Orum, A.M. and Van Meeteren, M. (2019) - Urban System.

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Urban System Such orderly and rational conceptual-
izations of cities and the urban, which are
MICHIEL VAN MEETEREN at odds with descriptions emphasizing the
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium; Ghent University, chaotic and anarchic, can give a reductionist
Belgium
impression. Nevertheless, they help us under-
stand a facet of the urban that we did not
INTRODUCTION understand before. Urban systems research
aspires to make the complexity of the city
and intercity interactions understandable
by isolating some of its constituent social
At first glance, land utilization in an urban area
such as New York and its environs appears to be
processes, and then relating these processes
without rhyme or reason, a confused and baffling to others occurring both inside the city and
welter of anomalies and paradoxes. The land is between cities and the outside world. For
being used, most of it, very intensively indeed. instance, by decomposing the chaos of urban
Nine million people eat and sleep, work and play traffic in a structure of origins and destina-
in the area. But the assignment of the land to the tions, it may suddenly appear as a logical
various uses seems to the superficial observer to
consequence of many individual choices.
have been made by the Mad Hatter at Alice’s tea
party. (Haig 1926, 403)
By isolating the central place dynamic, its
influence on other aspects of urbanization
Descriptions of the city and the urban as a can be examined. Through relating flows
chaotic, anarchic, and disorganized locus of of information, goods, and money between
activity abound in novels, movies, records, cities, thick knots of intercity interactions all
and even the academic literature, as the of a sudden start to make sense.
above quote by the pioneering urban systems While the apparent chaos of the city already
researcher Robert Murray Haig testifies. felt overwhelming to many observers in the
Urbanists have long been baffled by the cre- nineteenth and twentieth centuries, urban
ative potential, the economic activity, but complexity has only become greater since. In
also the alienation, poverty, and neglect that the twenty-first century, the urban condition
urban environments seem to foster. It was has become so dominant that an increasing
in the 1920s and 1930s, when the modern number of scholars are suggesting that we
city became salient, that a desire to unravel should not look at the urban through the
this chaos led to the development of urban bounded imaginary of a city any more, but
systems theory. Walter Christaller, a pioneer to consider it a planetary phenomenon. The
of central place theory, discovered that if you planetary urbanization argument has merit
focused on the ways in which people pro- from both analytical and rhetorical angles,
cured their goods and services, a distinctive, as, indeed, urban society has an influence in
“systemic,” pattern of central places can be nearly any nook and cranny of the earth’s
discerned. The (ideal) central place system surface. Nevertheless, such a wide-angled
takes the form of neat geometrical – that is, position also has disadvantages. The bound-
hexagonal – spacing of places and makes this edness conveyed through the notion of the
particular urban function legible. city not only provides an important empirical
The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies. Edited by Anthony Orum.
© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781118568446.eurs0400
10.1002/9781118568446.eurs0400, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118568446.eurs0400 by Consorci De Serveis Universitaris De Catalunya, Wiley Online Library on [10/01/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
2 URBA N SYSTE M
demarcation when studying individual and mobility is useful. Knowing how cities
places; it also allows for comparing different together form larger wholes through their
places and, by extension, for understand- interactions can provide important informa-
ing how several places together constitute a tion on how the global economy is spun over
bigger whole. Urban systems researchers do the face of the earth and how planning might
not only study “the city as a system” through, contribute to slightly changing the ways in
for instance, modeling urban traffic, land-use which this global economy is construed.
patterns, housing, schooling, and care needs This entry, therefore, makes the case that the
within the city. They also study the “city in a urban systems approach continues to have
system of cities,” focusing on the interurban merit. It proceeds as follows. The entry first
geographies of flows of people, information, outlines the basic categories of the systems
and goods between cities and how these flows approach and examines how these map onto
impact the economies and societies in the the urban realm. How urban systems research
city system’s constituent individual cities. needs to deal with the complexities of scale
Although it is less and less correct to see the and function is considered thereafter. Urban
city as a self-contained entity with specific systems theory is subsequently illustrated
properties on the inside that are absent on with the work of Allan Pred and world city
the outside, social phenomena still tend to research, before conclusions are drawn on its
exhibit geographically bounded thresholds contemporary relevance.
and boundaries. Urban systems research,
which describes and models these urban phe- A SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE
nomena, can provide continued relevance to
the notion of “the city” as a settlement-based Textbook descriptions on what a “system”
analytical phenomenon, albeit with variable or a “systems perspective” is tend to be
boundaries. simultaneously remarkably abstract and
Trying to make sense of the urban chaos in vague and deceptively simple. For instance,
this way can feel somewhat disenchanting, as Huggett (1980, 1) describes a system as a “set
it seems to reduce the fascinating object that is of interrelated parts” that consists of three
the city to a conflation of, for instance, traffic, basic components – elements, states, and
land values, economic activities, amenities, relations – which can either be material or
and social reproduction. Additionally, the act conceptual. Systems research tries to isolate
of simplifying complex urban realities in a these components (elements, states, and
system or model carries the risk of reification, relations) in order to grasp the system as a
or the assumption that an abstract category totality. Most system descriptions have an
unproblematically corresponds with realities “outside” as well: the environment. This envi-
on the ground. Such reduction can make ronment can influence the elements, states,
urban planners overconfident since it sug- and relations of the system under study, but
gests the pretense of control over something the environment is not specified in the same
as big and complex as the city. precise language as the system and its com-
Despite these drawbacks, having analytical ponents. When the environment exchanges
tools that can illuminate the phenomenon of matter and energy with the system, as all
the city, even if only partially, is better than social systems do, the system is considered
being engulfed in darkness. Being able to to be open. Consequently, any description
estimate the (future) needs of a population of the system and its constituent elements,
in terms of housing, schooling, shopping, states, and relations needs to be regarded
URBA N SYSTEM 3
as provisionary, for unexpected interactions might be more appropriate. Good candidates

can make the actual working of the system for a systems perspective tend to be urban
different than expected. phenomena where it is relatively easy to ana-
The language of systems theory contains a lytically separate the constituent elements,
large variety of abstract concepts to describe states, and relations – that is, they contain
and qualify a system’s relations, elements, and subsystems which show a relative autonomy.
states. Typical terms associated with systems In particular traffic systems, trading systems
theory are feedback loops, inputs, outputs, and distribution systems have traditionally
resilience, bifurcation, and entropy. A detailed been fruitful applications of urban systems
discussion of all these terms is beyond the theory.
scope of this entry: the key point here is that It is no coincidence that when urban
they allow for the description and comparison systems theory was at its most popular in
of concrete phenomena through abstractions urban studies, namely in the 1960s, these
in terms of systems. Such abstraction, in turn, were exactly the kinds of research questions
provides a framework to compare entities that scholars were occupied with. Urban sys-
that refer to different concrete phenomena. tems theory fitted the 1960s “spatial science”
For instance, while traffic, social networks, era, which was all about properly guiding
trade, and email interactions refer to rather the mid-twentieth-century modernist and
different concrete social formations, they can developmentalist urbanization challenges.
all be abstracted and compared as different When the focus of urban research changed
instantiations of “urban interaction systems.” toward issues of equity, social justice, and
The notion of systems theory as a mode of culture from the 1970s onward, urban sys-
abstract description underlines the impor- tems reasoning became more controversial,
tance of understanding systems theory as a precisely because these were the topics that
particular language that describes the world, the language of systems theory was less
or, even more elaborately, as a specific way attuned to. Although the toolbox and lan-
of seeing (Angelo 2017). This constructivist guage of urban studies is nowadays much
conception of systems theory builds on the more diverse than it was in the 1960s, the
seminal systems formulation of Blaut (1962), urban systems perspective remains a use-
which has the advantage of theoretically ful language, complemented by others, to
bridging seemingly incompatible philosoph- explain those relatively predictable aspects of
ical positions in geography (Van Meeteren the urban which continue to exist today.
2016). When conceptualizing an urban sys- The above caveats all point to the impor-
tem, some aspects of social reality are named, tance of carefully defining and naming the
defined, and demarcated, while others disap- elements, states, and relations of an urban
pear from view. It is possible and even likely systems model. This phase of conceptualiza-
that those elements that are currently coded tion and demarcating is called “entitation”
out of view in a system’s abstraction, and thus in systems research. According to Huggett
rendered part of the environment, might later (1980, 29), entitation is the most impor-
become politically relevant or controversial, tant – yet an often overlooked – part of
prompting the reformulation of the system. systems research. Making an entitation of an
As with any language, a systems perspective is urban system requires the following steps:
adequate for describing some social phenom- one has to define the process that is to be
ena, but less suitable for describing others, for understood; to identify which elements are
which a different social-scientific language important to understanding that process;
4 URBA N SYSTE M
and to examine what the (hypothesized) as it was hypothesized in the 1960s/early

relations between these elements are. More- 1970s, when urban–rural boundaries were
over, it has to be assessed whether a part of more self-evident than today. However, the
the defined system has sufficient functional, simplicity of such a diagram can be deceptive:
“systemic,” autonomy to merit defining it as it might in fact concern highly controversial
a subsystem. Subsequently, feedback loops relationships between theoretical phenom-
between systems, subsystems, and the envi- ena. For instance, the abstract categories of
ronment, where change in the state of an “urban and rural adjustment mechanisms”
element prompts further change, can be play an important role in Figure 1. However,
theorized and specified. what an “urban adjustment mechanism”
One of the strengths of systems analy- is and whether it merits an unambiguous
sis is that the hypothesized elements and and uncontroversial application is far from
relationships, although they represent com- self-evident. Constructing a logical model of
plex interactions in social reality, can be the world in theory and depicting it in a clear
depicted in systems diagrams. Figure 1 shows and lucid diagram provides no guarantees
an example of a simple migration system that the world itself adheres to that logic.
Environment
Economic conditions – wages, prices, consumer
preferences, degrees of commercialization
and industrial development
Urbanite
Urban
adjustment
mechanism
Environment Urban Environment

— control —
Social subsystem Technology
welfare —
Urban
— Transportation
subsystem
Education communications
health Positive Negative mechanization
etc. feedback feedback etc.
channels Migration channels
channels
Rural Rural
Potential
control adjustment
migrant
subsystem mechanism
Environment
Governmental policies – agricultural practices,
marketing organization, population movement, etc.
Figure 1 A system schema for a theory of rural–urban migration (redrawn from Mabogunje 1970, 3)
URBA N SYSTEM 5
After constructing a systems model, the city region such as the Pearl River Delta or
subsequent step is empirical systems analysis, the San Francisco Bay area might have its
when the ambition is to test whether the own systematic division of labor based on,
hypothesized system has empirical validity. for instance, inter-firm interactions that yet
Such testing requires operationalizing the defines an even larger scale. Thus, the city or
defined components of the system by con- metropolis obtains a different size and scale
necting it to empirical referents. This is the depending on the phenomenon under study.
likely moment where the controversies sur- A systems perspective entails an under-
rounding “urban adjustment mechanisms” standing of the urban in functional terms:
will become salient, and another family of it is the functional geography, instead of
methodological problems comes into play. the morphological or political geography,
These regard the question of how to deal with of the phenomenon theorized in systems
(internal) validity, as it is important to assert terms that defines the analytical geographical
a degree of scientifically sound correspon- boundaries, although these boundaries tend
dence between what is measured and what is to become fuzzy once they are operational-
theorized. However, discussing these validity ized empirically: exceptions and outliers are
issues is outside the purview of this entry. to be expected. This functional perspective
implies that the geographical outside – that
A MULTIPLEX, MULTISCALAR is, the city/environment or intercity system’s
CONSTELLATION OF URBAN boundary – will differ from urban function
(SUB)SYSTEMS to urban function. Geographies of labor
markets, transport systems, retail systems,
A crucial aspect of entitation in urban sys- institutional boundaries, daily activity spaces,
tems analysis is defining the “systemness” and social communities will all have different
of the phenomenon under study, which geographies and hence different boundaries.
might or might not be spatially articulated. The concrete empirical object we call “city”
However, if the urban system is described is in fact an intersection of many different
in terms of its geography, such geographical interrelated and imbricated urban systems
articulation – for instance, sensitivity to working on different scales, from the neigh-
distance or density – becomes important. borhood to the global scale. Urban systems
Some urban systems work at a very small are inherently multiplex (Burger, Meijers, and
scale. An example of such small-scale urban Van Oort 2014), and complicate the com-
systemness is the innovative local buzz that monsensical notions of the city as a clearly
is associated with knowledge transfer within bounded unit. It is because of this multiplex
cities. This buzz tends to be limited to the reality that urban systems research benefits
science or office park where the knowledge is from taking into account different scales
discussed. Other urban systems, such as the and their interactions simultaneously (Van
urban labor market with its degree of special- Meeteren, Neal, and Derudder 2016).
ization, might be restricted to the commuting There is a long tradition in urban systems
zone, which corresponds with the daily urban research that operationalizes multiscalar
system of a particular place. A central place analysis in a nested fashion, by studying
system supersedes the daily urban system and “cities as systems in a system of cities” (Berry
therefore pertains to a larger regional scale, 1964). Although geographical scales are
as many specialized central functions are not necessarily nested and can overlap and
procured on a less than daily basis. A global intermingle in far more complex ways, this
6 URBA N SYSTE M
nested conception has the big advantage that was able to understand the respective contri-
it allows utilizing (social) network analysis to butions and benefits of single cities contribut-
analyze urban systems. When we can safely ing to that larger urban system.
assume that the city is a bounded unit, or a An important aspect of Pred’s work was
node, for analytical reasons, we can examine that he contextualized his urban systems
the interactions between cities more easily models historically, allowing him to iden-
through the lens of “urban networks” (Van tify path dependencies of urbanization,
Meeteren, Neal, and Derudder 2016). This where historically grown advantages impact
network conceptualization, in turn, allows for new rounds of urbanization in the future.
detailed analysis of the division of labor and Additionally, he had a keen theoretical and
the flows of goods, people, and information empirical interest in understanding how the
between places. process of urbanization changes through
time. For each different era of urbanization
in the United States, such as the “mercantile
AN EXAMPLE OF URBAN SYSTEMS
era,” the “early industrial era,” and the “late
ANALYSIS: ALLAN PRED’S HISTORICAL
industrial era,” Pred’s urban systems model
MODELS OF THE US URBAN SYSTEM
was adapted to cope with the technological
advance that had emerged between the eras.
To illustrate the usefulness of an urban sys-
Figure 2 reproduces a subsystem of Allan
tems approach, this section will discuss the
Pred’s urban systems model, which was
work of geographer Allan Pred (1936–2007)
first introduced in an article in Geograph-
on US urban systems. In a series of articles
ical Review in 1965 (Pred 1965, 165). The
and books published in the 1960s and 1970s
mechanism depicted in Figure 2 featured
(e.g., Pred 1965, 1973, 1977), Pred tried to
as part of his more elaborate models that
grasp the genesis, historical development,
describe specific epochs (e.g., Pred 1973,
and functioning of the system of cities in
192; 1977, 90, 175), where it had the role of a
the United States. Pred did not concern
subsystem amid other urbanization dynamics
himself too much with the boundary prob-
such as real estate development, trade, and
lem of city demarcation discussed above,
profit repatriation through the networks of
and used a definition of city systems that
corporations.
did not problematize the fuzziness of the
The central process that the urban sys-
intraurban/interurban distinction. For Pred,
tems model in Figure 2 describes are the
a system of cities is a economic-geographic consequences of a new
national or regional set of cities which are inter- or enlarged industry on an urban economy.
dependent in such a way that any significant The driving force of this process is “circular
change in the economic activities, occupational and cumulative causation,” theorized by
structure, total income or population of one Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal (1957),
member city will directly or indirectly bring which refers to a feedback effect: once an
about some modification in the economic activ- urban economy is growing, it is likely to start
ities, occupational structure, total income or
a self-reinforcing growth spiral, increasing a
population of one or more other set members.
(1977, 13) city’s dominance over the rest of the interur-
ban system. Much urban-economic research,
By analyzing the evolution of communication from the 1960s all the way to the present,
systems, trade flows, occupations, and orga- can be characterized as a search to identify
nizational networks in the United States, Pred mechanisms that trigger, change, and stop
URBA N SYSTEM 7
New or enlarged
industry
Enhanced possibility
Multiplier effect of invention
or innovation
New local or
regional
threshold
Invention
or
innovation
Figure 2 The circular and cumulative process of industrialization and urban-size growth (redrawn from
Pred 1965, 165)
this self-reinforcing feedback loop of urban These new inventions become innovations
growth. once they find an economically viable use,
The relations depicted in Figure 2 describe which becomes again more plausible when
two cyclical feedback mechanisms that intend local demand is high. Demand, in turn, is
to explain the process of circular and cumu- positively influenced by a higher urban crit-
lative causation. The first cyclical feedback ical mass. Together with multiplier effects
mechanism works through the multiplier that might make new activities economically
effect. This multiplier effect results from new viable, innovations can stimulate new or
factories and their laborers, who create new enlarged industries, which again drive the
local demand for amenities, transportation, circular and cumulative process of urbaniza-
construction, and other services, leading to tion. A later version of the model (depicted
increased urbanization. As new thresholds in Pred 1973, 192) also claims that, through
are met in the city, new amenities and indus- demarcation of an additional subsystem,
tries become economically viable, which in this circular and cumulative growth of the
turn create new possibilities for an individual economic base of cities may enhance the
city to proliferate itself in the wider urban accumulation of local earnings and capital,
system. The second feedback loop depicts which subsequently can drive real estate
the transformative potential of the urban and construction booms. This enhanced
system through innovation and knowledge accumulation (Pred 1977, 90) can give rise
circulation. Pred was a pioneer in defining to a secondary multiplier, which effectively
this loop, which has only become more creates a third feedback loop of circular and
important for urban and regional economic cumulative causation.
geographers since. As a city becomes a more Central in Pred’s models of urban sys-
diverse and bustling place, the chance that tems is the notion that cities are part of
new inventions are developed increases. larger trading, industrial, and corporate
8 URBA N SYSTE M
networks. It is the division of labor between positive and negative feedback loops ought to
cities in these networks that explains the be weighed against one another, his research
development of the urban system as a whole, does raise the question whether having better
impinging on the constituent cities. Crucially, connections to the rest of the urban system is
the relative importance of these respective beneficial by default. In this sense, Pred’s later
networks changes over time. For instance, urban systems models have similarities with
Pred’s mercantile model (Pred 1973, 192), colonial development models that explain
valid for urban development in the USA global geographical exploitation in terms of
between 1790 and 1840 when urban indus- center–periphery relations. World city theory
trial activity was still limited, explains urban (Taylor and Derudder 2016) has been devel-
systems development in the USA primarily oped through the cross-fertilization between
through the position of cities in country- urban and world-systems research and shows
wide trading networks. Models about later many continuities with ideas already present
periods progressively include the influence in Pred’s models.
of industrial employment and local demand. Nevertheless, Pred’s “advanced” econ-
As technology made intercity interactions omy urban system is already 40 years old
progressively easier, the relative weight of the and some assumptions of the model seem
components in Pred’s urban systems models dated, and therefore inadequate to under-
gradually changed. With the passing of time, stand the present. While the multilocational
Pred considered the geography of informa- corporations dominating the model are
tion, knowledge, and innovation diffusion still very important in the contemporary
throughout the city system increasingly economy, they have profoundly changed
important compared to the emphasis on the in organizational and geographic scope,
production and trade of tangible goods that prompting revision of Pred’s model if used
are center stage in his models about earlier today. In many instances, the multilocational
rounds of development of the US economy. corporation has become a global transna-
The latest model of urban systems that tional corporation, bringing new geographic
Pred (1977) elaborated concerns “advanced scales into view. Additionally, the geogra-
economies.” The notion of “advanced” refers phy of knowledge diffusion throughout the
to the state of the economy in the mid- networks of transnational corporations is
to late twentieth century, when American likely to be influenced by the knowledge
monopoly capitalism was at its zenith, and geographies and virtualization produced by
the recent round of globalization had not yet the Internet. Although many scholars have
taken off. The influence of US multilocational argued for the continuing importance of
corporations (e.g., General Motors) is central localized interactions for knowledge diffu-
to this analysis. Pred’s advanced economy sion, a contemporary model would need
model emphasizes the “parasitic” potential of to accommodate many more contingencies
intercity interactions. Profits can seep away related to “network-type” organizations and
through the networks of multibranch corpo- looser organizational forms associated with
rations that will decrease the local multipliers knowledge transfer. Moreover, not all knowl-
associated with those profits. In return, new edge is so sticky that it can only be processed
knowledge and technology might become in the city, as many forms of specialized
available in the urban region that would not knowledge are shared in virtual communities.
be available otherwise. While Pred made no Another time-bound aspect of Pred’s mod-
decisive judgment about to what extent these els is that he uncritically accepted the notion
URBA N SYSTEM 9
of a “national urban system,” as did most information and material interactions that
authors at that time (Bourne and Simmons are central to the economic intercity model
1978). Cities (as a subsystem) are nested in the pioneered by Pred. Through an empirical
geography of a country (the system), which reconstruction of these firm networks out-
interacts with the rest of the world (the envi- side the purview of state-based stat(e)istics,
ronment). As the world economy has become estimations on the division of labor between
much more integrated transnationally since cities on a world scale can be derived, while
the 1970s, such a notion of a national econ- circumventing the problem of methodolog-
omy with its distinctive national urban ical nationalism. However, recalibrating a
system becomes analytically less and less systems model to take some identified short-
useful for understanding today’s urban sys- comings into account can result in losing
tems. Moreover, the risks of a methodological analytical precision on other aspects of the
nationalism that veils transnational interac- system. For instance, Pred’s models intended
tions loom large (Taylor and Derudder 2016). to comprehensively grasp the economic inter-
However, even today, the national boundary action between a focal city and the national
expresses important institutional boundaries system of cities that the focal city is embedded
(e.g., tax regimes, legal systems, languages) in. This comprehensiveness is exemplified
that systematically influence urban systems. by his specification of the local versus the
Thus, although a national perspective might extralocal dimensions of the model and their
be more limiting than it was in the 1970s, respective influences on multiplier effects,
it should nevertheless not be neglected. Of leakage of profits, local unemployment, and
course, there was also another reason why real estate development. In its ambition to
national boundaries were convenient for circumvent the national bias and provide
authors such as Pred: states produce national global coverage compared to older research
statistics that allow for empirical estimations such as Pred’s, the IWCN model has had
and testing of urban systems models. to compromise. The focus on APS enables
data analysis on a global scale but does not
THE WORLD CITY NETWORK AS AN allow definite inferences on APS relations
INHERITOR OF PRED’S URBAN with other sectors. Thus, the IWCN model
SYSTEMS MODEL attains geographical comprehensiveness at
the expense of functional comprehensiveness.
Research on the world city network through
the Interlocking World City Network CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
(IWCN) model (Taylor and Derudder 2016)
is a contemporary version of an intercity Statistician George E. P Box (1979, 2)
urban systems analysis that shows much famously remarked that “all models are
commonality with Allan Pred’s approach. wrong, but some models are useful.” This
Simultaneously, the IWCN model attempts statement definitely applies to urban systems
to overcome some of the conceptual limits and related models. Box argues that the
associated with Pred’s nationally focused question of a model of a phenomenon being
urban systems analyses. “true” is largely moot: because any model is
The core assumption of the IWCN a simplification of social reality, it necessarily
urban systems model is that the global net- does not correspond to that reality and thus,
works of Advanced Producer Service (APS) by definition, is not “true” in the metaphysical
providers are a contemporary indicator of the sense. However, what is important is whether
10 U RBA N SYSTE M
a model of the world is able to adequately David Bassens for constructive feedback on
contribute to describing, analyzing, and per- earlier drafts.
haps even explaining the phenomena that
SEE ALSO: Central Place Analysis; Daily
somebody is interested in studying. Rightful
Mobility; Global City-Region; World City
criticism of the urban systems model can, like
the criticism leveled at it in the 1970s, take
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT lation of Information: The United States System
of Cities 1790–1840. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
This work draws upon research conducted at University Press.
Ghent University between 2012 and 2016. The Pred, Allan R. 1977. City-Systems in Advanced
author would like to thank Ben Derudder and Economies. London: Hutchinson.
URBAN SYSTEM 11
Taylor, Peter J., and Ben Derudder. 2016. World Johnston, Ronald J. 1984. City and Society: An
City Network, 2nd ed. London: Routledge. Outline for Urban Geography, rev. ed. London:
Van Meeteren, Michiel. 2016. “From Polycentricity Hutchinson.
to a Renovated Urban Systems Theory: Explain- Van Meeteren, Michiel, and David Bassens. 2016.
ing Belgian Settlement Geographies.” PhD dis- “World Cities and the Uneven Geographies
sertation, Ghent University. of Financialization: Unveiling Stratification and
Van Meeteren, Michiel, Zachary P. Neal, and Ben Hierarchy in the World City Archipelago.” Inter-
Derudder. 2016. “Disentangling Agglomeration national Journal of Urban and Regional Research,
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ogy.” Papers in Regional Science, 95: 61–81. Walker, Richard A. 2015. “The City and Economic
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FURTHER READING ger: Culture and Power in the Everyday, edited by
Heather Merrill and Lisa M. Hoffman, 135–151.
Batty, Michael. 2013. The New Science of Cities. Athens: Georgia University Press.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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10.1002/9781118568446.eurs0400, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118568446.eurs0400 by Consorci De Serveis Universitaris De Catalunya, Wiley Online Library on [10/01/2023].

as provisionary, for unexpected interactions might be more appropriate. Good candidates

and to examine what the (hypothesized) as it was hypothesized in the 1960s/early

Environment Urban Environment

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