Central Eastern European cities within multi-level transnational company networks: cores, peripheries and diffusion of innovation

Abstract

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Central Eastern European cities (CEEc) integrated the globalised networks characterised by hierarchical interactions between cities. This article aims at revisiting the core-periphery and spatial diffusion of innovations paradigms among CEEc within multi-level interurban transnational company networks regardless of CEEc size in 2013. This article contributes to confirm that in spite of presenting less complex economic functions than the large urban centres, medium-sized and small cities, still involved in relations from the communist past, are bottom-up drivers of future innovations. These cities should be targeted by regional policies to reach the polycentric model of urban systems promoted by the European Union.