Attending to the world: competition, cooperation and connectivity in the World City network

Abstract

World Cities are acknowledged to be a key aspect of globalization. In many accounts, these cities are depicted as rivals in a global marketplace, their economic success a result of their competitive advantage. However, what has not been fully acknowledged is their connectivity and, in addition, the time and effort taken by specific 'attendants' to produce the World City network. Accordingly, this article aims to advance understanding of World City network formation by developing a conceptual model that focuses on four major attendants (firms, sectors, cities and states) that enact network formation through two nexuses -'city-firm' and 'statesector' -and two communities -'cities within states' and 'firms within sectors'. The utility of this model is demonstrated by drawing upon interviews conducted in offices of 39 advanced producer service firms in banking and law. These interviews were undertaken in three World Cities (London, New York and Singapore) in the wake of the East Asian financial crisis, an event that challenged the consistency of the World City network. Showing how attendants sought to maintain and transform the World City network at this key moment of crisis, we conclude that studies of city competitiveeness ultimately need to focus on the cooperative work that sustains global networks.

Demystifying the Euro in European Financial Centre Relations: London and Frankfurt, 2000–20011

“…We interpreted world cities as nodes that define a world city network (Beaverstock et al, 2002, Taylor, 2004. In order to investigate Frankfurt's potentially changing position via London since the introduction of the euro, it is necessary to study the relations between the two cities within this wider conceptual framework.…”

“…It follows that in a world city network, cities share a synergy of roles that are complementary within the operation of the overall network. Cities, therefore, do not themselves compete with each other: the competition is between the firms operating in various global service markets (Beaverstock et al, 2002).…”

Diversity and power in the world city network

“…That is why we argue that instead of pursuing policies to improve a city's ranking by adding to their stock of functions and practices, cities need to attend to their position within a network of cities (Taylor, 2001;Beaverstock et al, 2002). Policy needs to be focused upon connections and linkages within an overall framework of many networks.…”

Analyzing urban networks through the lens of corporate networks: A critical review

“…Although initially designed as part of the broader GaWC research agenda on WCN formation, this method has become one of the 'de facto methods' for measuring and analyzing urban networks (Neal, 2012). It has, for instance, been applied beyond its initial remit of producer services firms (Taylor et al 2002) to analyze the urban networks formed by Islamic financial services (Bassens et al, 2010), NGOs (Taylor, 2005, and media firms (Hoyler and Watson, 2010). In addition, it has been applied at other scales, for instance to analyze the spatial organization of polycentric megacity regions in Northwest Europe (Hall and Pain, 2006;Taylor et al, 2012), banking networks in Brazil (Rossi and Taylor, 2005), as well as capital control in individual cities (Musil, 2009).…”

“…Meanwhile, at the global scale, Taylor and Csomos (2012) present a similar reading of 'world cities' by gauging the quantity of revenue generated in cities by multinational firms headquartered there. The multifaceted and multiscalar impact of firm location on urban systems obviously also 'works' in the opposite direction: just as urban systems are shaped by the locational behavior of firms, urban systems shape the spatial distribution of corporations as the dispersion and development of firms are affected by the size and functional specialization of cities, as well as the cities' positions within the urban system (Pred, 1977;Friedland et al, 1990;Beaverstock et al, 2002).…”