Differentiating Centrality and Power in the World City Network

Abstract

Centrality and power have become common foci for world city network research and frequently serve as tools for describing cities’ position or status in the system. However, these concepts are difficult to define and measure. Often they are treated as equivalent: more central cities have more power. This paper challenges this assumed equivalence by proposing conceptually distinct definitions and developing two new measures that allow them to be differentiated empirically. Applying the proposed measures in a hypothetical world city network and the Internet backbone network reveals that centrality and power are distinct and suggests that world cities should be viewed as arising from multidimensional network positions that define multiple types: quintessential world cities that are both central and powerful (such as New York and London), hub world cities that are central but not powerful (such as Washington and Brussels) and gateway world cities that are powerful but not central (such as Miami and Stockholm).