniques are employed to generalize further about the positions and roles played by cities in the system. These techniques are used to trace out the structure of the world city system, locate cities in the context of a global urban hierarchy, and explore the degree to which this diverges from a simple one‐to‐one matching of cities onto nation‐states in the world system. Sociology
With the advent of multinational corporations, the traditional urban service function has 'gone global'. In order to provide services to globalizing corporate clients, the offices of major financial and business service firms across the world have formed a network. It is the myriad of flows between office towers in different metropolitan centres that has produced a world city network. Through an analysis of the intra-company flows of 100 leading global service firms across 315 cities, this book assesses cities in terms of their overall network connectivity, their connectivity by service sector, and their connectivity by world region. Peter Taylor's unique and illuminating book provides the first comprehensive and systematic description and analysis of the world city network as the 'skeleton' upon which contemporary globalization has been built. His analyses challenge the traditional view of the world as a 'mosaic map' of political boundaries. Written by one of the foremost authorities on the subject, this book provides a much needed mapping of the connecting relationships between world cities, and will be an enlightening book for students of urban studies, geography, sociology and planning.
Metropolitan dominance is conceived in network terms, with linkages between urban places consisting of organizational linkages between corporations' headquarters and production facilities. This approach offers advantages over previous research by identifying and quantifying the actual control linkages between places. A measure of network prominence was computed for 158 SMSAs and related to a variety of their ecological characteristics. The results were generally consistent with metropolitan theory: network prominence was related to population size, the presence of higher-order functions, and manufacturing activity. Prominence was also related to the presence of a state capital in the SMSA, suggesting overlap in government and business networks of influence relations similar to that in multinational corporations and national government networks. Change in metropolitan dominance was assessed by relating network prominence to predictor variables for both 1955 and 1975.
The spatial distribution of human beings and institutions is not accidental. On the contrary, it is a product of evolution and represents a dynamic functional interrelationship in which the units are organized around centers or points of dominance. The pattern is not unlike that of the living organism, which, as Professor Child points out, is a vital integration of organs, cells, and tissues, functioning in harmony with a center of dominance. Moreover, human like biological evolution reveals an ongoing tendency toward a more specialized and refined relation between the center of dominance and the subordinate integrated parts. The development of communications is rapidly transforming the world from the small, undifferentiated, symmetrical unit of spatial distribution into the highly centralized and specialized axiated pattern. This type of pattern, which originated in the Western Hemisphere, is now penetrating the Orient and the primitive life of the tropics. Thus both old and new regions of the world are coming under the influence of the great urban centers of Europe and America. The change in spatial distribution effected in the village and urban communities of Asia is the basis of much of the present unrest. The fringe of Asia is today an economic frontier of the Western world, but gradually new centers of dominance are emerging, such as Tokyo, Osaka, Shanghai, Singapore, Calcutta, and Bombay, which are beginning to disturb the equilibrium of the Western centers. The world is fast becoming a closed region organized on the axiated pattern, in which centers and routes are gaining precedence over boundaties and political areas as points of interest in spatial distribution.
2In an influential paper, Freeman (1979) identified three aspects of centrality: betweenness, nearness, and degree. Perhaps because they are designed to apply to networks in which relations are binary valued (they exist or they do not), these types of centrality have not been used in interlocking directorate research, which has almost exclusively used formula (2) below to compute centrality. Conceptually, this measure, of which c(ot, 3) is a generalization, is closest to being a nearness measure when 3 is positive. In any case, there is no discrepancy between the measures for the four networks whose analysis forms the heart of this paper. The rank orderings by the
Professor and Head of the UCLA Urban Planning Program. He is the author of numerous publications in the fields of regional development policy and planning theory and is concerned with Third World planning and development and the phenomena of ‘global cities' in the era of economic and spatial restructuring.
Centrality and power have become common foci for world city network research and frequently serve as tools for describing cities' position or status in the system. However, these concepts are difficult to define and measure. Often they are treated as equivalent: more central cities have more power. This paper challenges this assumed equivalence by proposing conceptually distinct definitions and developing two new measures that allow them to be differentiated empirically. Applying the proposed measures in a hypothetical world city network and the Internet backbone network reveals that centrality and power are distinct and suggests that world cities should be viewed as arising from multidimensional network positions that define multiple types: quintessential world cities that are both central and powerful (such as New York and London), hub world cities that are central but not powerful (such as Washington and Brussels) and gateway world cities that are powerful but not central (such as Miami and Stockholm).
Despite embracing the concept of networks to help explain the organisation of modern urban systems, measurement has presented an overriding challenge to researchers: how can linkages between cities be operationalised? Airline traffic data have been proposed as a promising solution, but these data introduce their own complications. In this paper, the Airline Origin and Destination Survey is used to refine this approach, distinguishing first between hub/spoke and origin/destination networks and, secondly, between networks of business-oriented and leisure-oriented travel among 115 US metropolitan areas in 2006. After illustrating the importance of these distinctions with employment data from the American Community Survey, the resulting and more narrowly focused business network is used to test a model of urban economic flows. Results suggest that the volume of business exchanges between US cities is a function of the cities' own attributes and as well as relational factors including economic similarity.
Much of the research on globalization conceives of the global economy as structured by networks among places, while separately organizational research has examined the role of networks among firms in structuring competition, collaboration, and cooperation. In both cases, position and centrality within the network confers certain advantages and disadvantages, the distribution of which defines a hierarchy. In this article, I explore the idea of dual networks of world cities and firms, then use Breiger's approach to define two such networks: one among 313 world cities, another among 100 advanced producer service firms. Comparison of the degree of inequality in the hierarchies implied by these networks suggest that world city hierarchies are steeper than firm hierarchies (that is there is greater inequality among cities). Thus, even under conditions of footloose global capitalism, place still matters: where a producer is located has more impact than who provides support services.
Powerful cities are often distinguished from others by the concentration and mix of resources at their disposal. The right mix, the right people and skills, along with the ability to do something with them marks off the more powerful from the less powerful cities. In that respect, far reaching influence and control are the hallmarks of a powerful city. Often implicit in this view, however, is an understanding of power as something which a city possesses, a capacity for domination and control embedded in the city itself which gives it a ranking above others. This paper sets out an alternative way of thinking about how power 'works' for cities that is not based upon hierarchical domination or a zero sum game. The first part outlines a view of power as a means to an end, a medium that enables cities to hold networks together and bridge connections. Following that, the 'power to' run the networks, to exercise power with rather than over others, is illustrated through the example of the international division of labour that holds between the London and Frankfurt financial centres. In particular, the key role of intermediate elites as brokers is highlighted. This analysis is developed further in the final section by taking the example of Sydney as a powerful 'switching point', but one where intermediaries broker and bridge global networks to gain advantage - not through practices of domination and control, but more subtle modes of power such as manipulation and inducement, which operate at the expense of others. In so doing, the 'power to' make things happen folds over into power over others.