Revisiting gateway cities: connecting hubs in global networks to their hinterlands

Spatial Differentiation of Variegated Capitalisms: A Comparative Analysis of Russian and Australian Oil and Gas Corporate City Networks

“…Research on contemporary energy networks demonstrates how economic activities are globally interlinked through energy hub cities in some countries (Aberdeen, Calgary, Cape Town, Houston, Stavanger, Tripoli), while national capitals (Accra, Beijing, Buenos Aires, Jakarta, Moscow) feature prominently in others (Toly et al 2012;Breul 2019;Scholvin, Breul, and Diez 2019). Sectoral city network patterns reflect energy firm locational strategies shaped by needs of firms to hold a physical presence in upstream, midstream, or downstream processes, global limitations and national remit.…”

Integration and Isolation in the Global Petrochemical Industry: A Multiscalar Corporate Network Analysis

“…Another recent development, building on the idea of multiple globalizations, is the attempt to integrate the world city network with global production networks in regionalizations of specific industries (Brown et al 2010). The main idea is that specific gateway cities connect regional hinterlands to the global flows of the world city network through the initial (upstream) segments of global production networks (Breul and Diez 2018;Scholvin, Breul, and Diez 2019). Finally, THOFCs have also recently been identified as a specific kind of nodes in global firm networks.…”

“…From the first field, we incorporate ideas on the resilience of the Atlantic ruling class (van der Pijl 1984;Heemskerk, Fennema, and Carroll 2016), the isolation of Asian and emerging economies' corporate elites (Carroll 2009), the role of policy-planning institutes as integrative nodes for corporate elites to exert influence in political domains (Carroll and Sapinski 2010), and the opening up of social corporate network research toward other forms of interlocks such as joint ventures (de Graaff 2011). From world city network analysis, we borrow ideas on multiple globalizations (Sigler and Martinus 2016), gateway cities (Scholvin, Breul, and Diez 2019) and the importance of tax havens and offshore financial centers (THOFCs) in company networks (Sigler et al 2020).…”

Logistical geographies

“…He argues that a port's attraction to global shipping lines depends on factors extending well beyond infrastructure provision to encompass regulatory frameworks, network integration, place marketing, labour relations and political climate (see also Jacobs & Lagendijk, 2014). There is also a path dependency to these relations; as Scholvin, Breul, and Revilla Diez (2019) show, the development of certain cities as “gateway cities” or hubs can serve to preclude the subsequent development of logistical infrastructure in other cities in the same region. In response to such uncertainty, cities may choose to work together on infrastructure projects, though again the outcomes are highly contingent.…”