A Critical Comment on the <i>Taylor Approach for Measuring World City Interlock Linkages</i>

Nordlund, Carl

doi:10.1111/j.1538-4632.2004.tb01136.x

Cited by 35 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Beyond its role in structuring a range of intercity transactions, I examine this Internet infrastructure network data for two additional reasons. First, it is relational data that directly measure relationships between pairs of cities, rather than the more common attribute data that measure characteristics of individual cities such as the presence advanced producer service firms or multinational headquarters data (Alderson and Beckfield, 2004;Alderson et al, 2010; for a critique, see Nordlund, 2004;Neal, 2010a). Secondly, it was originally analysed in a highly cited study of world city networks (Choi et al, 2006) using eigenvector-based measures of centrality and power that are conceptually similar to those proposed earlier, but which were methodologically inappropriate.…”

Section: The Internet Backbone Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differentiating Centrality and Power in the World City Network

Neal¹

2011

Urban Studies

108

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Section: The Internet Backbone Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differentiating Centrality and Power in the World City Network

Neal¹

2011

Urban Studies

108

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“…The first critique of the IWCNM has been that Taylor's specification summarized in equation (1) is tautological. Comparing a simple aggregation of service values with GNC measures derived from the IWNCM shows that there is often very little difference between both rankings, which has led Nordlund (2004) to reproach Taylor for "turning apples into oranges." Here we follow Taylor's (2004) reply to this critique, in which he argues that the alleged empirical parallels do not simply mean that the model has no added value in urban network terms.…”

Section: Problems With the Iwcnmmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Alternative Approach to the Calculation and Analysis of Connectivity in the World City Network

Hennemann

Derudder

2014

Environ Plann B Plann Des

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Empirical research on world cities often draws on Taylor's (2001) notion of an 'interlocking network model', in which office networks of globalized service firms are assumed to shape the spatialities of urban networks. In spite of its many merits, this approach is limited because the resultant adjacency matrices are not really fit for network-analytic calculations. We therefore propose a fresh analytical approach using a primary linkage algorithm that produces a one-mode directed graph based on Taylor's two-mode city/firm network data. The procedure has the advantage of creating less dense networks when compared to the interlocking network model, while nonetheless retaining the network structure apparent in the initial dataset. We randomize the empirical network with a bootstrapping simulation approach, and compare the simulated parameters of this null-model with our empirical network parameter (i.e. betweenness centrality). We find that our approach produces results that are comparable to those of the standard interlocking network model. However, because our approach is based on an actual graph representation and network analysis, we are able to assess cities' position in the network at large. For instance, we find that cities such as Tokyo, Sydney, Melbourne, Almaty and Karachi hold more strategic and valuable positions than suggested in the interlocking networks as they play a bridging role in connecting cities across regions. In general, we argue that our graph representation allows for further and deeper analysis of the original data, further extending world city network research into a theory-based empirical research approach.

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“…Thus, independent, unrelated service-firm headquarter offices are amalgamated to score and define the importance of any assumed global 'command' centres in a network of intercity relations, when logically that manoeuvre is meaningless. Taylor's methodology ensures that any 'nodal' global 'command' centre is never more than merely a 'container' of a quantity of unconnected, that is to say discrete, headquarter offices of just 100 'global' service firms: 'There may 15 Taylor (2004b: 298) agrees with Nordlund (2004) that his original INM article (Taylor, 2001) lacks a theory, and that he only makes some 'initial stumblings in a theoretical direction' in Taylor (2004a). In other words, it is the INM that is the crux of all Taylor's subsequent results, presentations, analyses, conclusions, and theoretical speculations about the 'world city network'.…”

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Beyond the Global City Concept and the Myth of ‘Command and Control’

Smith

2013

Int J Urban Regional Res

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The article argues that the lack of convincing empirical evidence for the global economy as being subject to ‘command and control’ results from that contention being a neo‐Marxist myth. First, imagining the global economy as being subject to ‘highly concentrated command’ through the function of some major cities as ‘strategic sites’ for the production of ‘command and control’ is traced back through several neo‐Marxist authors to narrate its genesis, and to argue that the lack of evidence for that proposition is a consequence of those antecedents envisioning capitalism as a totalizing structure, thus making the assumption that it is subject to control and coordination from a distance. Second, Taylor's interlocking world city network model is forensically examined to explain that it is fallacious because it is a structuralism that, bedevilled by a sorites paradox, contains the further problem of containing no credible evidence for the existence of ‘command centres’. Finally, the article moves beyond neo‐Marxism's key concepts by juxtaposing their assumptions with ethnographic results from social studies of finance, a manoeuvre which forges an understanding of cities as socio‐technical assemblages and eventful multiplicities, beyond, inter alia, the baseless assumption that the global economy is subject to ‘command and control’.

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A Critical Comment on the Taylor Approach for Measuring World City Interlock Linkages

Abstract: In the study of economic-geographic structures, the shijling focus from the national state to the city and its region has highlighted the lack of reliable interurban data sets.

Cited by 35 publications

References 18 publications

Differentiating Centrality and Power in the World City Network

Differentiating Centrality and Power in the World City Network

An Alternative Approach to the Calculation and Analysis of Connectivity in the World City Network

Beyond the Global City Concept and the Myth of ‘Command and Control’

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