Pieter Saey

Unequal Economic Development at the Origin of the Federalization Process

Unequal economic development in Belgium is often reduced to a mere change in the economic fortunes of Flanders and Wallonia. This image is then used to explain the federalization process. A closer look at the economic development of Flanders and Wallonia, in its relation to the geography of demographic changes, yields a more complex process consisting of three stages. Nevertheless, this very process created different political hegemonies north and south of the linguistic frontier. This explains why unequal economic development was perceived in terms of Flanders and Wallonia and why this perception was politically effective. The present chapter gives a description of this unequal development and points to the geographical basis of the two political hegemonies.

Measuring hierarchical differentiation: connectivity and dominance in the European urban network

Abstract This paper presents an examination of the empirical merits of a set of spatial interaction indices for measuring hierarchical differentiation (i.e. dominance and connectivity) in a spatial network. To allow for the comparison of the degree of hierarchical differentiation in networks with different numbers of nodes/links, we propose to normalize the ratio between the real measures and the corresponding values for a rank size distribution in order to obtain readily interpretable measures of hierarchical differentiation. When applied to data on air passenger flows within Europe, the normalized indices, interpreted together, appear to give a good idea of the tendency toward hierarchical differentiation. The potential usefulness of this analytical framework is discussed in the context of studies on (transnational) inter-city relations and empirical assessments of changes in the spatial configuration of airline networks.