This seminar will draw on the Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) research network’s state-of the-art methodology and tailored data gathering to present a large-scale analysis of the trajectories of individual cities and regions in the world city network between 2000 and 2018. The GaWC methodology examines cities’ network centralities by examining how advanced producer services firms “interlock” cities through their worldwide distributions of offices. The analysis is not limited to a set of putative “world cities”, but incorporates cities from all world-regions into a comprehensive global urban analysis. Absolute and standardized measures of change are developed to reveal the major dimensions of geographical shifts in an increasingly urbanized global economy. In the discussion of the results, specific attention is given to the position of Australian cities: where they are connected, and how this connectivity has been changing. Parallels, differences and complementarities with other approaches to studying global inter-city relations will be discussed.
Title: Australian cities in the world city network, 2000-18
When: Tuesday, 11 December 2018 3:00pm
Where: Room 320, Steele Building (#03)
Speaker: Ben Derudder is Professor of Urban Geography at Ghent University’s Department of Geography, an Associate Director of the Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) research network, and a Senior Visiting Professor at Shanghai Normal University. His main research interests are (1) the conceptualization and analysis of global urban networks and (2) the (putative) emergence of polycentric urban regions. His research has been published in major scientific journals dealing with urban and regional questions and co-edited a number of books on both topics, including the ‘International Handbook of Globalization and World Cities’ (Edward Elgar, 2011, with P.J. Taylor, F. Witlox & M. Hoyler). A second edition of ‘World City Network: A Global Urban Analysis’ (Routledge, 2016, together with P. Taylor) was published with Routledge in 2016, and published in Chinese in 2018. He is currently one of the Associate Editors of Regional Studies, and co-coordinates a Regional Studies Association Research Network on ‘polycentric urban regions’. He collaborates with researchers at the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences (University of Queensland) and the School of Earth and Environment (University of Western Australia) to unpack the as yet poorly understood role of Australian cities in global urban networks. This partnership has generated research outputs such as an ARC Discovery Grant and several journal articles currently under construction.