Conceptualising and mapping the structure of the world system's city system

Abstract

Recently research has moved beyond regarding cities as mere objects of global forces, also theorising about their importance as lynchpins in the spatial organisation of the world economy. This paper reviews some of the scholarship that emphasises large cities' roles as important modes of production, consumption, exchange and control at the global level; it develops the argument that systematic linkages - economic, cultural, political or social-relational - among global cities are likely to reveal the spatial organisation of the world-system; reviews our position that formal network analysis provides a most promising methodological framework for analysing and mapping global intercity linkages; and presents a map of the current world city system based on our network analysis of recent air travel among many of the world's great cities. Such a project holds the promise of revealing much about the spatial structure of our world system. -from Authors