IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/netspa/v18y2018i3d10.1007_s11067-018-9410-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Evolution of the Systems of Cities Literature Since 1995: Schools of Thought and their Interaction

Author

Listed:
  • Antoine Peris

    (Delft University of Technology)

  • Evert Meijers

    (Delft University of Technology)

  • Maarten Ham

    (Delft University of Technology
    University of St Andrews)

Abstract

The study of relations between cities has long been a major focus in urban research. For decades, this field has grown integrating contributions from many disciplines. But today, the field appears rather fragmented. This study analyses the body of literature that has developed over the last 23 years to identify schools of thought on interurban relationships and to see to what extent these interact with each other. It does so by innovatively employing bibliometric analysis to the study of systems of cities, which allows a bottom-up identification of five schools of thought: one predominantly focusing on the regional or intra-metropolitan scale and centred on concepts of polycentricity; one addressing the global scale with a focus on world city networks; one employing simulation and complexity theories to understand behaviour of agents building the urban system bottom-up; one rooted in (new) economic geography and focusing on growth and decline in the urban system; and, one seeking regularities with respect to city size distributions. The conceptual, methodological and empirical aspects of these different schools are discussed by means of a ‘semantic map’ derived from the vocabulary of titles and abstracts of papers. The coupling of the semantic map with the citation networks of these schools of thought confirms the increasing fragmentation of the field over the last decades. However, in the most recent years, the different schools of thought start to interact slightly more. The desirability and feasibility of a move from multidisciplinarity to interdisciplinarity in urban systems research needs further exploration.

Suggested Citation

  • Antoine Peris & Evert Meijers & Maarten Ham, 2018. "The Evolution of the Systems of Cities Literature Since 1995: Schools of Thought and their Interaction," Networks and Spatial Economics, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 533-554, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:netspa:v:18:y:2018:i:3:d:10.1007_s11067-018-9410-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s11067-018-9410-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11067-018-9410-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11067-018-9410-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert C. Kloosterman & Sako Musterd, 2001. "The Polycentric Urban Region: Towards a Research Agenda," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 38(4), pages 623-633, April.
    2. Bastiaan De Goei & Martijn Burger & Frank Van Oort & Michael Kitson, 2010. "Functional Polycentrism and Urban Network Development in the Greater South East, United Kingdom: Evidence from Commuting Patterns, 1981-2001," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(9), pages 1149-1170.
    3. Evert Meijers, 2007. "From Central Place To Network Model: Theory And Evidence Of A Paradigm Change," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 98(2), pages 245-259, April.
    4. Roberta Capello, 2000. "The City Network Paradigm: Measuring Urban Network Externalities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 37(11), pages 1925-1945, October.
    5. Diana Hicks, 1999. "The difficulty of achieving full coverage of international social science literature and the bibliometric consequences," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 44(2), pages 193-215, February.
    6. Antonin Bergeaud & Yoann Potiron & Juste Raimbault, 2017. "Classifying patents based on their semantic content," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(4), pages 1-22, April.
    7. Brian J. L. Berry, 1964. "Cities As Systems Within Systems Of Cities," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(1), pages 147-163, January.
    8. Ludo Waltman & Nees Jan van Eck, 2012. "A new methodology for constructing a publication‐level classification system of science," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(12), pages 2378-2392, December.
    9. Géraldine Pflieger & Céline Rozenblat, 2010. "Introduction. Urban Networks and Network Theory: The City as the Connector of Multiple Networks," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 47(13), pages 2723-2735, November.
    10. Michel Zitt, 2015. "Meso-level retrieval: IR-bibliometrics interplay and hybrid citation-words methods in scientific fields delineation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(3), pages 2223-2245, March.
    11. Loet Leydesdorff & Ping Zhou, 2007. "Nanotechnology as a field of science: Its delineation in terms of journals and patents," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 70(3), pages 693-713, March.
    12. John B. Parr, 2014. "The Regional Economy, Spatial Structure and Regional Urban Systems," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(12), pages 1926-1938, December.
    13. Anne Bretagnolle & Denise Pumain, 2010. "Simulating Urban Networks through Multiscalar Space-Time Dynamics: Europe and the United States, 17th-20th Centuries," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 47(13), pages 2819-2839, November.
    14. Zao Liu, 2005. "Visualizing the intellectual structure in urban studies: A journal co-citation analysis (1992-2002)," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 62(3), pages 385-402, March.
    15. John Parr, 2004. "The Polycentric Urban Region: A Closer Inspection," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(3), pages 231-240.
    16. Ludo Waltman & Nees Jan Eck, 2012. "A new methodology for constructing a publication-level classification system of science," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(12), pages 2378-2392, December.
    17. Vapnarsky, Cesar A, 1969. "On Rank-Size Distributions of Cities: An Ecological Approach," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(4), pages 584-595, July.
    18. Martijn J. Burger & Bert van der Knaap & Ronald S. Wall, 2014. "Polycentricity and the Multiplexity of Urban Networks," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(4), pages 816-840, April.
    19. Fujita, Masahisa & Krugman, Paul & Mori, Tomoya, 1999. "On the evolution of hierarchical urban systems1," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 209-251, February.
    20. David Chavalarias & Jean-Philippe Cointet, 2013. "Phylomemetic Patterns in Science Evolution—The Rise and Fall of Scientific Fields," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(2), pages 1-11, February.
    21. Simin Davoudi, 2003. "EUROPEAN BRIEFING: Polycentricity in European spatial planning: from an analytical tool to a normative agenda," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(8), pages 979-999, December.
    22. Anne Bretagnolle & Alain Franc, 2017. "Emergence of an integrated city-system in France (XVIIth–XIXth centuries): Evidence from toolset in graph theory," Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(1), pages 49-65, January.
    23. L Sanders & D Pumain & H Mathian & F Guérin-Pace & S Bura, 1997. "SIMPOP: A Multiagent System for the Study of Urbanism," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 24(2), pages 287-305, April.
    24. Waltman, Ludo & van Eck, Nees Jan & Noyons, Ed C.M., 2010. "A unified approach to mapping and clustering of bibliometric networks," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(4), pages 629-635.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Derudder, Ben & Liu, Xingjian & Hong, Song & Ruan, Shuhe & Wang, Yifei & Witlox, Frank, 2019. "The shifting position of the Journal of Transport Geography in ‘transport geography research’: A bibliometric analysis," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    2. Denise Pumain & Juste Raimbault, 2020. "Conclusion: Perspectives on Urban Theories," Post-Print halshs-02430512, HAL.
    3. César Ducruet & Hidekazu Itoh & Justin Berli, 2020. "Urban gravity in the global container shipping network," Post-Print halshs-02588449, HAL.
    4. Christophe Sohn & Julien Licheron & Evert Meijers, 2022. "Border cities: Out of the shadow," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 101(2), pages 417-438, April.
    5. Ben Derudder & Zachary Neal, 2018. "Uncovering Links Between Urban Studies and Network Science," Networks and Spatial Economics, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 441-446, September.
    6. Ben Derudder, 2021. "Network Analysis of ‘Urban Systems’: Potential, Challenges, and Pitfalls," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 112(4), pages 404-420, September.
    7. Shi, Yuji & Blainey, Simon & Sun, Chao & Jing, Peng, 2020. "A literature review on accessibility using bibliometric analysis techniques," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Weiyang Zhang & Ben Derudder, 2019. "How sensitive are measures of polycentricity to the choice of ‘centres’? A methodological and empirical exploration," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(16), pages 3339-3357, December.
    2. Kyusang Kwon & Minho Seo, 2018. "Does the Polycentric Urban Region Contribute to Economic Performance? The Case of Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-10, November.
    3. David Burgalassi & Chiara Agnoletti & Leonardo Piccini, 2019. "Polycentricity and regional development: an analytical framework and some evidence from Italy," Discussion Papers 2019/249, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    4. Martijn Burger & Evert Meijers, 2012. "Form Follows Function? Linking Morphological and Functional Polycentricity," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(5), pages 1127-1149, April.
    5. Martijn J. Burger & Evert J. Meijers & Marloes M. Hoogerbrugge & Jaume Masip Tresserra, 2015. "Borrowed Size, Agglomeration Shadows and Cultural Amenities in North-West Europe," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(6), pages 1090-1109, June.
    6. Colin Jones, 2017. "Spatial economy and the geography of functional economic areas," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 44(3), pages 486-503, May.
    7. Jiří Malý & Marek Lichter & Tomáš Krejčí, 2024. "The elusive role of urban form, centrality and scale in the absence of a metropolitan planning agenda: Central European perspective," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), March.
    8. Frank van Oort & Martijn Burger & Otto Raspe, 2010. "On the Economic Foundation of the Urban Network Paradigm: Spatial Integration, Functional Integration and Economic Complementarities within the Dutch Randstad," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 47(4), pages 725-748, April.
    9. Angelika Münter & Kati Volgmann, 2021. "Polycentric regions: Proposals for a new typology and terminology," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(4), pages 677-695, March.
    10. Evert Meijers, 2008. "Summing Small Cities Does Not Make a Large City: Polycentric Urban Regions and the Provision of Cultural, Leisure and Sports Amenities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 45(11), pages 2323-2342, October.
    11. Muñoz-Écija, Teresa & Vargas-Quesada, Benjamín & Chinchilla Rodríguez, Zaida, 2019. "Coping with methods for delineating emerging fields: Nanoscience and nanotechnology as a case study," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4).
    12. de Goei, B. & Burger, M.J. & van Oort, F.G. & Kitson, M., 2009. "Functional Polycentrism and Urban Network Development in the Greater South East UK: Evidence from Commuting Patterns, 1981-2001," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2009-038-ORG, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    13. Ducruet, César & Cuyala, Sylvain & El Hosni, Ali, 2018. "Maritime networks as systems of cities: The long-term interdependencies between global shipping flows and urban development (1890–2010)," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 340-355.
    14. Yanto Chandra, 2018. "Mapping the evolution of entrepreneurship as a field of research (1990–2013): A scientometric analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(1), pages 1-24, January.
    15. María Pinto & Rosaura Fernández-Pascual & David Caballero-Mariscal & Dora Sales, 2020. "Information literacy trends in higher education (2006–2019): visualizing the emerging field of mobile information literacy," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(2), pages 1479-1510, August.
    16. Lin Zhang & Beibei Sun & Fei Shu & Ying Huang, 2022. "Comparing paper level classifications across different methods and systems: an investigation of Nature publications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(12), pages 7633-7651, December.
    17. Jielan Ding & Per Ahlgren & Liying Yang & Ting Yue, 2018. "Disciplinary structures in Nature, Science and PNAS: journal and country levels," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(3), pages 1817-1852, September.
    18. Michel Zitt, 2015. "Meso-level retrieval: IR-bibliometrics interplay and hybrid citation-words methods in scientific fields delineation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(3), pages 2223-2245, March.
    19. Carusi, Chiara & Bianchi, Giuseppe, 2019. "Scientific community detection via bipartite scholar/journal graph co-clustering," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 354-386.
    20. Wen Chen & Komali Yenneti & Yehua Dennis Wei & Feng Yuan & Jiawei Wu & Jinlong Gao, 2019. "Polycentricity in the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration (YRDUA): More Cohesion or More Disparities?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-18, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:netspa:v:18:y:2018:i:3:d:10.1007_s11067-018-9410-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.