Commuting, Hierarchy and Networking: The Case of Flanders

Abstract

This paper presents an approach for extending the study of networking to areas other than daily urban systems. It examines whether key policy concepts of the Flanders Spatial Structure Plan fit in with the geographical structuring reflected in the spatial structure of commuting. The overall pattern of commuting flows is analysed by means of the degree of polarisation, determined on the basis of the number of significant flows and the convergence between two divisions in commuting zones. The development of multi-nodal patterns on the local and regional level is investigated by consideration of the degree of nodality and openness. In general, the spatial pattern of commuting corresponds to the structure of the overall urban system in Flanders as described in terms of fully developed and fragmental Christaller patterns. Networking has created the three types of urban system already described in the literature; a further fourth type can be recognised. Copyright (c) 2005 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG.

Assessing Daily Urban Systems: A Heterogeneous Commuting Network Approach

“…Due to a process of suburbanization from the end of the nineteenth century (with the introduction of cheap public transport) and an extensive sprawl after the second world war (by accommodating car use), thousands of employees moved to an expanding urbanized area while still having their job in the agglomeration (Verhetsel and Vanelslander 2010). Employees increasingly choose to live outside the city, while labor demand remained in the central areas (Riguelle et al 2007;Van Nuffel and Saey 2005). This resulted in a problematic/severe spatial mismatch between the home location and the work location, which consequently lead to an increase in commuter traffic ).…”

“…Until now few studies demonstrate some first interest in a network analysis of commuting flows in Belgium. Van Nuffel and Saey (2005) assess the urban system in Flanders by using analytical tools such as the degree of polarization and the degree of nodality and openness, they search for polynuclear and multi-nodal structures both between and within city regions. However, they also started from a priori identified central cities.…”

About being in the middle: conceptions, models and theories of centrality in urban studies

“…Although idealized models, Christaller-type figures can be discerned in the urban landscape when the conditions of urban genesis show some conformity to Christaller's assumptions (Van Nuffel and Saey 2005). Nevertheless, the contemporary urban landscape hardly ever resembles the idealized geometric models that in the 1960s caught the imagination.…”

Flemish Diamond or ABC-Axis? The spatial structure of the Belgian metropolitan area

“…In the thirteenth century, the economic pivot shifts towards the North Sea as the city of Brugge (Bruges), becomes one of the most important trading centers in the worldsystem of that era, while nearby Ghent becomes the center of the world textile industry (Braudel, 1984;Abu-Lughod, 1989). The surroundings of these cities-roughly equivalent with present-day West-Vlaanderen, Oost-Vlaanderen, Vlaams-Brabant, Brabant wallon and the western part of Antwerpen provinces-develop a densely populated market based settlement system congruent with central place logic (Vandermotten and Vandewattyne, 1985;Van Nuffel and Saey, 2005). In the fourteenth century, the Ghent textile industry diffuses in the neighboring countryside (Abu-Lughod, 1989: 85), giving an impulse to a long-lasting rural proto-industrial putting out system of small family-based cottage industries (Musyck, 1995;Vandermotten 1998).…”