Economic Globalisation and the Structure of the World City System: The Case of Airline Passenger Data

Abstract

This paper reports results from an analysis of the relationship between the structure of the city-to-city network of global airline passenger flows and the interstate world system. While many scholars suggest that the broader parameters of the world system structure the urban hierarchy embedded within or articulated to it, others argue that the urban hierarchy is decoupling from the world system. The analyses show that there has been some modest convergence in the distribution of power in the world city system. Moreover, they suggest that the mechanism for this convergence is the upward mobility of cities located in the semi-periphery and the east Asian region. The paper closes by considering the implication of these findings for a larger understanding of the relationship between globalisation, the structure of the world city system and its articulation with the world system.

Interlocking Corporate Directorates and the Global City Hierarchy

“…Further, our research suggests that some scholars have exaggerated the extent to which it is reasonable to see a global system of cities as constituting a network that operates somehow independently of nations, states, and the interstate system (though see Alderson et al, 2010 andMahutga et al, 2010, for more evidence to the contrary of this "deterritorialization" claim) . Firms are influenced and constrained by their respective nations, and these differences bear upon the extent and nature of how the cities in which these firms are sited are interlinked.…”

Chase-Dunn’s Scholarship on Cities and Urbanization

“…And he also suggests that examining the world city size distribution itself might well reveal changing patterns over time that "…are related to cycles or trends of the capitalist world-economy" (44). This is quite prescient of more recent studies of "world cities" and "global cities," and a few of these recent studies have noted the rise of some Asian cities (in China especially) within the overall global hierarchy of cities (e.g., Alderson, et al 2010;Mahutga et al 2010) which can be related to the development dynamics of upwardly mobile semiperipheries.…”

The Evolution of Command and Control Centers in China (2006-2014)

“…2007 年全球金融危机是经济全球化的分水岭。欧 洲深受全球金融危机冲击，近期又受到希腊债务危机等 因素影响，情况可能会继续恶化 [11,18] 。美国正在逐步走 出金融危机的阴影，其经济发展相对稳定 [19][20][21] 。亚太是 全球经济发展最为迅速的地区，而中国一直是关注的焦 点 [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31] 。有学者将金融危机视作世界经济格局变化的催 化剂 [32] ，体现为亚洲、新兴经济体和中国的崛起，亚 …”