Mesoscale Structures in World City Networks

Abstract

This study conceptualizes variant mesoscale structures (e.g., core–periphery, community, flat-world, or hybrid) in world city networks (WCNs) that enable us to understand the grouping features of cities with similar roles and positions, which are defined by distinctive relational patterns between cities as well as groups. A new analytical framework relying on a Bayesian-inference weighted stochastic block model (WSBM) is proposed to infer and compare latent mesoscale structures. This framework is superior to existing city-clustering approaches, which either ex ante postulate a mesoscale structure before clustering (e.g., the community detection method) or ex post explain the roles and positions of cities after clustering based on their similarities in attributes and thus avoid the traps of methodological determinism and territorialism. For substantiating mesoscale structures, we study a WCN of 126 cities, between which the relational strength is measured by the pairwise coreference frequency of cities on massive Internet Web pages collected by a webometrics approach. Modeling results show that the WCN reflected on Web pages has a distinctive multicore–periphery structure mixed with communities. We also develop a likelihood-based estimation to compare alternative mesoscale structures and find that the WCN configuration differs from many geographical imaginaries of globalization, such as a homogenous world, a ranking hierarchy, or a territorialist regional geography. This study asks for more comparative analyses of mesoscale structures in the future research agenda of macroregional or WCN studies.

本研究概念化世界城市网络（WCNs）中的各种中尺度结构（例如核心—边陲、社区、平的世界，或混杂），这些结构让我们能够理解具有相似角色和位置的城市的分组特徵，并由城市和群体之间的特定关系模式进行定义。本研究提出一个根据贝叶斯推断加权随机区块模型（WSBM）的崭新分析架构，以推断并比较潜在的中尺度结构。该架构较既有的城市集群取径更为优越，其在事前便假定集群前的中尺度结构（例如社区侦测方法），抑或在事后根据城市属性的相似性来解释城市在集群中的角色与位置，因此避免了方法论决定主义与领域性的陷阱。为了延续中尺度结构，我们研究一百二十六座城市的WCN，它们之间的相对强度，则是通过由网络计量方法搜集的大量网页上的城市配对指代频率进行测量。模式化结果显示，网页上反映的WCN，具有与社区混合的特殊多核心—边陲结构。我们同时发展以可能性为基础的评估，以比较另类的中等尺度结构，并发现WCN的集结与诸多全球化的地理想像相去甚远，诸如同质的世界、排名位阶、或是以领土为边界的区域地理。本研究呼吁，未来大型区域或WCN研究的研究议程，需进行更多的比较分析。

Este estudio conceptualiza estructuras variantes a mesoescala (por ej., centro–periferia, comunidad, mundo plano, o híbrido) en redes de ciudad mundial (WCNs), que nos capacitan para entender los rasgos agrupados de ciudades con roles y posiciones similares, definidos con patrones relacionales distintivos entre ciudades lo mismo que entre grupos. Se propone un nuevo marco analítico basado en un modelo estocástico de bloque ponderado (WSBM) de inferencia bayesiana para deducir y comparar estructuras latentes a mesoescala. Este marco es superior a los enfoques existentes de agrupamiento urbano, pues o bien postula ex ante una estructura a mesoescala antes del agrupamiento (por ej., el método de detección de comunidad) o explica ex post los roles y posiciones de las ciudades después del agrupamiento con base en sus similitudes en atributos evitando así las trampas del determinismo metodológico y el territorialismo. Para sustanciar las estructuras a mesoescala, estudiamos una WCN de 126 ciudades, entre las cuales la fortaleza relacional se mide con la frecuencia de co-referencia en términos de pares de ciudades a partir de páginas Web de Internet coleccionadas masivamente mediante un enfoque de métricas Web. Los resultados del modelo muestran que la WCN reflejada en las páginas Web tiene una estructura distintiva de núcleos múltiples-periferia mezclada con comunidades. También desarrollamos un estimativo basado en parecido para comparar estructuras alternativas a mesoescala y encontrar que la configuración de WCN difiere de muchos imaginarios geográficos de la globalización, tales como un mundo homogéneo, una jerarquía de rangos, o una geografía regional territorializada. Este estudio clama por más análisis comparativos de estructuras a mesoescala en la futura agenda de investigación de estudios macrorregionales o de WCN.

Key Words:

• imaginaries of globalization
• mesoscale analysis
• Web page big data
• weighted stochastic block model (WSBM)
• world city networks.

关键词:

• 全球化的想像
• 中尺度分析
• 网页大数据
• 加权随机区块模型（WSBM）
• 世界城市网络

Palabras clave:

• análisis a mesoescala
• imaginarios de globalización
• big data de páginas Web
• modelo estocástico de bloque ponderado (WSBM)
• redes de ciudad mundial.

Acknowledgments

We thank the reviewers and the editor Mei-Po Kwan for their insightful comments, as well as Christopher Aicher for providing Matlab codes to run the WSBM methods.

Notes

Notes

1 See http://www.worldwidewebsize.com/.

2 See http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm.

3 The original and final lists of world cities, as well as the literature on which they are drawn, will be provided on request.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Wenjia Zhang

WENJIA ZHANG is an Assistant Professor in the School of Urban Planning & Design at Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518055, China. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include network complexity in urban and geography studies, network and spatial economics, land use and transportation planning, as well as big data and machine learning approaches.

Jean-Claude Thill

JEAN-CLAUDE THILL is Knight Distinguished Professor of Public Policy in the Department of Geography & Earth Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC 28221. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests focus on relational spaces constructed at various spatial and temporal resolutions as they express the lived experiences of people, businesses, and other human agencies, through commerce, daily commuting, territorial control by nonstate agents, and many other social and behavioral modalities.