The aim of this paper is to discuss changes in the spatial distribution of cities that perform the command and control function created by the largest corporations, based on the method of gravity centres. The analysis was performed both for individual sectors of the economy as well as for the global scale. A shift occurred in an easterly direction. This also pertains to sector indices, although the centroids of knowledge-based sectors, such as information technology and healthcare, shifted the most in the direction of Asia. At the same time, information technology was the only sector whose centroid shifted to the west in the study period. Moreover, the magnitude of the shift of the centre of gravity of the number of corporate headquarters in the studied cities does not converge to the shift of the centroid based on the value of the financial potential of the companies.

The paper attempts to answer the following key question: how will a city′s world rank change in the face of crisis in its main economic sector? Crisis is defined here as a decline in financial performance in the given sector, which leads to the decline of its constituent firms and corporations on the world economic scene. The World Economic Center Index (WECI) has been created in order to rank cities based on the value of their resident corporations by sector and show their level of stability upon the removal of the most important sector. This provides information on the potential of each analyzed city as well as on its advanced features or area of specialization. Research has shown that nearly half the World Economic Centers are dominated by the financial and materials sectors of the economy. Different sectors dominate different regions of the world. For example, consumer staples and materials were dominant in North America, while information technology and financials were dominant in Europe. In Asia, several sectors tend to dominate the economy. Research has shown that the ability of a principal economic sector to resist economic crisis largely depends on the strength of the command and control function of a city. Finally, a high globalization level of a city is a key determinant of its susceptibility to economic crisis.

The authors propose a new approach to the analysis of cities in a time of potential major crisis in a dominant sector consisting of the largest firms generating the command and control function of a city. This purpose is served by the creation of the Central and Eastern European Economic Centre Index (CEEECI), which reflects the potential of each studied city and its development and/or fields of economic specialisation of its largest companies capable of generating regional command and control (C&C) functions of cities. Research has shown that the C&C functions of cities such as Warsaw, Prague, and Budapest are the most resistant to economic crisis of the dominant sector. More than half of the analysed cities are economically dominated by the consumer business and transportation and manufacturing sectors.

This article describes the command and control function of eastern European cities based on the financial performance of the largest corporations with headquarters in the region and the impact of selected sectors on this function. Research has shown that, despite the global economic crisis of 2008–2012, the revenue and net income of the companies studied have increased to some extent. Currently, the strongest “command and control cities” in eastern Europe are Warsaw and Prague. The sector that exerts the greatest influence on the regional command and control function in eastern Europe is the consumer business and transportation sector. The economic crisis has also produced a geographical pattern in eastern Europe that runs counter to current global trends: companies in the region currently tend to concentrate their headquarters in fewer cities, which is becoming common in other parts of the world. The article employs a standardization method based on the mean and standard deviation of financial values for each corporation studied.

Abstract. Indicators describing the migration of population and revenues of local administrative units of the Kraków Metropolitan Area are presented and compared in this paper. A review of ideas on how to determine the number of Polish metropolitan statistical areas is also presented. The rank of Polish metropolitan statistical areas in world city rankings made by international publications is examined. Revenues of gminas from their own sources and total revenues of gminas are studied in the paper. Changes in revenue over time and location-dependent differences in revenue are analysed. However, the available data only allow for an examination of gminas without separating urban gminas from rural ones Substantial differences exist in the influx of revenue, both in terms of temporal and spatial changes. In order to summarise and evaluate the relevant social and economic processes, net migration of population and total revenue of gminas in the study area have been analysed. Furthermore, a classification of areas has been developed to describe the relevant areas as being of a certain type.