The city as maximization of interactions: the role of networks’ local density in the position of cities in globalization

Cities include locally dense and diversified networks, through their interactions. Both networks destroy by competing selection and they are mutually reinforcing and are determining new networks (PFLIEGER and Rozenblat, 2010). These local networks are also involved in macro-geographical level, mutual reinforcing of their overall radiation to other cities. Doreen MASSEY clearly expressed to London: “the local is not only the product of the global, but that global itself is produced in local places” (2006, p.107). Therefore the reticular process operating within cities is directly related to city type of centrality at intercity level, formalizing on large samples the vision of “local buzz, global pipelines” proposed by Bathelt et al. (2004).
This is what we propose to do by confronting the way international business networks develop at the meso level within the cities and at the macro level, between cities. Thus, we will explore the interrelationship between these two levels wondering about the processes promoting local densification of multinational corporate networks in cities and their implications for the role and position of these cities in global networks. This approach will be nourished by the empirical study of the first 3,000 multinational firms’ networks in 2013, encompassing more than 800,000 companies in the world’s cities connected by 1.2 million ownership links.