European Cities in Globalization: A Comparative Analysis Based on the Location Strategies of Advanced Producer Services

Today there is a key question that lurks behind any consideration of Europe and its cities: is this foundation core zone of the modern world-system showing symptoms of dropping out of the contemporary core zone? It certainly appears that in the period of crises since 2008, Europe has been falling behind other major world-regions. Dubbed the “austerity region” of the world, such an interpretation sees Europe as the first part of the world-economy core to be subject to what are effectively structural adjustment programmes, largely self-imposed but still resulting in a process of peripheralization. Although uneven in impact, this is clearly a result of Europe’s states failing to adequately manage and regulate the economic activities within their territories. However it is far too soon to say whether such a monumental global economic shift is happening but we can investigate the current unevenness of economic globalization amongst European states. We compare three of these states that represent different degrees of potential peripheralization: Spain showing the stronger symptoms, Germany with least symptoms, and Britain somewhere in between. Our study is based upon an original analysis of advanced producer services that combines comparisons between countries and relations between cities

Cross-border cooperation in central Europe: A comparison of culture and policy effectiveness in the Polish–German and Polish–Slovak border regions

Cross-border cooperation is recognised as an important aspect of regional development and especially EU cohesion policy. Policy effectiveness depends on how well programmes are suited to different border regional contexts. This essay analyses the factors that shape cooperation by comparing the Polish–German and Polish–Slovak border regions. Particular emphasis is placed on the cultural factors that set these two regions apart. The essay reveals that close-knit networks across the Polish–Slovak border promote successful policy definition and implementation. At the same time, the absence of such networks across the Polish–German border has led to a high degree of policy innovation

Urban Systems Between National and Global: Recent Reconfiguration Through Transnational Networks

Because the whole book’s issue assumes the uneven integrations of national/continental urban systems inside the global economy, this chapter evaluates the rates and qualitative modes of integration of the national urban systems by the economic networks that are dominated by multinational firms. The empirical study encompasses the largest 1250 cities of the world delineated in a comparative way according to common definitions of large urban regions (LURs). The position of LURs in multinational firms’ ownership networks in 2 years, 2010 and 2013, corresponds to the deepest period of the crisis and the following recovery, respectively. Thus, we checked that the fast reorganization of multinational firms facing this crisis between 2010 and 2013 did not fundamentally transform their strong urban organization but rather introduced some minor changes, particularly due to the simultaneous breakthrough of emergent countries’ companies (especially the Chinese ones). Synthetic network clustering methods partitioning cities of the world offer clear visions of the structure of the multipolar urban networks. They reveal “regions” of integration of cities for all kinds of multinational companies but also distinguishing companies according to their skill levels either in industry or in services. A special attention is given to some highly integrated cities appearing with properties of “city-states,” i.e., without a strong national urban system