2134/6264
Peter J. Taylor
Peter J.
Taylor
David M. Evans
David M.
Evans
Michael Hoyler
Michael
Hoyler
Ben Derudder
Ben
Derudder
Kathryn Pain
Kathryn
Pain
The UK space economy as practised by advanced producer service firms: identifying two distinctive polycentric city-regional processes in contemporary Britain
Loughborough University
2010
untagged
Economics
Earth Sciences not elsewhere classified
2010-05-27 11:06:31
Journal contribution
https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/journal_contribution/The_UK_space_economy_as_practised_by_advanced_producer_service_firms_identifying_two_distinctive_polycentric_city-regional_processes_in_contemporary_Britain/9483641
Cities and city regions are back on the research agenda in the UK. Taking the world city
literature as a guide, this article uses advanced producer service firms to study
contemporary inter-city relations in the UK space economy. We employ an interlocking
network model, initially developed for global scale analysis, to assess signs that recent
globalization is effecting a revival outside the London region, and to identify leading
urban areas in the UK national economy. Two different analyses are presented: a
connectivity analysis, which indicates how well cities and towns are linked into the UK
space economy, and a fuzzy clustering analysis, which classifies the cities and towns in
order to search out hierarchical and regional tendencies. From these findings, we
identify two distinctive polycentric city-regional processes in contemporary Britain: a
Jacobs-style polycentric mega-city regional process out of London, which creates new
important service centres and reaches selected smaller cities and towns; and a
polycentric multi-city regional process beyond London, which mainly enhances the
service capacities of selected larger cities. A concluding section considers the
implications of the two processes for spatial planning in the UK.