World cities essay Flashcards
Beaverstock
Beaverstock (1999 ) produced a “Roster of World Cities” which identified 55 world cities according to
their provision of advanced producer services: accountancy, advertising, banking/finance and law.
World city definition
World Cities are large cities that have outstripped their nation’s urban network and become part of the
international global system
Global network
World cities play a vascular role in the global network; connected by a revolution of links through transport, communications, energy and finance.
City networks
City networks can identify physical connections to other places, such as railways, canals, schedules flights or telecommunication networks in the infrastructure matrix.
e.g. Heathrow airport
Heathrow airport in London is the busiest airport in the world, with the highest number of First class and business flights to New York, a flight every 45 seconds. This economic migration and business movement between similar offices of advanced producer services accentuate the role of world cities as central transport hubs to subsidiary offices around the world.
Nylon
These strong connections in the global network create city dyads such as ‘Nylon’ (New York and London), connecting 1,731 similar advanced producer services.
Global network dependence
These flows of people, goods, ideas, information and finance between the more dominant cities emulate down to dependent cities in the global network.
Global networks diagram
The illustration below demonstrates the operations and connectivity of world cities in the global network. Figure 1 shows the connectivity between cities in the global network. Tokyo is a dominant Alpha ++ city; it has a strong network which facilitates the flow of goods and services down to more dependent cities such as Osaka (beta city). Osaka maintains bilateral relationships with a host of other world cities including Melbourne and Nagoya through a unique exchange of culture, education, social and economic practices.
