Conceptualising and Mapping the Structure of the World System’s City System

Urban Studies, Vol. 32, No. 2, 1995 287±302

Conceptualising and Mapping the Structure of the World System’ s City System

David A. Smith and Michael Timberlake

Summary. For the past 20 years, researc hes using the lens of world system theory (and other
global political economy perspectives) have come to a better understanding of many of the
anomalies in urbanisation patterns across more and less developed countries that had befuddled
researc hers whose assumptions left out global sources of social change. Recently this line of
researc h has moved beyond regard ing cities as mere objects of global forces, also theorising about
their importance as lynchpins in the spatial organisation of the world economy. In this paper we
review some of the scholarship that emphasises large cities’ roles as important modes of
production, consumption, exchange and control at the global level; we develop the argument that
systematic linkagesÐ economic, cultural, political or social-r elation alÐ among global cities are
likely to reveal the spatial organisation of the world-system; we review our position that formal
network analysis provides a most promising methodological framework for analysing and
mapping global intercity linkages; and we present a map of the current world city system based
on our network anaIysis of recent air travel among many of the world’s great cities. We point
out that our analysis is very preliminary and provides only a rough chart of the world city system
at one point in time, and the data requirements for more detailed world city system maps for
several periods of time are imposing, to say the least. Nevertheless, such a project holds the
promise of revealin g much about the spatial structure of our world system, how it has changed;
how it is likely to change in the future; and how cities’ populations are affected by these changes.
Completing the project will probably require collaboration among research ers in different
countries