Taylor_etal2000.pdf (237.9 kB)
World cities in the Pacific Rim: a new global test of regional coherence
journal contribution
posted on 2013-07-17, 09:34 authored by Peter J. Taylor, M.A. Doel, Michael HoylerMichael Hoyler, David R.F. Walker, Jonathan V. BeaverstockA new evaluation of the Pacific Rim concept is presented. The originality of this test for
regional coherence is to be found in the basic units being analysed: cities instead of states.
Based on a theoretical framework that identifies world city and world city network formation
in terms of the office networks of advanced producer service firms, we use a principal
components analysis to analyse a data set of 28 Pacific Rim cities and 46 global service
firms. This identifies five main groupings of cities in terms of similar mixes of corporate
service firms: a western Rim group; a group of ‘old Commonwealth’ cities; a market
communist group of cities; Tokyo as a global city; and US cities as a specific separate group.
These results confirm the numerous earlier studies that were sceptical of the existence of a
coherent Pacific Rim region. However, the particular approach adopted here allows us to
identify the Pacific Rim generically as a particularly pernicious construct. We conclude that
the Pacific Rim is a geographical chaotic conception.
Funding
The authors acknowledge the support of the ESRC for this research: the data derived from project R000222050 and the ideas for the application from project R000222693.
History
School
- Social Sciences
Department
- Geography and Environment
Citation
TAYLOR, P.J. ... et al, 2000. World cities in the Pacific Rim: a new global test of regional coherence. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 21 (3), pp.233-245.Publisher
© Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, and Blackwell Publishers LtdVersion
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publication date
2000Notes
The definitive version is available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/ISSN
0129-7619Publisher version
Language
- en