Urban Studies, Vol. 32, N o.

2, 1995 313±327

Network Cities: Creative Urban Agglomerations

for the 21st Century

D avid F. Batten

[Paper ® rst received, March 1994; in ® nal form, September 1994]

Sum m ary. T he glob al econ om y is nurturing an innovative class of polycen tric urban
con ® guration s: netw ork cities. A netw ork city evolves w hen tw o or more previous ly independent
cities, poten tially com plem entary in function , strive to coop erate and achiev e sign i® can t scop e
econ omies aided by fast and reliab le corrid ors of tran sport and com m unication s infrastru cture.
Creative netw ork cities place a higher priority on knowledge-b ased activitie s like researc h,
education and the creative arts. The coop erative m echan ism s m ay resem ble those of inter-® rm
netw ork s in the sense that each urban player stan ds to bene® t from the synergies of interactiv e
grow th via recip rocity, know ledge exchan ge and unexp ected creativi ty. T wo case studies are
discu ssed brie¯ yÐ R andstad H ollan d and K ansai, Jap an. Since m uch of their future dynamism
m ay rely upon tran snation al hum an resou rces, it is foreseen that m ore netw ork cities w ill
transce nd nation al bord ers during the next m illen nium .

1. Introduction

M ost modern scholars of urban developm ent Transnationa l forces are having an im pact
acknow ledge that transnational processes are on more than just the largest metropolitan
having an increasingly im porta nt in¯ uence centres. Another interesting example is the
on the evolution of cities. An early observ- `transfrontier metropolis’ (Herzog, 1991).
ation was the recognition of an emerging The emergence of urban settlem ents strad-
system of world cities (Hall, 1966 and 1984), dling international frontie rs re¯ ects a selec-
a kind of urban eÂlite which is shaped in tive integration of border territory into the
part by the new internationa l divisio n of circuitry of the global econom ic system. In
labour. These cities are also thought to be certain European and American borde r re-
controlling and coordina ting global ® nance gions, transfrontie r metropolis es may eventu-
(Thrift, 1986) and produc er and business ally becom e new centres of production and
services. The view of world cities as the `key urban life.
nodes’ of the internationa l urban system is a Som e urban regions are undergoing an-
widely held one, underpinned in particular by othe r kind of metamorphos is. Ef® cient
rapid advances in the developm ent of infor- corridors of infrastructure link know ledge-
mation technology and telecom munications. intensive centres to larger metropolises.
David Batten is at the Department of Infrastructure and Planning, Royal Institute of Technology, S-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden. He
wishes to acknowledge helpful comments from participants at the Lille Conference on Cities, Enterprises and Society at the Eve of
the 21st Century, March 1994. Some of the background material for this paper was collected during a recent visiting period in the
Kansai region of Japan. The author is grateful for the support provided by the Japan Society for Promotion of Science as well as
Kyoto and Tottori Universities.

0042-0980/95/020313-15 1995 Urban Studies

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314
European examples include the London ±
Cambridge and Stockholm ±Uppsala corri-
dors. Each of these high-tech corridor devel-
opm ents incorpo rates an international airport.
Since the airport±university com bination turns
out to be one of the most synergistic factors
currently contributing to faster and more
prosperous urban grow th in the Sw edish con-
text (Andersson et al., 1987), such highly
accessible places nurturing a higher level of
know ledge-based activities may be expected
to prosper in the 21st century.
In these bicentric urban systems, close
links have been forged between places of
com plem entary function, rather than simply
on the basis of distance or dem and thres-
holds. Relational linkages tend to be horizon-
tal rather than hierarchical. The resulting
urban con® gurations take the form of `corri-
dor cities’ .
From an American perspective, the notion
of corridor cities is far from new . The his-
torian Robert Fishm an noted: ª By the 1980s,
even social scientists could not ignore the
fact that the whole terminology of `suburb’
and `central city’ deriving from the era of the
industrial metropolis had becom e obsoleteº
(Fishm an, `1990). Fishm an coined the term
`New Cities’ for those sprawling regions in
which the basic unit is the `grow th corridor’
stretching 50±100 miles. These new urban
regions lack a dom inant single core and
de® nable bounda ries. They are multicentred.
A small but grow ing num ber of modern
urban agglom erations consist of an intricate
web of corridor cities whose functional and
locationa l relationship s can provide them
with holistic com petitive advantages over
som e of their monoc entric rivals. One classi-
cal example is Randstad Holland. The Kansai
or Kinki region of Japan is a particularly
innova tive case. Because of the manner in
which their polycentric structure has evol-
ved, these urban systems may be thought of
as `netw ork cities’ . Interest in them has in-
creased recently, follow ing claims that cer-
tain network cities may enjoy greater
diversity and creativity, less conge stion and
more locationa l freedom than monoc entric
cities of com parable size (see, for exam ple,
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DA V ID F . BA TTEN
Batten, 1993; Clark and Kuypers-Linde ,
1994). The potential superiority of the net-
work city model may be even more pro-
nounce d among many of the still-grow ing
world cities of our time, because of the ad-
vantages of concentrated deconcentration
(Hall, 1984).
Urban theory remains preoccupied with
the monoc entric model, Nevertheless, the
evidence against such an oversimpli® cation
is steadily growing, This paper attempts to
strengthen the case for network cities by
outlinin g som e of their general com petitive
advantages and discussing two speci® c ex-
amples. B ecause the coope rative mechanism s
may resemble those of inter-® rm netw orks,
the new urban theory associated with the
network city model will align itself more
with the econom ic notions of differentiated
produc ts and im perfectly com petitive mar-
kets than with the classical model of perfect
com petition . The paper begins with a brief
discussion of the dynam ics of urban hier-
archies.
2. The Law of Rise and Fall
Cities do rise and fall, albeit slow ly in many
cases. They possess vinta ge properties, in the
sense that even large and previou sly prospe r-
ous ones eventua lly decline in the absence of
suf® cient renewal and revitalisation activity.
The rise and fall of cities is inde ed well
documented in all parts of the world. To
catch a glim pse of this lifecycle phenom -
enon, we may turn to Europe over the last
millenniu m (see Table 1) or to the changing
globa l hierarchy of cities over a much shorter
period (see Table 2). M any cities which
dom inated several centuries ago are rela-
tively small today. Others, like Mexico City
and SaÄ o Paolo, have grow n remarkably in the
space of just 50 years.
It is often argued that city size fosters
innovative prope nsity. In the US this became
known as the HVLT hypothesis (after Hoover,
Vernon, Lichtenburg and Thom pson), since
these authors emphasised the unique advan-
tages enjoyed by New York City in the pro-
 T able 1. The ten largest cities in Europe, 1000±2000 (by population in thousands)

1000 1400 1700 1900 2000

City Population C ity Population C ity Population C ity Population C ity Population

Constantinople 450 Paris 275 C onstantinople 700 London 6480 M oscow 9000
Cordoba 450 M ilan 125 London 550 Paris 3330 Paris 8500
Seville 90 B ruges 125 Paris 530 B erlin 2424 London 7000
Palerm o 75 V enice 110 N aples 207 V ienna 1662 Leningrad 5500
K iev 45 G ranada 100 Lisbon 188 Leningrad 1439 M adrid 3000
V enice 45 G enoa 100 A msterdam 172 M anchester 1255 B erlin 3000
Regensburg 40 Prague 95 R om e 148 B irmingham 1248 R om e 2800
NETW O RK CITIES

Thessalonika 40 R ouen 70 V enice 144 M oscow 1120 B irmingham 2500

A mal® 35 Seville 70 M oscow 130 G lasgow 1072 M anchester 2500
Rom e 35 G hent 70 M ilan 124 Liverpool 940 B udapest 2100

Sources: Hohenberg and Lees (1985) and author’ s estim ates.

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315
316
Figure 1. T hree urban con® guration s: the m ono-
centric city, the corridor city (centre ) and the
netw ork city (below ).
duction of those com modities for which con-
tinual innova tion or a constant ¯ ow of new
inform ation played an im porta nt role (see
Hoover and Vernon, 1959). In successive
rounds of econom ic developm ent, New York
slowly secured its dom inance over rival
metropolises. C entral to one explanation of
New York’ s pre-eminence is the presence of
external econom ies arising from inter-® rm
linkages (Lampard, 1986). It is the presence
of such linkages today which continue s to
fuel much of New York’ s grow th as a
® nancial services centre.
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DA V ID F . BA TTEN
But inter-® rm netw orks are not only pro-
pelling world cities like New York, Paris and
Tokyo. Industrial districts which have al-
ready insured them selves against substantial
shifts in dem and by increasing their internal
¯ exibility may wish to reinsure them selves
by pooling resources with othe r equally
¯ exible regions (Sabel, 1989), W hilst the
supportive evidence linking size and innova -
tive capacity is im pressive, som e recent ob-
servations suggest that part of the innovative
grow th potential which traditiona lly resided
in larger US and European cities may now be
found in smaller urban concentrations (see,
for example, Norton and Rees, 1979; Hohen-
berg and Lees, 1985).
The innovative activity of multinational
com panies can be seeded in various locations
simultaneously, and is by no means restricted
to the creative resources of the big cities.
Such a trend reversal is consistent with the
ongoing march towards a global network
econom y. Greater internationa lisation im -
plies a weakening in the relative importance
of intra-regional accessibility in favour of
stronger internationa l contacts. Mushroo ming
grow th among ® rms who are sensitive to
the availability of inform ation-processing,
telecom munications and air transport ca-
pacity is greatly facilitating point-to-point
contacts between many dispersed locations,
thereby increasing the netw ork character of
the world econom y.
Furthermore, empirical studie s of Eu-
ropean urban regions clearly show that
regions which have a stronger com mitm ent
to research-intensive activities and, at the
same time, have access to modern com -
munic ations and international air transport,
are expanding their employm ent and incom e
base more quickly than othe rs. They are
outpe rform ing most of the classical cities
built around manufacturing activity. It is
also natural for larger cities to build stronger
links to these creative centres, seeking
scope econom ies which may be derived from
new innovations and creative know ledge
exchanges.
As these tendencies prolife rate further, the
geographical contiguity of regions and the
 Table 2. Population of the world’ s biggest urban areas, actual and forecast, 1950 and 2000 (in thousands)

Population Population
1950 2000

1 N ew York±north-eastern New Jersey 12 300 M exico City 31 000

2 London 10 400 SaÄ o Paulo 25 800
3 Rhine±Ruhr 6 900 Tokyo±Yokohama 24 200
4 Tokyo±Yokohama 6 700 N ew York±north-eastern New Jersey 22 800
5 Shanghai 5 800 Shanghai 22 700
6 Paris 5 500 Peking 19 900
7 G reater Buenos A ires 5 300 Rio de Janeiro 19 000
NETW O RK CITIES

8 Chicago±north-w estern Indiana 4 900 G reater Bombay 17 100

9 M oscow 4 800 Calcutta 16 700
10 Calcutta 4 400 Jakarta 16 600
11 Los A ngeles±Long Beach 4 000 Seoul 14 200
12 O saka 3 800 Los Angeles±Long Beach 14 200

Source: U nited Nations (1980).

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317
318
relative size of places in a local context are
becom ing less im portant than they were in
the past. The urban-to-rural gap is widening
because of the declining emphasis on natural
resources and the grow ing emphasis on cre-
ative activity and accessibility to innova tive
hum an resources via a coordin ated system of
interdependent networks. C ollective creativ-
ity calls for dyna mic interactions between
different ideas generating som e qualita tively
new idea. In this new contact-intensive arena
of econom ic activity, a netw orking perspec-
tive is mandatory.
3. Network Cities versus Central Place
Cities
It must be clear by now that we need to
address two seemingly con¯ icting models of
the spatial distribution of econom ic activity:
the central place model and the netw ork
model. Fascinated by apparent regularities in
the siting, size and num bers of tow ns among
regions, W alter Christaller (1933) developed
the central place model to predict ideal city-
size distributions and functions. Positing that
each com modity has a given threshold of
minim um dem and as well as a ® xed geo-
graphic al dom ain beyond which people are
unwilling to pay for it, Christaller sugge sted
that only a certain proportion of all settle-
ments will offer highe r-order goods and ser-
vices. If the principal marketing function of
each settlem ent is know n, a hierarchy of
places can be deduced. Each node in this
urban hierarchy has a hexagonal-shaped hin-
terland. W hen conceived in this way, urban
systems will be organised into central places
of different order depending on their func-
tional attributes.
Christaller’ s ideal model rests on assump-
tions which are not readily found in the real
world. Nevertheless, it is possible to ® nd
city-size distributions in many nations which
are approxim ately loglinear, thereby con-
form ing to the rank±size rule. (In som e
younge r nations such as Australia and the
US, rank±size distribu tions may be found
within subnational states rather than at the
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DA V ID F . BA TTEN
national level.) Each city’ s predicted
population is given by the form ula P 5 A/r,
where P 5 popula tion of the given city,
A 5 population of the largest city in the hier-
archy, and r 5 the size rank of the given city.
An illustration of this rank±size distribu tion
of cities may be found in France (Figure 2).
Although the disprop ortionately large size of
the prim ate capital, Paris, tends to skew this
distribu tion slightly , the rest of it has re-
mained approxim ately loglinea r for more
than 150 years.
At ® rst glance, there seems to be a remark-
able stability in this logline ar distribu tion.
Despite vast variations in the num ber and
size of French settlem ents, the rank±size rule
seems to hold over a 150-ye ar period. Sim i-
lar rank±size distribu tions may be found in
many other parts of the world. For our pur-
pose, how ever, it is im porta nt to note tw o
additional features of rank±size distribu tions:
(1) Som e individu al settlements change their
rank over tim eÐ in response to changes
in their grow th rates, their principal
functions and their degree of nodality.
(2) The upw ard shift in the rank±size distri-
bution over tim e is closely related to the
slowly increasing mobility of travellers.
Both of these observations are im porta nt if
we wish to unde rstand the respective roles
played by central place cities and network
cities over tim e.
As activity and com munications evolve in
the course of econom ic developm ent, one
would expect contrasting forces to emerge.
The central place system is a strong and
stable attractor in the general dynam ics of
urbanisation, especially when competition
between urban econom ies may be conceived
simply in terms of geogra phic al market ar-
eas. Hence it has aided our unde rstanding of
how rural econom ies can support market
centres of various sizes. The central place
model corresponds to the classical econom ic
model of perfect com petition in a geographi-
cal conte xt. Just as this model of econom ic
behaviour is less favoure d by economists
now adays, so it is also clear that fewer cities
 NETW O RK CITIES 319

Figure 2. Rank±size distribu tions of French urban agglom erations : 1831 and 1982. Source: adapted from
Pumain (1989).

and market areas of today can be draw n up
according to the central place model alone.
W hen introdu cing their notion of a net-
work system of cities, Hohenberg and Lees
(1985) emphasise the idea of nodality in a
netw ork of linked settlements within which
(long-distance) traders are the prim e movers.
Cities form the centres, nodes, junc tions, out-
posts and relays of this network. The seeds of
such a network economy were sown as far
back as the 11th century, when safer trade
route s trigge red the revival of many me-
dieval cities in Europe (Pirenne, 1925; Mees,
1975; Andersson, 1986; Batten and Thord,
1994). Two major concentration s of urban
developm ent stood out at that tim e: northe rn
Italy and the Low Countries. Such a dual
urban core cannot be explained in terms of
the traditional central place hierarchy.
The various nodes of a network city com -
bine to form a unique yet ¯ exible exchange
environ ment. An econom ist might view a
network city as a heterogeneous product
com peting in a marketplace where im perfect
com petition is the prevailing mechanism .
Their unique polyc entric structure and ¯ exi-
bility of function breed monopoli stic advan-
tages. Network cities exploit som e of the
opportunities arising from the diseconom ies
of urban scale in its monoc entric form. They
may be disting uished from central place
cities in both spatial and functiona l terms.

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320
T able 3. C entral place versus netw ork system s
C entral place system
C entrality
Size depende ncy
T endency tow ards prim acy
and subserv ience
H omogeneou s goods and
services
V ertical accessib ility
M ainly one-w ay ¯ ow s
T ransport costs
Perfect com petition
over space
Som e of the comparative attributes of the
tw o systems are listed in Table 3.
Setting aside more sophisticated economic
arguments for the tim e being, one rationale
for netw ork cities is com pellingly simple.
Although som e advantages stem from the
advent of more ef® cient long-distance com-
munication systems, this particular rationale
is founde d on day-to-day mobility patterns
(W estin and OÈ sthol, 1992). For our present
purpos e, the travel behaviour of the French
popula tion is indic ative of wider trends
across middle and northern Europe . Since
1800, mobility has increased from an average
of 20 m to more than 30 km per person per
day (see Table 4). This is a factor of 1 500.
Nevertheless, the time spent in motion by the
average traveller has not changed apprecia-
bly during this century, still averaging about
1 hour per day. Thus it is largely the speed
of travel which has grown signi® cantly,
fuelled by the well-known sequence of modal
im provem ents to transport systems. The gen-
eral result has been a grow ing degree of
congestion.
The `one-hour rule’ is a strong constraint
on the penultimate size of the monoc entric
city, given that conge stion and pollutio n are
factors of growing im porta nce. If one hour is
the tim e limit which the average urban trav-
eller is willing to spend on commuting to
work and/or to othe r service facilities, then
the increased spatial range afforded by ad-
vances in transport technology means that a
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DA V ID F . BA TTEN
N etw ork system
N odality
Size neutrali ty
Tendency tow ards
¯ exibility and
com plem entarity
H eterogen eous goods
and services
H orizonta l accessib ility
Tw o-w ay ¯ ow s
Inform ation costs
Im perfect com petition
with price discrim ination
grow ing num ber of network city con-
® gurations can com pete favoura bly with mono-
centric cities of equiva lent populat ion size.
Although the pertinent calculations will not
be presented here, transport and congestion
aspects serve to underpin the com parative
advantages of the network city.
In Christaller’ s theory of central places,
grow th potential is related to size. Thus the
case for network cities has never been ex-
plored. Yet it is network cities that have
accounte d for an above-average share of ur-
ban grow th in today’ s Europe (see Figure 3).
Although som e larger cities possess both net-
work and central place characteristics, it is
the smaller network cities that have counte r-
acted the central place trend towards prim acy
and contribu ted to the size-neutrality of ur-
ban grow th (see Robson, 1973; Hohenberg
and Lees, 1985).
4. Randstad Holland: A Classical Net-
work City
Although the discussion about polyce ntric
urban developm ent is predom inantly a recent
one, som e network cities are rather old. A
classical example is the `Ring City’ : Rand-
stad Holland. Shaped like a giant horseshoe,
this com plex urban agglom eration conta ins
three major conurbations grouped around the
cities of Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam
and Utrecht (Figure 4). Other smaller centres
such as Delft, Haarlem and Zaanstad serve as
 NETW O RK CITIES
Table 4. C hanges in average m obility in
France
Average distance
Y ear (km /day)
1800 0.02
1900 1
1990 35
additiona l nodes, further enriching the diver-
sity of this unique urban con® guration. Rand-
stad planners aim to preserve its agricultural
`Green Heart’ and the spaces betw een its
main cities.
The form ation of this classical netw ork
city began in earnest with the revolution in
trade and industry during the 19th century.
New econom ic developm ent along the Rhine
and its tributaries fostered opportu nities for
the rapid grow th of two Dutch cities to chal-
lenge Amsterdam’ s prim acyÐ The Hague as
the royal residence and politica l capital; and
Rotterdam as the port com manding the
mouth of the Rhine. Rotterdam and The
Hague grew from 26 per cent and 19 per cent
of Amsterdam’ s size, respectively, in 1800 to
102 per cent and 67 per cent by 1985. The
resulting decentralised spatial structure of the
Randstad, deeply rooted in the Dutch tra-
dition of local autono my, has been preserved,
against the odds, by persistent and explic it
spatial plannin g policies.
Today, the cities and tow ns have con-
verged so closely to each othe r that we may
speak of the Randstad as a mature netw ork
city. W ith Schiphol airport near its centre, it
is one of the most accessible urban agglom -
erations in the world. Such is the inter-
national character of the Randstad that it may
lay claims to being the earliest metropolitan
area to possess both network city and world
city characteristics (Shachar, 1994). In this
situation, the relationa l linkages betw een net-
works at different levels are most important
(Batten and ToÈ rnqvist, 1990; B atten and
Thord, 1994).
There seems to be a contrast betw een the
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321
turntable functions of Rotterdam and Am-
sterdam on the one hand, and the orientation
towards the national econom y of The Hague
and Utrecht on the othe r. An interesting
question then arises: could Randstad’ s econ-
omy be furthe r internationalised by strength-
ening the functiona l cohesion at the network
city level? Priemus (1994) explores this
question taking sustainability criteria into ac-
count. A worrying feature is that about one-
third of all businesses in the Randstad are
now experiencing bottlenecks at their loca-
tion. If the Green Heart is invaded to allevi-
ate some of this conge stion, then the Rand-
stad might lose its unique network city
character among the world cities and simply
becom e anothe r vast urban spraw lÐ a Dutch
Los Angeles according to Hall (1984).
Over the last 20 years, changes in the
Randstad’ s produc tion structure have been
great. Amsterdam and Rotterdam have lost
out heavily in terms of employm ent, despite
the fact that grow th industries are over-repre-
sented in these two cities. The expla nation
may lie in the changing character and con-
nectivity of the internationa l econom y. Older
industrial and port cities are of declining
im portance in the face of com petition from a
new city hierarchy; one based more on busi-
ness services and higher educationa l skills
(Andersson, 1986). W hile Rotterdam has
suffered from the oil crises and increased
internationa l com petition in manufacturing,
the area around Schiphol airport has bene-
® ted. As more ® rms operate internationally
and the value/weight ratio of goods declines
furthe r, the im porta nce of air transport will
in¯ uence the locationa l preferences of many
more ® rms.
Despite its maturity, Randstad Holland
still retains the inhe rent advantages of a
classical network city. W ithin Europe, only
London outra nks it in terms of popular ity for
internationa l head of® ces. Large areas
are still attractive for new and advanced in-
dustries, especially the `new wing’ centred
around the ® nancial and econom ic com plex
of Amsterdam and around Schiphol airport
(Jobse and Needham, 1988). The popu-
lation’ s desire for dispersal in search of more
322
Figure 3. G row th versus size in tw o system s of cities. Source: H ohenber g and Lees (1985).
space and attractive living conditions has
been accommodated, but also complemented
by good accessibility to nearby urban jobs
and services and to the internationa l world.
This ongoing princ iple of concentrated de-
concentration veri® es the dedicated attitude
of Dutch city and regiona l planners. It also
dem onstrates the durable bene® ts of the net-
work city model.
5. Kansai, Japan: A Creative Network
City
A fascinating network city is developing in
the Kansai (or Kinki) region of Japan. After
many years of competition with Tokyo, this
historic ally pow erful area of Japan appears to
have recently gained greater con® dence in its
ability to offer attractive alternatives to the
national capital. Kansai is made up of the six
prefectures of Osaka, Hyogo, Kyoto, Nara,
W akayam a and Shiga. These prefectures are
diverse in that each has its own distinc tive
cultural and historical identity. W hilst this
may have caused a lack of cohesiveness
in the decades when Tokyo was grow ing
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DA V ID F . BA TTEN
more dom inant, this same dive rsity may
now unlock the key to a more prospe rous
future .
The core cities of the Kansai region are
depicted in Figure 5. B esides Osaka, Kyoto
and Kobe, strong transport links ensure that
the smaller cities of Him eji, Nara, Ohtsu and
W akayama are ef® ciently integrated within
easy reach of the larger trio. Form ally know n
as the Keihanshin metropolitan area, the ur-
ban core of Kansai boasts a popula tion of
over 18 million people .
The im mense dive rsity of the region can
be gauged partly from the fact that it conta ins
two form er imperial capitals of Japan:
Nara and Kyoto. These two delightful cities,
with their remarkable temples and artistic
treasures, provide an incom parable cultural
richness to complement the port cities of
Kobe and Osaka. Osaka is also the region’ s
centre of com merce and industrial activity.
The striking contrasts between these cultural
and com mercial cities, com bined with their
willingne ss to work toge ther tow ards a
united vision of the future , could transform
the Kansai region into one of the most excit-
ing network cities of the next century.
 NETW O RK CITIES 323

Figure 4. Randstad Holland: a classical netw ork city.

M uch of Kansai’ s future optim ism is (3) an international `around-the-clock’ city

based on a spate of recently com pleted infra-
structure proje cts. There are many large-
scale, long-ra nge proje cts underw ay (see
Yoshikaw a, 1993). The most prom inent of
these is the Osaka Bay Area Development
(OBD). An Association to prom ote this ma-
jor developm ent was established by the local
business com munity. Their `Grand Vision’
was announ ced to the public in 1991. Its aim
of consolid ating a wide range of urban func-
tions (located in different centres) captures
the very essence of a creative network city.
W ith a view to nurturing a `cosmo-creative
metropolis’ , the `Grand Vision’ prescribes
the follow ing metropolitan requirements:
(1) a creatively dive rsi® ed environ ment for
all citizens through the amalgamation of
various urban functions for living, work-
ing, learning and playing;
(2) the form ation of cultural and know ledge
`corridors’ which prom ote interaction
among creative minds;
for global citizens (facilitated by the
openin g of the 24-hou r Kansai Inter-
national Airport in Septem ber 1994);
(4) a restructuring of the old industrial struc-
ture along with the incubation of new
busine ss opportunities;
(5) the provision of `nature-rich’ amenities
for the citizens; and
(6) the sophistication of a polycentric urban
structure.
The `Grand Vision’ will try to lim it com -
muting tim e to a maxim um of 1 hour.
Families will also be encouraged to live
or work in a larger city during weekdays,
but to visit and stay in another nearby city
over the weekend. New logistical systems
needed to foster this creative network city
take the shape of a giant horseshoe, not
unlike Randstad Holland’ s ring con® gur-
ation. These corridor developm ent plans are
even referred to collectively as the `Osaka
ring conurba tion’ .

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324
Figure 5. Kansai, Japan: a creative netw ork city.
The novel netw ork city pote ntial will com-
bine the econom ic and social diversity of
Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe with the environ-
mental and recreationa l richness of Awaji
Island and the unique features of Shikoku
Island. If the propose d channel between
W akayam a and southern Awaji Island is re-
alised, a com plete loop around Osaka Bay
would be established.
Today the Osaka Bay Area has four types
of port:
(1) the tw o traditional seaports of Kobe and
Osaka;
(2) Kansai International Airport;
(3) a telecom munications port know n as the
Teleport; and
(4) a know ledge port know n as the Kansai
Cultural and Scienti® c Research City.
Businessmen emphasise the openne ss of
Kansai people to new ideas, compared with
Tokyo. They also point to their ability to
make quick decisions and their talent for
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DA V ID F . BA TTEN
identify ing new business opportu nities. W ith
the recent openin g of the around-the-clock
Kansai International Airport, Osaka Bay
Area can develop an effective gateway to the
internationa l busine ss com munity. The cre-
ative potential of such a diverse network city
should help Kansai to face the 21st century
with a much greater degree of con® dence.
6. Concludin g Remarks
It has been said that the econom ic geography
of the modern industrial world can be repre-
sented as a patchwork of dense produc tion
agglom erations linked toge ther by an exten-
sive system of interregiona l transactions
(Scott, 1992). There is a similar patchwork of
creative urban agglom erations developing at
some key locations around the world which
offer a unique com bina tion of characteristics:
an attractive, culturally diverse environm ent,
advanced R&D and educationa l facilities, a
¯ exible and creative workforce, im proving
 NETW O RK CITIES 325

Table 5. The ten most im portant creative regions of E urope.

M etropoli tan Scienti® c Air transpor t

region creativit y capacity

1 London±C am bridge 100 100

2 Paris 70 69
3 Randstad Holland 33 25
4 Bonn±D usseldor f±Cologne 33 21
5 Stockholm ±U ppsala 26 23
6 Brussels±Louvain±G hent 24 12
7 Franfurt±M ainz±G iessen 22 42
8 M unich 22 17
9 Heidelber g±Karlsruhe ±Stuttgart 22 17
10 Copenhag en 19 21

Source: A ndersson (1986).

accessibility to the outside world, and a dy-
nam ic vision of the future .
At som e of these locations, network cities
are developing from the premise that nearby
urban partners can bene® t from the dyna mic
synergies of interactive grow th via reciproc-
ity, know ledge exchange and unexpected
creativity. They can also achieve signi® cant
scope econom ies aided by fast and reliable
corridors of transport and com munic ations
infrastructure. The more creative ones place
a higher priority on know ledge-based activi-
ties like research, education and the creative
arts. It is thus not surprising to learn that
seven of the ten most creative Europe an re-
gions of toda y are corridor or netw ork cities
(see Table 5). In these urban systems, close
links have been forged between places of
com plem entary function, rather than simply
on the basis of distance or dem and
thresholds.
W ithin the above collection of creative
regions, many R&D units operate in corpora-
tions whose production activitie s are based
on know ledge engineering and a new sys-
tems architecture (rather than the factory-
oriented engineering of the industrial era).
They are contact-intensive and may eventu-
ally form a netw ork of their own at the globa l
level: an international C-netw ork as de-
scribed by Andersson (1986). Since much of
their future dynam ism may rely upon
transnational hum an resources, it is foreseen
that the more creative netw ork cities will
transcend national borders during the next
century.
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Appendix
The follow ing rudim entary com parative fram e-
work captures som e elem ents of the descripti ve
discussi on outlined earlier. N ote that the present
model is sim plistic; the choice of variable s has
been m otivated by a future intention to describe
the relative ly slow processe s of netw ork adjust-
ment which form the substruc ture or `arena’ on
which other faster change processe s take place.
Such a differen tiation of variable s accordin g to
their relative speeds of change is important in
order to apprecia te the interdep endent dynam ics
of urban developm ent.
Let X 5 a{b(P 1 G )2 2 P3 2 G 3} (1)
where P 5 z(P 1 D ), G 5 z 9 G ; X m easures the
* *
level of econom ic activity; P * m easures the size
of the city’ s econom ically active populati on
(workers and custom ers); D m easures the size of
its external custom er netw ork; G * m easures the
city’ s stock of infrastru cture; a is an index of
technolo gical ef® ciency; b is an index of scale
of econom ic activity; z is an index of hum an
skills; and z 9 is an index of infrastru cture
quality.
Equation (1) de® nes a producti on function for
our city of interest. D is intended to re¯ ect
the role (if any) of the city as an internat ional
market centre. The size of its custom er netw ork
should be m easured on the relative scale of
internati onal links in com parison with local and
regional links. Thus it might be w eighted accord-
ing to the ratio of internati onal to intra-na tional
econom ic activity.
Econom ic activity X reaches its maxim um
when both m arginal producti vities are zero, w hich
occurs w hen
P5 G5 4b/3.
The technica lly optim al scale is achieved w hen
marginal and average producti vities are equal, i.e.
when
(P 3 1 G 3)/(P 1 G )2 5 b/2.
The term 2PG account s for synergis tic inter-
actions betw een the local populat ion, external
custom ers and infrastru cture.
It is illustrati ve to consider a situation in w hich
G 5 0. This might corresp ond to a sim ple agrarian
econom y lacking any significa nt infrastru cture
links to the outside w orld. Then the m odel re-
duces to the follow ing:
X5 a{bP 2 2 P 3} (2)
This function is plotted in Figure 6. It satisfies the
`regular ultra passum law ’ proposed by Frisch
 NETW O RK CITIES 327

Figure 6. V ariable returns to scale in the urban lifecycle .

(1965), in so m uch as it contains a zone of
increasi ng returns to scale and a zone of decreas-
ing returns to scale. Puu (1985) propose d this
function al form as a m odificati on to Hotelling’ s
populati on grow th model.
Such a sim plified m odel w as the basis of a
com parative analysis of the three different urban
configu rations depicted in Figure 1 (see B atten,
1993). Each city’ s stage of developm ent in the
urban lifecycle w as defined by its position along
the X±P curve in Figure 6. In this sim plified
econom y, the technica lly maxim al scale occurs
w hen P 5 2b/3. T hree zones of producti vity m ay
be identifie d:
(a) increasi ng returns to scale: P , b/2;
(b) decreas ing returns to scale: b/2 , P ,
and
(c) decreas ing output: P . 2b/3.
Even in the case of a rudim entary econom y with
no infrastru cture links to the outside world, som e
interesti ng findings em erged:
(1) W hen P , b/2, a netw ork city possessi ng
nodes of different sizes is more producti ve
than one w ith nodes of equal size.
(2) W hen P 5 2b/3, the bicentric corridor city
is as producti ve as a m onocent ric city of
equivale nt size.
(3) W hen P . 2b/3, a netw ork city is more
product ive than its monocent ric counterp art,
and one with nodes of equal sizes out-
perform s one where the nodal sizes differ.
It should be stressed that the analytic al fram ework
outlined above is unaccep tably sim ple. Am enity
2b/3; attractiv eness, com m uting distance s and conges-
tion effects should also be consider ed. In its dy-
nam ic form , the model visualise d would also
include addition al interacti ve term s to cater for
migration , trade and other netw orking activitie s.

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