Taylor_etal_2002.pdf (1012.94 kB)
Diversity and power in the world city network
journal contribution
posted on 2013-09-02, 10:40 authored by Peter J. Taylor, David R.F. Walker, Gilda Catalano, Michael HoylerMichael HoylerThere are three purposes: (1) to illustrate diversity amongst world cities; (2) to show how
this reflects/constitutes power relativities between cities; and (3) to place debates on
diversity and power on a firm empirical basis. The power of cities is interpreted both as a
capacity (‘power over’) and as a medium (‘power to’). World cities are treated as global
service centres and the world city network is conceptualised as being ‘interlocked’ through
provision of business and financial services by global firms. The study is primarily
empirical and uses a global data set comprising information on 100 global service firms in
123 world cities. Seven different ways of measuring and illustrating power differentials are
presented: global network connectivity, banking/finance connectivity, dominant centres,
global command centres, regional command centres, high connectivity gateways, and
gateways to emerging markets. These categories have been identified before but never
specified as comprehensively and rigorously as here. Whereas power as command power is
concentrated in the USA, western Europe and Tokyo, network power is much more
geographically diffused transcending the old ‘North-South divide’. Finally the focus on
diversity makes problematic the lazy policy tendency for emulation of a few well-known
‘global cities’.
History
School
- Social Sciences
Department
- Geography and Environment
Citation
TAYLOR, P.J. ... et al, 2002. Diversity and power in the world city network. Cities, 19 (4), pp.231-241.Publisher
© ElsevierVersion
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publication date
2002Notes
This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in the journal, Cities. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264275102000203ISSN
0264-2751Publisher version
Language
- en