Fuzzy Classifications in Large Geographical Databases: Assessing Vagueness in Less-Connected Nodes of the World City Network

Abstract

Although the lineage of world city studies can be traced back to well before 1980 [26], it is only in the last two decades that a concerted research effort has emerged. The most seminal contributions to the recent upsurge in world city research are Friedmann and Wolff’s [21] and Friedmann’s [20] identification of ‘command centers’ that control and articulate the ‘new international division of labour’ being created by multinational corporations. This reflected the later recognition by Amin and Thrift [1] of a shift from an international to a global economy, characterized by increasingly integrated global networks of production and services. World cities are then the basing points in these multifarious networks, and their specification therefore relates to the identification of a ‘global network of cities’[31].