Michael Hoyler

Pathways of Change: Shifting Connectivities in the World City Network, 2000—08

This is an empirical paper that measures and interprets changes in intercity relations at the global scale in the period 2000—08. It draws on the network model devised by the Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) research group to measure global connectivities for 132 cities across the world in 2000 and 2008. The measurements for both years are adjusted so that a coherent set of services/cities is used. A range of statistical techniques is used to explore these changes at the city level and the regional scale. The most notable changes are: the general rise of connectivity in the world city network; the loss of global connectivity of US and sub-Saharan African cities (Los Angeles, San Francisco and Miami in particular); and, the gain in global connectivity of south Asian, Chinese and eastern European cities (Shanghai, Beijing and Moscow in particular).

Diversity and power in the world city network

Abstract There are three purposes: (1) to illustrate diversity amongst world cities; (2) to show how this reflects/constitutes power relativities between cities; and (3) to place debates on diversity and power on a firm empirical basis. The power of cities is interpreted both as a capacity (“power over”) and as a medium (“power to”). World cities are treated as global service centres and the world city network is conceptualised as being “interlocked” through provision of business and financial services by global firms. The study is primarily empirical and uses a global data set comprising information on100 global service firms in 123 world cities. Seven different ways of measuring and illustrating power differentials are presented: global network connectivity, banking/finance connectivity, dominant centres, global command centres, regional command centres, high connectivity gateways, and gateways to emerging markets. These categories have been identified before but never specified as comprehensively and rigorously as here. Whereas power as command power is concentrated in the USA, western Europe and Tokyo, network power is much more geographically diffused transcending the old “North–South divide”. Finally the focus on diversity makes problematic the lazy policy tendency for emulation of a few well-known “global cities”.

External Urban Relational Process: Introducing Central Flow Theory to Complement Central Place Theory

Central place hierarchies have been the traditional basis for understanding external urban relations. However, in contemporary studies of these relations, a new emphasis on urban networks has emerged. Rather than either abandoning or extending central place thinking, it is here treated as representing one of two generic processes of external urban relations. Town-ness is the making of ‘local’ urban—hinterland relations and ‘city-ness’ is the making of ‘non-local’ interurban relations. Central place theory describes the former through an interlocking hierarchical model; this paper proposes a central flow theory to describe the latter through an interlocking network model. The key difference is the level of complexity in the two processes.

Global urban analysis : a survey of cities in globalization

Global Urban Analysis provides a unique insight into the contemporary world economy through a focus on cities. It is based upon a large-scale customized data collection on how leading businesses use cities across the world: as headquarter locations, for finance, for professional and creative services, for media. These data – involving up to 2000 firms and over 500 cities – provide evidence for both how the leading cities (sometimes called global cities) are coming to dominate the world economy and how hundreds of other cities are faring in this brave new urban world. Thus can the likes of London, New York and Hong Kong be tracked, as well as Manchester, Cleveland and Guangzhou, and even Plymouth, Chattanooga and Xi’an. Cities are assessed and ranked in terms of their importance for various functions such as for financial services, legal services and advertising, plus novel findings are reported for the geographical orientations of their connections.

Polycentric Puzzles – Emerging Mega-City Regions Seen through the Lens of Advanced Producer Services

This article was published in the journal, Regional Studies [Routledge

Analysing the Changing Landscape of European Financial Centres: The Role of Financial Products and the Case of Amsterdam.

The turn of the twenty-first century saw the re-emergence of debates about the reconfiguration of European financial geographies and the role of stock exchange mergers in this process. There has been, however, no systematic attempt to date to analyse such changes. This paper proposes a specific conceptual framework to explore these issues. It uses a product-based analysis to examine, in the context of recent stock exchange mergers, the factors affecting the competitiveness of a financial centre. It argues that it is important to understand three intertwined influences - product complementarities, the nature of local epistemic communities, and regulation - and their contingent effects on change. This is exemplified by a tentative application of the framework to the case of Amsterdam in order to better understand its recent decline in competitiveness as a European financial centre.

The way we were: command-and-control centres in the global space-economy on the eve of the 2008 geo-economic transition

This article was published in the journal, Environment and Planning A [© Pion]. [Taylor, P.J. ... et al, 2009]. The definitive, peer-reviewed and edited version of this article is published in [Environment and Planning A], 41 (1), pp. 7-12, 2009, [10.1068/a41318].

Advanced Producer Service Firms as Strategic Networks, Global Cities as Strategic Places.

Abstract Sassen’s identification of global cities as “strategic places” is explored through world city network analysis. This involves searching out advanced producer service (APS) firms that constitute “strategic networks,” from whose activities strategic places can be defined. Twenty-five out of 175 APS firms are found to be strategic, and from their office networks, 45 cities out of 526 are designated as strategic places. A measure of “strategicness” of cities is devised, and individual findings from this are discussed by drawing on existing literature about how APS firms use specific cities. A key finding shows that New York and London have different levels of strategicness, and this is related to the former’s innovation prowess and the latter’s role in global consumption of services. Other cases of strategicness discussed in terms of the balance between production and consumption of APSs are Beijing, Hong Kong, and Shanghai; Palo Alto; Mexico City; Johannesburg; and Dubai and Frankfurt.

Measurement and interpretation of connectivity of Chinese cities in world city network, 2010

This is an empirical paper that measures and interprets the position of Chinese cities in the world city network in 2010. Building on a specification of the world city network as a ‘interlocking network’ in which business services firms play the crucial role in city network formation, information is gathered about the presence of global service firms in cities. This information is converted into data to provide the ‘service value’ of a city for a firm’s provision of corporate services in a 526 (cities) × 175 (firms) matrix. These data are then used as the input to the interlocking network model in order to measure cities’ connectivity and its predominant geographical orientation. Here we focus on the position of some key Chinese cities in this regard, and discuss and interpret results in the context of the urban dimensions of the ‘opening up’ of the Chinese economy.

City-Dyad Analyses of China’s Integration into the World City Network

The business connections between Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai and other major world cities are investigated using the interlocking network model based upon the location strategies of advanced producer service firms. This approach emphasises non-hierarchical relations between cities. A key new finding is that city-dyad analysis enhances the prominence of these China cities compared with simple ranking by total global network connectivity. This suggests that Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing have developed more strategically important roles in the world city network than previously understood. Yet the geographies of these links are distinctive, with Shanghai shown to be better connected to the more important world cities such as London and New York than Beijing; and Beijing is found to be better connected to political world cities such as Washington and Brussels, and to other Pacific Asian cities, than Shanghai. The results are interpreted as suggestions for developing a new research programme.