The global cities of Sub-Saharan Africa: Fact or fiction?

Are advanced producer services connectors for regional economies? An exploration of the geographies of advanced producer service procurement in Belgium

“…In addition to empirical analyses of the WCN per se (e.g., Taylor et al, 2002b), the GaWC approach has also been implemented to analyse regional urban networks (Hall and Pain, 2006;Hoyler et al, 2008;Taylor et al, 2009b) and for studying how regions are integrated in the global economy via the WCN (e.g., Taylor, 2001c;van der Merwe, 2004;Brown et al, 2010). The present paper seeks to extend both lines of research by focusing on the regional geographies of APS procurement in a densely urbanized region.…”

Megacities without global functions

“…Important financial places, business centers and rich enclaves appear in a number of "poor" megacities. Even in Africa, some cities are going to gain an international dimension ( Van der Merwe, 2003).…”

Place and Function of African Cities in the Global Urban Network: Exploring the Matters Arising

“…Apart from being the least urbanised regions of the world (UNCHS 2001), Africa is also the continent with the least evidence of global or world city formation (Taylor 1997;van der Merwe 2004). This poor performance is attributable to both the assessed weak city development scores (UNCHS 2001) and the continent's marginal stake/role in international trade and foreign direct investment portfolio (Ajayi 2001;Kiggundu 2002).…”

“…This new network perspective signifies that cities (and indeed, smaller towns) in both the developing and developed regions of the world are economically, politically and culturally connected and, as such, development in any one of them cannot be fully explained without ample reference to the others (King 1990;Robinson 2002). van der Merwe (2004) has also affirmed the rationale and value of this modified 'world city' perspective which encompasses cities and minor towns, even in backwater regions of the world! He argues that:…”