The distribution of national urban hierarchies of connectivity within global city networks

Abstract

This paper demonstrates how the national urban hierarchies can be understood through the lens of connectivity within globally scaled economic networks. We first examine the global city network structure using a k-core decomposition method. Values of k-coreness are then used to understand the distribution of global connectivity within national urban systems. This is observed through a measure of statistical dispersion applied to a novel global dataset of 68,602 weighted headquarter-subsidiary relations of 31,371 firms linking 4181 cities collected in 2019. Our results confirm the existence of a hierarchical core–periphery structure at a global scale, yet reveal varying degrees of hierarchy at a national scale. At a national scale, single-core, double-core or multi-core network structures characterize the way in which national and global city networks intersect, indicating that there is a distinction between global cities as the core and urban-systems-as-networks that connect nations to the global economy.