Are larger cities more central in urban networks: A meta-analysis

Abstract

As cities develop more and longer-range external relations, some have challenged the long-standing notion that population size indicates a city's power in its urban system. Instead, they contend that cities' centrality within urban networks provides a better indicator of power. But are city population size and city network centrality really independent properties in practice, or do larger cities tend to be more central in urban networks? To answer this question, we conducted a systematic literature search and performed meta-analysis on 36 reported correlations between city size and degree centrality. The results show that population size and degree centrality are significantly and positively correlated for cities across various urban systems (r=0.75), but the correlation varies by network scale and type. The size-centrality association is weaker for global economic and transportation networks (r = 0.43), and stronger for non-global social and communication networks (r = 0.92). The findings suggest that while city size and centrality may become decoupled at the global scale, size and centrality are closely associated at the regional and national scales, thereby clarifying seemingly contradictory predictions in the literature regarding the association between size and centrality for cities.

A centrality measure for grid street network considering sequential route choice behaviour

“…In the context of urban planning research, centrality measurements have revealed differences between planned and self-organised city structures (Crucitti et al, 2006). Several studies have evaluated the correlation of centrality to land use, density, and population size (Porta et al, 2009; Li and Neal, 2022; Wang et al, 2011). These results suggest that centrality represents urban formation and constitution and is a good way to determine the advantageous location of land and its use.…”

Mapping policy pathways: Urban referencing networks in public art policies

“…Urban network studies highlight overlapping hierarchies that vary depending on the type of relationships involved, and often aim to understand the processes that generate particular network configurations among cities. A key task is to identify the most central nodes that dominate the flow of content within the network (Li and Neal, 2022). The centrality of such nodes can be measured in several ways, each highlighting different qualities: Degree counts the number of connections with other cities; Closeness measures the proximity to other cities; Betweenness evaluates the amount of times in which cities operate as links to other cities; and Authority assesses the connections to other important nodes.…”