The Flow of Information in a Global Economy: The Role of the American Urban System in 1990

Abstract

Information circulation and availability have always been fundamental to the development of cities even when their employment base depended on manufacturing. With the rise of the informational city, and the global economy, the creation and exchange of highly specialized information has become vital for a metropolitan center's success. This paper, accordingly, examines the contemporary production and exchange of higher-order information that occurs among and between American cities and reveals how ongoing globalization has affected the position of these cities in the system of information exchange. The paper introduces a conceptual framework combining processes of uncertainty, deregulation, globalization, demassification, and vertical disintegration and deploys that framework in an empirical analysis. An analysis of 1990 flow data provided by Federal Express Corporation measures flows among 47 major U.S. centers and selected foreign places and reveals a three-tiered hierarchical system, with New York at the top. Domestic information flows are modelled using a competing-destinations model. The role of population size is paramount and the distance parameter is relatively weak. Centers whose domestic information flows are underestimated by the competing-destinations model, e.g., New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Dallas, had large absolute volumes of international exports, whereas centers that are overpredicted had lower volumes, e.g., Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Rochester. Using the expansion method, the distance exponent associated with domestic flows of information is found to vary with the level of international information movement in a positive and significant fashion. Command-and-control and related producer services have continued to concentrate in select cities throughout the 1980s and to strengthen the hierarchical structure based on information flows. The largest volume of international flows is destined for Europe (Brussels and London), Canada, and Asia (Hong Kong and Tokyo), with New York accounting for 36 percent of all international origins.

Key Words:

• control centers
• globalization
• information flows
• uncertainty