The spatial order of European cities under conditions of contemporary globalisation

Using the concept of world city formation to identify 53 European cities, a typology is produced through a principal components analysis of the locations of 46 global firms providing advanced producer services. The typology is based on grouping cities in terms of similar mixes of service firms. The geography of the typology defines a specific spatial order with two components measuring ‘spine cities’, minor and major respectively, and three components measuring outer regions, a ‘far east’ (ex-Soviet bloc), a ‘far west’ (British Isles), and a triangular combination of north, south-east and south-west. This spatial order is related to previous similar depictions of the distribution of European cities; our contribution is in the derivation of the pattern through a theoretically-informed, multivariate analysis. Among the findings is that London is neither very British nor very European. This relates to its global role and we conclude that while there is a spatial order to European cities there can be no ‘Europe of cities’ in any systemic sense under conditions of globalisation.