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The role of cities in the global economy has been studied extensively for the specific case of advanced producer services. Only recently, studies started to broaden the analytical lens and explore the role of cities in 'multiple globalizations' by adding insights from other industries. Apart from showing that different World City Networks (WCNs) are characterized by differing spatial configurations, these studies are incapable of explaining why cities have been articulated into a particular WCN. Building on a case study of Singapore and Jakarta in the WCN of the upstream oil and gas industry, the study demonstrates the potential gained by adding flesh to the study of cities in 'multiple globalizations' through qualitative insights. The findings reveal how very different state roles have contributed to the shape of this particular WCN. The paper thereby illustrates how this recent field of research on cities in 'multiple globalizations' may advance beyond the mere description of city network structures.

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The Global Production Network (GPN) approach has not yet considered the importance of territorial intermediaries for strategic coupling. This article demonstrates how the prospects of strategic coupling for the case of Vietnam and Indonesia with the oil and gas GPN are affected by the gateway role of Singapore. Based on interviews, the analysis reveals how Singapore influences regional economic development along the GPN through different filtering mechanisms, limiting the potential for strategic coupling for Vietnam and Indonesia. For GPN research, the identified filtering mechanisms illustrate how the territoriality of GPNs contributes to differentiated territorial outcomes. The findings therefore indicate the need to intensify the appreciation of the particular territorial configuration of GPNs as this yields considerable explanatory power for understanding the unequal contours of the global economy.

The article, thereby, aims to contribute to the burgeoning research strand on new path creation by bringing the debate a step closer to the major point of concern, regional economic development.We demonstrate the use of the framework to understand how new path creation may affect existing economic activities and how this relates to the overall goal of promoting regional economic development in an illustrative case study of the Zambezi region in northeastern Namibia. The Zambezi region, as we will show, is a suitable example to study the effects of new path creation on existing economic structures. Historically, the region relied on agriculture as the main livelihood activity. Since the 1990s, different resource formation processes have contributed to the creation of a tourism path. We analyze this formation process of the tourism path and its influence on the existing agricultural path. The findings highlight that new path development cannot be interpreted as a growth path for the entire region. The formation of the tourism path has generated variegated outcomes within the region, with benefits and losses unevenly distributed among firms and people.

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Although it has been argued that current configurations of extractive industries provide opportunities for developing production linkages, in other words, that “one thing leads to another”, these opportunities are not necessarily realised directly in the resource‐holding countries. This article aims to explain why the greater opportunities for creating increased production linkages may remain unrealised. While existing research on production linkages is characterised by a national scale mode of analysis, this article examines production linkages in the resource‐poor gateway city of Singapore that are intended to serve oil and gas operations at the macro‐regional level in Indonesia and Vietnam. The results reveal that a significant depth and breadth of production linkages have unfolded in Singapore, highlighting that in particular sophisticated production linkages tend to have a broader geographic scope. Moreover, the analysis identifies factors that have shifted the territorial scale of labour‐intensive and low‐technology production linkages from a macro‐regional towards a national or subnational level, to the advantage of the resource‐holding countries. These insights add some complexity to the study of production‐linkage development and emphasise the need for a multi‐scalar perspective that does not stop at national borders.