Leading World Cities: Empirical Evaluations of Urban Nodes in Multiple Networks

Abstract

This is an empirical paper that uses an interlocking network model to evaluate the importance of leading world cities within contemporary globalisation. Cities are treated as locales through which four globalisations-economic, cultural, political and social-are produced and reproduced. Sixteen sets of data describing agents of global network formation, such as global service firms, NGOs and UN agencies, are analysed to measure cities' overall network locations and sub-net articulator roles. Analyses are synthesised in a taxonomy of leading world cities that identifies five classes of 'global city' and types of other world cities.