Query: Handbook of Cities and Networks

title: Handbook of Cities and Networks

title: From networks of cities to systems of cities
abstract: This chapter elaborates on a shift in urban theories from a static and structural view of "networks of cities" in a territory toward a systemic conceptualization and dynamic analysis of interdependencies and co evolution in complex systems. The major concepts and methodological issues that were used in the process of theory building are reviewed during three major stages in the history of the science of cities, including examples taken mainly from the literature in Europe and United States. In a first step, the role of communication networks in the historical evolution of cities is intuitively described and the first measurements of cities spacing, size and functions lead to the construction of formal theories of networks of cities according to static models as central place theory and rank size distribution. In a second step the dynamics of city networks is inferred from statistical analyses and cross sectional comparisons of the attributes of large numbers of cities at different points in time leading to constructing an evolutionary theory of systems of cities and including inter urban communication and spatial diffusion of innovation. In a third step the growing availability of urban data, especially about urban interactions, and the increased power of computing algorithms enable to fully explain this evolutionary theory of systems of cities by including features of complex systems as bifurcations, fractals or scaling laws as well as theories of social sciences about networks, innovation and social change. This comprehensive theory is both exemplified on a huge variety of empirical data and tested through dedicated simulation models.

title: Cities, networks, polycentrism: examining the place of polycentrism in spaces of flows
abstract: In a globalising world economy, cities have increasingly come to be defined not by their size in terms of built up area or population but by their functions in the networks constructed by cross territorial capital flows. In contemporary inter city networks, city regions are differentiated not only by their physical pattern of urban development but also by their functional pattern in network space. However, the concept of city region 'polycentrism' has commonly referred to morphological space without paying due regard to network space, functions and flows. This paper dissects the concept of polycentrism by examining interrelationships and distinctions between city region network and morphological space development in mature and developing economy contexts with reference to research conducted in South East England and in the Mid Yangtze River region, China. It is concluded that a more progressive definition of polycentrism is needed to inform coordinated strategic city region policy.

title: Security and Privacy Issues in Wireless Sensor and Body Area Networks
abstract: Advancements in wireless communication and availability of miniaturized, battery powered micro electronics devices have revolutionized the trend of computation and communication activities to the generation of smart computing where spatially distributed autonomous devices with sensors forming wireless sensor network (WSN) are utilized to measure physical or environmental conditions. WSNs have emerged as one of the most interesting areas of research due to its diverse application areas such as healthcare, utilities, remote monitoring, smart cities, and smart home which not only perform effective monitoring but also improve quality of living. Even the sensor nodes can be strategically placed in, on, or around human body to measure vital physiological parameters as well. Such sensor network which is formed over human body is termed as wireless body area network (WBAN) which could be beneficial for numerous applications such as eldercare, detection of chronic diseases, sports, and military. Hence, both network applications deal with sensitive data which requires utmost security and privacy. Thus, the security and privacy issues and challenges related to WSN and WBAN along with the defense measures in place should be studied in detail which not only is beneficial for effective application but also will motivate the researcher to find their own path for exercising better protection/defense. Accordingly, in this chapter a brief overview of both networks is presented along with their inherent characteristics, and the need for security and privacy in either networks is illustrated as well. Besides, study has been made regarding potential threats to security and privacy in both networks and existing measures to handle these issues. Finally the open research challenges are identified to draw the attention of the researcher to investigate further in this field.

title: Settlement networks and sociocultural evolution
abstract: Anthropologists and historical comparative social scientists have seen value in understanding not only how different locations and cultures are distinct but also where and when sociocultural complexity and hierarchy have emerged over the past 12 000 years. Knowledge of where and when the sizes of human settlements have changed over time is useful for testing aspects of general models of sociocultural evolution. This chapter examines the roles of settlement networks in sociocultural evolution using the comparative world systems perspective. The first section focuses on settlements, and the interaction networks built among them, before the emergence of states. The second section describes how interaction networks were involved in the rise and fall of large settlements and polities and in the emergence of settlements that were larger than any that had existed before. The third section discusses the early emergence of cities and states in Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus River Valley, the Yellow River Valley, Mesoamerica and the Andes, and the expansion of empires and their building of empire cities. The fourth section considers the emergence and spread of semiperipheral capitalist city states, and their roles in the construction of commodity trade networks and the spread of commercializations networks in world systems in which state power and tributary accumulation remained the main instruments of reproduction. Then we consider how the emergence of the Europe centered capitalist world system drove and was driven by the establishment of core world cities and dependent colonial cities. We conclude by providing an overview of the implications of research on the evolution of settlement systems for understanding the contemporary global system of city regions and possible futures for the world city system. The emergence of sedentism, the growth of settlements and interaction networks among settlements and polities, are fundamental processes of social change that required the invention of institutions that could facilitate cooperation and enable polities to effectively compete with one another for resources, including territory. The study of settlement size distributions aEUR" the relative sizes of interacting settlements within polities and in networks of independent interacting polities aEUR" provides another important window for viewing and comprehending the emergence and growth of human organizational complexity and hierarchy.

title: The GaWC perspective on global scale urban networks
abstract: The Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) research network was founded at Loughborough University in 1998 by Peter Taylor and Jon Beaverstock as an invitation to urban scholars across the world to help understand the changing worlds of cities under conditions of contemporary globalization. These changes were so dynamic, so unusual and so worldwide that they were beyond the comprehension of any one group of researchers in one place to even begin to adequately research this then emerging field of study. GaWCaEUR(tm)s core business has been to more narrowly focus on one conspicuous topic in research on globalized urbanization: the external connections of world cities. Just as world/global cities research as a whole never intended to provide a comprehensive account of globalized urbanization (Parnreiter 2014; van Meeteren et al. 2016; Harrison and Hoyler 2018) so too the formal analysis of worldwide networks between cities is not necessarily the main activity of world/global cities research. Nonetheless, as the latter literature is premised upon the existence of interactions between cities, these should not be neglected as they so commonly were in earlier global/world city literature (Taylor 2001a) GaWC was thus formed to aid in rectifying this situation. Although world/global city research in general and GaWC in particular is best described as an aEUR~invisible collegeaEUR(tm) (Acuto 2011; Bassens and van Meeteren 2015) aEUR" that is, a continuously evolving group of authors in a particular research field who constitute a social circle, but have varying degrees of involvement and pursue different research questions on the basis of shared interests aEUR" the research ethos of GaWC at large has been critical realist (Sayer 1992) In practice this implies that we firmly believe that these extensive quantitative studies should exist alongside, and be connected to, intensive qualitative investigations of world city formation (see Watson and Beaverstock 2014) Examples of a fruitful combination of formal quantitative analysis and qualitative research strategies can be found in studies on the connections between London and Frankfurt at the time of the euro currency launch (Beaverstock et al. 2001) and on the connections between New York, Los Angeles and Detroit in light of changing advertising practices (Faulconbridge et al. 2011) Literature that contextualizes, challenges and provides formative interpretations of extensive quantitative studies remains a vibrant strand of research (Watson and Beaverstock 2014) and includes LaiaEUR(tm)s (2012) analysis of the BeijingaEUR"ShanghaiaEUR"Hong Kong triad and WaEUR"jcikaEUR(tm)s (2013) analysis of the commonality, complementarity and connectivity between New YorkaEUR(tm)s and LondonaEUR(tm)s financial markets. In addition, the broader question of the nature of world cities as sites through which economies flourish is also being addressed (Taylor 2013; Bassens and van Meeteren 2015)

title: Research progress of Chinese city networks
abstract: Chinese city networks have attracted tremendous research attention in recent years (Timberlake et al. 2014) Since the beginning of ChinaaEUR(tm)s reforms, cities in China have achieved sustained and rapid growth, with a significant increase in their global influence. Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other Chinese cities have become important nodes and hubs in the world city network (WCN) More importantly, they have been gradually reshaping the very structure of the WCN (Derudder et al. 2013, 2018; Taylor et al. 2014b) In addition, China possesses a vast territory with significant regional differences. These conditions not only form complex city networks at the national level, but they also create unique regional city networks in China (Zhao 2011; Zhen et al. 2013; Zhao et al. 2015a) Moreover, the development of cities in China has been strongly influenced by the background settings in China. Therefore, the dynamics of the formation and evolution of Chinese city network structure are unique (Ma and Timberlake 2008; Zhao et al. 2015a; Pan et al. 2017) The perception of cities as network nodes in academia has evolved over time. The external connections of a city are considered its second nature (Taylor 2004) and each city is seen as a relationship phenomenon (Scott 2012) The establishment of multiple intercity connections can be important to the development of a city (Amin and Thrift 2002) Globalization and informatization have greatly changed the spatial organization patterns of cities typically manifested by the increasing spatial differences of cities and the continuous linkages between them (Dicken et al. 2001; Sheppard 2002; Florida 2003) Thus, cities have formed extensive and complex interconnections at different spatial scales. These interconnections have presented a network based spatial organization structure, namely, the city networks (Camagni and Capello 2004) The city network offers an important perspective for analyzing external connections of cities. As a dimension of social spatial relations, the city network can well analyze the spatial flows of capital, information and other essential elements. In city network research, size is no longer the sole determinant of function, and geographical proximity does not necessarily mean that linkages between cities are closer (Wang 2007; Li 2015)

title: Complex networks and fundamental urban processes
abstract: Networks provide a particularly useful analytical framework for modeling many distinct phenomena in cities, from social and economic contact and exchange, to physical infrastructure and to migration flows and trade. Here, I provide a primer on the importance of networks in cities as the bases for quantitative modeling and theory. I emphasize a number of social, economic and infrastructural characteristics of these networks, and their role in expressing general phenomena such as the division of labor and knowledge, epidemics of infectious diseases and information, spatial topology and densification, mobility, congestion and migration. I also provide a framework for understanding networks at different scales in space and time from neighborhoods, to cities and to urban systems. I finish with a discussion of open questions for urban theory and network science and point to the particular multifaceted, subtle and dynamical roles of networks in cities as rich grounds for new research developments.

title: The structure of urban networks
abstract: Cities are located at the crossroads of many different networks. These networks are physical entities such as infrastructures that enable movements of individuals, transportation of goods, and distribution of electricity, gas and water, but can also be virtual, such as the social and professional networks. In modern countries, these networks have evolved over a long time (sometimes centuries) have become very complex and display a large variety of elements and actors in their functioning. This complexity leads to the relatively unexpected result that their robustness is not very well understood, as demonstrated by the occurrence of large blackouts in 2003 in North America. In addition, many of these networks are coupled to each other, which changes their resilience behavior (Buldyrev et al. 2010) and indicates the importance of considering multilayer networks (Vivela et al. 2014) for understanding their fragility. Measuring the structure and evolution of these infrastructures is therefore fundamental for understanding and modeling the resilience of cities and for understanding the socio economic processes that govern its functioning. We focus here on physical networks, such as transportation systems where nodes are stations and links represent segments between consecutive stations. In particular, an important component of cities is the street network made of nodes that represent the intersections, and the links are segments of roads between consecutive intersections. These networks can be thought of as a simplified schematic view of cities, but which captures a large part of their structure and organization (Southworth and Ben Joseph 2003) and contains a large amount of information about underlying and universal mechanisms at play in their formation and evolution. Identifying the main mechanisms in these systems is not a new task (Haggett and Chorley 1969; Xie and Levinson 2011) but the recent availability of digitalized maps, historical or contemporary, allows us to test ideas and models on large scale cross sectional and historical data. Understanding these networks is therefore a central task for constructing a quantitative science of cities (Barthelemy 2016; Batty 2013)

title: Global cities, centripetal wealth transfer and uneven development
abstract: While much of global or world city research is framed as urban studies, in this chapter I apply an economic geographical perspective to scrutinize the role of these cities in uneven economic development. A concern with the role of specific cities in the organization of economic globalization marked the beginning of global city research (Hymer 1972; Cohen 1981; Friedmann and Wolff 1982; Friedmann 1986; Sassen 1988) and Sassen (2001, pp. 359 and 361) recapped in the second edition of The Global City that aEUR~[t]he key indicator of global city status is whether a city contains the capabilities for servicing, managing, and financing the global operations of firms and markets. The question is whether coordination and specialized servicing of global firms and markets is taking placeaEUR(tm) Over time, however, this economic geographical perspective faded into the background. Instead of examining global cities as aEUR~highly concentrated command points in the organization of the world economyaEUR(tm) (Sassen 1991, p. 3) their analysis was increasingly moved to the field of urban studies (Parnreiter 2013) Together with the increasing dominance of quantitative studies on the form and changes of the world city network (Taylor 2001; Taylor and Derudder 2016) this shift has caused an unfortunate move away from what had originally been a central interest of global city research, namely, the critical analysis of the geographies of power in globalization processes. Sassen, who describes herself as a aEUR~political economist interested in the spatial organization of the economy and in the spatial correlates of economic poweraEUR(tm) (Sassen 1998, p. 182) reiterated in the second edition of The Global City that the notion of global cities has been elaborated as a critical inquiry into aEUR~questions of power and inequalityaEUR(tm) (Sassen 2001, p. 351) She contends that global cities represent spatial correlates of economic power; they are a aEUR~spatialization of inequalityaEUR(tm) (Sassen 1998, p. 182)