Ben Derudder

• Ghent University

Regional studies research examining the environmental impacts of polycentric urban structures is often called for, but remains scarce. This study uses urban resilience theory to conceptualise, methodologically specify and empirically assess the effects. We develop an evaluation system to establish a regional environmental sustainability index and a...

Financial infrastructures are the lifeblood of political economies and are consistently considered critical by governments. They encapsulate socio-technical processes; not merely cables and computer servers, but the relationship of those in finance to these and other physical objects. The Cambridge Global Handbook of Financial Infrastructure consol...

Intercity investment activities among enterprises reflect the flow of capital between cities, thereby directly illustrating the economic connections between them. However, there is currently no publicly available dataset that captures this important feature. In this study, we introduce an intercity investment network (IIN) dataset for China, coveri...

Previous research on urban polycentricity’s impact on economic growth yielded mixed results. This study re-evaluates the causal link between polycentricity and regional economic growth, considering various measures like productivity, employment, wages, and urban amenities. It addresses the common focus on explaining agglomeration externalities in p...

This paper explores the relative importance of agglomeration externalities and network externalities in explaining regional productivity through the lens of a polycentric development framework specific to China. Using enterprise investment data, a spatial econometric model and an instrumental variables strategy, we find that both externalities are...

Although it is generally accepted that street configurations may influence people’s intra-urban travel, capturing the exact nature of that influence remains challenging. We frame this challenge as one of operationalization and measurement and attempt to quantify and analyze the impact of street configurations more precisely. We draw on geographic d...

This paper describes flexurba, a software library written in R, with the first open reconstruction of the Degree of Urbanisation algorithm to classify cities, towns, and rural areas. The R package offers enhanced flexibility and facilitates constructing alternative versions of the Degree of Urbanisation classification by customising parameters such...

Although neighborhoods are a widely used analytical concept in urban geography, in empirical research, they are often proxied using grids or statistical sectors. The rationales underlying these proxies are often separated from the theoretical considerations of what makes a neighborhood a neighborhood, casting shadows over their relevance and applic...

Crucial for international trade, cross-border payments are conducted via the correspondent banking (CB) system, a decentralised network of bilateral agreements between more than 11,000 banks in different jurisdictions, and supported by a centralised messaging network (SWIFT). This global twin infrastructure consists of highly complex socio-technica...

Money and finance are a socio-economic infrastructure to which trust is integral. The account money form consists of distinct value and information components. The separate transmission of transaction information has enabled the expansion of trust in money across space. While most financial infrastructures store and transfer value, the Society for...

Geographical networks are spatial networks in which the nodes have a socially constructed meaning; nodes represent places. All geographical networks can be represented as matrices, but not all matrices in geography represent networks. We argue that a matrix must have at least three properties to represent a geographical network: The rows and column...

Despite growing scholarly attention on the role of urban networks for understanding regional dynamics, there has been limited research examining the impact of cities’ transportation network connections on regional market integration. This paper analyzes China’s four major urban agglomerations: the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, Beijing...

To counterbalance a potential overemphasis on the state as the key unit of analysis in research on Asia-Europe relations, we examine how their major cities are interconnected. Analytically, this is achieved by applying a network model to data on the office locations of 175 globalized producer service firms. We examine the strength and orientation (...

As members of transnational municipal networks (TMNs), city governments increasingly create a landscape of global governance complementary to but largely independent of traditional, nation-state dominated organizations, from climate change governance to peacebuilding. But a growing number of cities now maintain multiple simultaneous memberships in...

A central concern of media scholars has been the discursive and economic power of a small number of transnational media corporations (TNMCs). In this paper, we advance research on TNMC power through a novel empirical analysis of their global-spatial organization, reflected in their corporate global office networks. Our findings reveal both global a...

We focus on the extent to which polycentric urban regions can substitute for the agglomeration economies provided by large cities. Building on an open‐source software tool that helps identifying polycentric developments in urban regions, we analyze the spatial structure (in terms of size, dispersion and polycentricity) of 94 regions across 34 Europ...

Spaces of global production comprise a diverse set of spatial figures that result from and support a global division of labour. The proliferation of spatial figures in scholarly work on global production in economic geography and beyond maps a conceptual landscape. The network , the agglomeration , the frontier, the plantation, the gateway , the co...

Drawing on conceptual research exploring how evolving geographies of finance inform urban and regional change, we examine the size and functional scope of the presence of leading global banks across functional urban areas in Europe. Based on data for 100 major global banks, we find that their overall presence is proportional to (the square root of)...

Owing to growing uncontrolled land-use change and urban expansion, farmers in urban fringes are struggling to sustain their livelihood. Farmers have been expressing their dissatisfaction at different times. This study analyzes the stakeholders’ perspectives on the causes and outcomes of farmers’ resistance to land-use change and urban expansion pro...

Widely recognized as an empirical reality, an important analytical framework and a normative goal for territorial development policies, polycentric urban regions (PURs) are the subject of concerted international interest among those charged with planning and governing cities and regions. And yet, why does so much research on cities and regions not...

Virtual interlining, the use of actively marketed self-connecting flight itineraries, is often assumed to be a money-saving air travel strategy. Earlier research on this topic broadly confirmed the money-saving character of virtual interlining, but to date non-monetary costs associated with this price advantage have not yet been systematically exam...

This paper analyzes the impact of urban land-use changes on farmers' livelihood around the city of Bahir Dar (Ethiopia). Rapid urban expansion in and around the city has resulted in massive land-use changes in its urban fringes, with land expropriation programs affecting communities' livelihood and the environment. A survey was conducted in three u...

This article explores how transaction information is a fundamental element enabling and fostering global flows of money. Financial systems, constructed around account‐based money, require infrastructure, which is separated into two parts: messaging and settlement, performed via trusted agents. This separation has allowed the geographical expansion...

Although world regions continue to be a key feature of the geographical imagination, there has been relatively little innovative research on world regionalization through the lens of city connections. Against the backdrop of an increasingly urban and interconnected world, in this paper, we evaluate the connections between European and Asian world c...

Space-time flexibility is defined as the extent to which individuals can participate in activities at different locations and different times. High space-time flexibility of travel enables people more freedom to choose when and where to make trips and assists in achieving both environmental and social sustainability. Applying a quasi-experimental a...

Urban challenges are increasingly framed in the context of broader objectives of socio-economic development and macro-regional evolutions. Cities and the myriad networks in which they are embedded have thus been placed at the center of regional integration agendas. This paper benchmarks contemporary regional integration levels in the Horn of Africa...

In addition to their often‐cited role as global service hubs, world cities are also global innovation hubs with their connectivity in knowledge networks crucial for the innovation clusters they harbour. While both aspects of world cities' global connectivity may allow their urban economies to grow, we argue that specialization in one of these two n...

Manuel Castells has been a leading figure in urban studies since the 1970s and is widely acclaimed for combining Marxist theoretical thinking with practical policy proposals. As a social theorist, his particular focus on the spatiality of cities has led to him becoming very influential in urban geography as specifically evidenced by his two invited...

This study extends the literature on polycentric urban regions through a situated account of the politicized nature of polycentric city-regional development. This is achieved through an analysis of the uneven development of bridge connections within the Pearl River Delta, China. By analysing the region’s polycentric development from the prism of th...

Drawing on data on scientific co-publications derived from the Web of Science for the periods 2002–2006 and 2012–2016, we construct and analyse a key element of China's intercity knowledge networks (CIKNs): scientific collaboration networks. Employing network-analytical and exponential random graph modelling techniques, we examine the evolving stru...

Although e-shopping is increasingly adopted, it remains unclear (1) how e-shopping varies geographically, and (2) how this relates to physical and virtual accessibility. This paper presents a combined study of both issues focusing on the case of China, arguably one of the emerging e-shopping hotspots. Drawing on Alibaba's Online Shopping Index, we...

This special issue offers a cross-section of state-of-the-art research into ‘polycentric urban regions’: regions characterized by the presence of multiple, more-or-less proximate, centres where there is balanced development among these centres. With the literature increasingly transcending the focus on paradigmatic examples, the papers in this spec...

Urban polycentricity has become a key concept in urban and regional studies and is increasingly adopted as an organizational framework for conducting empirical research. Within this literature, polycentric urban regions are commonly defined as territories that have multiple, proximately located (sub)centers and are characterized by balanced urban d...

The Essential Air Service (EAS) Program in the United States has provided government-subsidized air service to many small and rural communities for several decades. A program expectation is that it should provide service in light of prevailing market conditions. This paper assesses EAS during the height of the SARS CoV-2 (CoV2) pandemic from three...

In this paper, we review the literature on airline booking ploys/loopholes associated with practices of hidden-city, throwaway, and back-to-back ticketing. A diverse literature on this topic has developed, albeit that the emergence of this literature has to some degree been masked by the often-monodisciplinary approach of individual contributions....

Globalisation continuously produces novel economic relationships mediated by flows of goods, services, capital, and information between countries. The activity of multinational corporations (MNCs) has become a primary driver of globalisation, shaping these relationships through vast networks of firms and their subsidiaries. Extensive empirical rese...

Virtual interlining, which covers the actively marketed or ‘non-hidden’ segment of all potential self-connecting flight itineraries, is often assumed to be a money-saving travel strategy. In this paper we assess the price difference between virtual interlined and ‘traditional’ flight itineraries within the intra-European airport network. We query K...

There has been a proliferation of studies trying to explain the driving forces behind the formation and evolution of intercity corporate networks. Previous approaches, however, require the input of aggregated data such as the connectivities of cities, a static network or a few discrete-time network snapshots. This may potentially cause the loss of...

External urban relations are commonly described as one of two types: hierarchical local hinterlands (central place theory) and networked non-local hinterworlds (central flow theory), referred to as town-ness and city-ness, respectively. This paper builds on and develops these generic concepts to make them specifically relevant to today’s corporate...

The analysis of ‘polycentric urban regions’ (PURs) crucially depends on the operational definition of their constituent centres. We extend an insight into this issue by exploring how analyses of the level of intra- and inter-city polycentricity in the Yangtze River Delta, China, are contingent upon the identification and territorial delineation of...

Drawing on the ‘buzz-and-pipeline’ framework, this paper examines the impact of intra- and interregional collaboration linkages on the innovation capacity of cities, as evidenced by the co-publication networks existing among 217 Chinese cities located in 20 city-regions. The results show that (1) intra- and interregional linkages have an inverted ‘...

This editorial introduces a virtual special issue of Regional Studies, which surveys some of the key trading zones between regional studies and real estate research. By drawing together real estate-focused research previously published in the journal, the virtual special issue both clarifies the past scope and reflects on the future potential of di...

This special issue of the Journal of Urban Affairs brings together a series of 10 papers that illustrate the range of ways that networks can be used to better understand cities and communities. They employ a wide range of network methods, in a diverse sample of places, at different scales, to answer thorny questions in urban studies. However, toget...

Using the example of domestic connections departing from the New York Metropolitan Area, this paper contributes to research on airports' catchment areas in Multi Airport Regions by exploring their spatio-temporal dynamics. Given that previous research has consistently shown that airport accessibility and different elements of airport utility (fare,...

In recent years, much research has been devoted to developing appropriate analytical frameworks to capture polycentric urban development (PUD). In a recent contribution to this journal, Bartosiewicz and Marcińczak (2020) present what is arguably the most comprehensive, comparative review to date of the degree to which different analytical framework...

This paper addresses some of the putative limitations of world city network research, which has often focused on producing “maps” of cities that are well-connected in the office networks of globalized producer services firms. We retain the data and model, but extend the conceptual focus and methodological toolkit by (1) disaggregating the network i...

We develop and apply an expanded algorithm for measuring urban connectivity through the lens of the location strategies of producer services firms. Although our algorithm is broadly in the spirit of Taylor’s (Geographical Analysis 33(2):181–194, Taylor 2001) interlocking network model, we contend that it takes on board more of the information conta...

The fast-paced urbanization of recent decades entails that many regions are facing seemingly uncontrolled land-use changes (LUCs) that go hand in hand with a range of environmental and socio-economic challenges. In this paper, we use an integrated cellular automata–Markov chain (CA–MC) model to analyze and predict the urban expansion of and its imp...

This paper investigates the role of tax havens and offshore financial centres (THOFC) in the global economy. Network analysis of 24 industry sectors suggests that THOFC feature prominently in knowledge-intensive activities such as pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and semiconductors, and are least significant in industrial activities such as automobil...

In this commentary, I evaluate the potential of bipartite network projections of multilocational corporations in quantitative structural analyses of world/global cities. My starting point is that the Geographical Analysis paper by Pazitka, Wójcik, and Knight (2020) paper provides a number of useful critical observations in this regard, but their an...

In this paper we provide a detailed geographical analysis of the role of the New York-London (NYLON) connection in the world city network. We find that its pre-eminence is much greater and much more diverse than previously considered. Our analysis draws on a data collection of the worldwide office networks of producer services firms across cities i...

In this paper we discuss some of the major strengths and limitations of an application programming interfaces (API)-based approach to studying accessibility in transport networks. To this end, we present a framework for assessing the bimodal accessibility of locations by using publicly available web-based resources that can be accessed via APIs. By...

We live in turbulent times, but when has this not been the case? The history of regions and the ‘regional studies project’ has always had at its core concerns relating to new and increased social and spatial inequalities resulting from economic and political change. Whatever change has occurred to cause this turbulence, some people and places have...

Against the backdrop of current policy discussions in Flanders dealing with differentiated urban development schemes for strategic railway stations, this paper develops an empirical railway station assessment tool. We build on the node-place modeling literature, and more specifically on the tradition of quantitative station assessment models which...

This paper critically reviews the urban systems literature adopting graph‐theoretical conceptions of 'network analysis'. A network‐analytical approach allows specifying and measuring how cities interact, the importance and roles of cities in these interactions, and some of the key characteristics of the urban system as a whole. Throughout the paper...

This paper explores how to push the field of regional studies beyond its present institutional, conceptual and methodological borders. It does this from five perspectives: innovation and competitiveness; globalization and urbanization; social and environmental justice; local and regional development; and industrial policy. It argues that the future...

Global economic activity is networked through cross‐national linkages between firm headquarters, branches, and subsidiaries. Brokerage emerges as a key territorial function of this network, with some places acting as gateways or intermediaries for flows of global knowledge, information, or trade. This function is particularly salient for small stat...

In its 25 years of existence, the Journal of Transport Geography (JTRG) has emerged as the key outlet for cutting-edge transport geography research. However, in practice the journal is part of a much broader publication landscape of research on the geographical dimensions of transport, travel and mobility. In this paper, we therefore analyse the po...

‘Urban polycentricity’ has become both a conceptual framework capturing emerging empirical realities and a spatial planning vision adopted in cities across Europe, USA, and, recently, also China. Despite the blossoming academic literature on polycentricity, only limited attempts have been made to explore whether and how polycentric urban developmen...

Most studies in the ‘world cities’ literature tend to frame the global connectivity of cities in the context of a specific form of globalization that began unfolding in the 1970s (i.e. the ‘new international division of labor’). In this paper, we argue for the need to frame the global connectivity of cities in long-term urban trajectories across di...

Node-place modeling concepts, assumptions and outcomes are rarely tested and validated in close dialogue with the indended end users of the conducted analyses and developed tools. This is surprising, since the majority of studies touch upon the interface between planning practice and planning research, and foreground, or at least hint towards, the...

In the literature dealing with measuring 'urban polycentricity', relatively little attention has been paid to the identification of what constitutes an 'urban centre'. In this paper, we assess the sensitivity of polycentricity measures to one particular aspect of this identification: using the case of 'polycentric urban regions', we empirically exa...

Connectivity in urban networks is often deemed to be an important feature of economically vibrant cities. Under conditions of contemporary globalization, the importance and geographies of these connections are increasingly variegated. Accordingly, various attempts have been made to analyse the external relations of cities and metropolitan regions,...

This article demonstrates the added value of cluster heatmaps in urban and regional research. To this end, we apply this tool to two-mode network data on connections between world cities (mode 1) and global services firms (mode 2): we interpret structures and patterns in the location strategies of 175 globalized producer services firms across 707 w...

This paper examines the determinants of the spatial and topological structure of three types of urban networks within the Yangtze River Delta. These networks consist of transport infrastructure links, business interactions in producer services firms, and leisure mobility. The influence of distance, size, administrative borders, landform contiguity,...

In this Intervention we discuss possible engagements between an inherently diverse urban geography and an emergent “urban science” dealing with information technology-driven, quantitative analysis of urban data. Although initial responses from some quarters of the urban geography community have been dismissive, we highlight three ways in which urba...

This article explores the financialisation of Brussels Airport following the acquisition in 2004 of a majority stake by the Australian Macquarie Bank. Adopting a variegated capitalism perspective, we argue for a greater sensitivity to the mutually constitutive relation between durable institutional governance structures and financialised practices...

The combined importance of geographical and non‐geographical proximity has been extensively examined, but the interactions between both – substitution/complementarity – are less well understood. This paper therefore explores the impact of, and interaction between different forms of proximity (geographical, institutional, social, cognitive and cultu...

The map presented in this paper summarises the combined land- and airside accessibility within Australia. To this end, we calculate a bimodal accessibility index at the scale of statistical units by aggregating the (shortest) travel time for three route segments: (1) road travel from the origin to a departure airport, (2) air travel, and (3) road t...

There is a long tradition of urban studies invoking air transport data either for tackling the city/air transport-nexus head on (e.g. in research on the causality between urban-economic development and air transport connectivity) or as a secondary data source (e.g. in research mapping city networks). However, air transport statistics rarely come in...

This paper adds a network dimension to locational theories on multinational corporate strategy to explain how tax havens and offshore financial centers (THOFC) are integrated into the structures of firms listed on five stock exchanges of the Asia-Pacific region. Applying network analysis to firm-subsidiary connections of these listed firms, it high...

this is not a preprint but a working paper

Ever‐changing spatial divisions of labour have led to an altered integration of many developing countries into global production networks (GPNs), leading to new spaces of territorial development in these countries. Against this background, this paper examines the role of local institutional actors in co‐shaping territorial development driven by glo...

To some degree, metropolitan regions owe their existence to the ability to valorize agglomeration economies. The general perception is that agglomeration economies increase with city size, which is why economists tend to propagate urbanization, in this case in the form of metropolization. Contrarily, spatial planners traditionally emphasize the neg...

This paper investigates the way in which factors at the global and local level interact in the emergence and development of “global city-regions”, which are deemed to be the contemporary growth machines of the global economy. To this end, this paper takes the Jakarta metropolitan area (JMA) as a case to investigate its evolution in the context of t...

The literature on firm location selection allows us to retrospectively explain why firms did locate in particular places. However, it remains challenging to prospectively predict where they will locate. In this article, we propose a simple conceptual model of firm location decisions, then operationalize it using the ordinal stochastic degree sequen...