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| GaWC | |
|---|---|
| Name | GaWC |
| Formation | 1998 |
| Headquarters | University of Loughborough |
| Founder | Peter J. Taylor |
| Fields | urban studies, human geography |
GaWC
The GaWC research network assesses global urban networks by categorizing cities according to their connectivity in flows of services, corporations, and information. Its analyses link city-regions such as London, New York City, Tokyo, Paris, and Hong Kong with multinational firms, professional networks, and transport hubs like JFK Airport and Heathrow Airport. Scholars from institutions including Loughborough University, University of Oxford, Harvard University, University of Tokyo, and University of California, Los Angeles have applied GaWC outputs to studies involving McKinsey & Company, KPMG, Deloitte, PwC, and international organizations such as the World Bank and United Nations.
GaWC produces a hierarchical classification of world cities into categories such as Alpha, Beta, and Gamma, aligning nodes like Chicago, Los Angeles, Singapore, Sydney, and Sao Paulo within global networks defined by the presence of firms including CitiGroup, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, and JP Morgan Chase. Its outputs intersect research on urban agglomerations like Greater Tokyo Area, Greater London, and New York metropolitan area and urban policy frameworks used by agencies like the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and European Commission.
GaWC uses an office network approach relying on service firm presence across city-office linkages; data sources include directories and firm lists from AT Kearney, Ernst & Young, and historical corporate datasets referencing corporations such as Siemens, Toyota, Samsung, Shell, BP, and ExxonMobil. Analyses employ network metrics derived from graph theory, comparing nodes such as Barcelona, Milan, Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich, and Geneva by measuring connectivity to firms like Accenture, Capgemini, IBM, Microsoft, and Google. Statistical procedures reference methods used in studies by Paul Krugman, Edward Glaeser, Dani Rodrik, and Saskia Sassen.
Published lists rank cities into tiers identifying top-level command centers including London, New York City, Tokyo, Paris, and Hong Kong; secondary hubs include Dubai, Istanbul, Mumbai, Mexico City, and Johannesburg. GaWC reports have been cited in comparative studies alongside indices from Globalization and World Cities Research Network, Mercer, Economist Intelligence Unit, UN-Habitat, and Bloomberg. Findings highlight the role of air connectivity nodes like Changi Airport, Dubai International Airport, Frankfurt Airport, Charles de Gaulle Airport, and Beijing Capital International Airport and professional networks represented by firms such as Law firm Clifford Chance, Ernst & Young, Baker McKenzie, and Jones Lang LaSalle.
Critics including scholars from University of California, Berkeley, University of Manchester, Columbia University, and London School of Economics argue GaWC overemphasizes producer services and multinational office presence, underrepresenting manufacturing centers such as Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Detroit, and Stuttgart. Debates reference alternative measures by Dani Rodrik, Amartya Sen, Joseph Stiglitz, and institutions like International Labour Organization and World Trade Organization. Methodological limits noted involve data bias from firm directories (e.g., Forbes lists) and uneven sampling across regions including Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America where cities like Lagos, Nairobi, Buenos Aires, and Lima may be misclassified.
GaWC classifications inform urban policy discussions in municipalities such as Greater London Authority, City of New York, Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Municipality of Sao Paulo, and Municipality of Mumbai and are used by consultancies like McKinsey Global Institute and Boston Consulting Group for scenario planning. Academic applications span comparative work by researchers at University College London, Yale University, Princeton University, and University of Cambridge and intersect projects by European Investment Bank, Asian Development Bank, and Inter-American Development Bank. Corporate strategy teams at Microsoft, Amazon, Apple Inc., and Facebook reference global city rankings for location strategy.
Founded by Peter J. Taylor in the late 1990s with collaborators from Loughborough University and University of Liverpool, GaWC built on earlier urban network scholarship by Manuel Castells, Peter Hall, David Harvey, John Friedmann, and Allan Pred. Early datasets compared city connectivity across decades alongside projects by UNESCO, OECD, and scholars at University of California, Los Angeles and McGill University. Successive GaWC reports updated categorizations in response to globalization waves affecting hubs such as Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Shenzhen.