Trajectories of North—South City Inter-relations: Johannesburg and Cape Town, 1994—2007

Abstract

Examining networks of cities in the world rather than ‘world cityness’, the study offers a ‘Southern’ perspective on world city research. It includes places not ordinarily considered. Fourteen years of sample data on cross-border, intercity airline traffic are used as time-series relational information. The data express links between two of South Africa’s principal cities and cities elsewhere in Africa and beyond. The analysis shows persistent and intensifying links, but also sporadic and unstable intercity relations. A gathering concentration on proximate city pairs is apparent. The research also reveals that urban areas commonly regarded as topping the world city hierarchy mix with smaller and less well-known African places in the rankings of connections with Johannesburg and Cape Town. The complex intercity links which constitute urban significance on the world map are not reducible to a subordinate nesting of Third World city ties in a dominant First World matrix.