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Titre City networks in the Lombardy region: an analysis in terms of communication flows
Auteur Lidia Diappi, Stefano Stabilini, Roberto Camagni
Mir@bel Revue Flux
Numéro no 15, janvier-mars 1994
Page 37-50
Résumé anglais In this paper, it is shown how the logic that shapes the city-system is more complicated than the simple "territorial" and hierarchical logic of the traditional central-place model. The control of the market of outputs, inputs and innovative assets is performed by the firm, not only in terms of management of a gravity area, but also and increasingly in terms of network relationships. The new behavioural logic of the firm parallels and partly determines the new organisational logic of the city system, where phenomena of specialisation and networking also appear. Probability of interaction among cities may go far beyond what is expected on the basis of their size and distance. High density of information flows on a proximity basis, as for those taking place within specialised industrial "districts"; cooperation and spatial division of labour among specialised centres; and synergy among similarly specialised centres linked through high- performance information networks, are all elements calling for selected non-hierarchical linkages among centres, which we call "city networks". In the empirical realm of the Lombardy region, network relations among centres were discovered, mainly showing up in two specific spatial contexts: within the metropolitan area of Milan, shaping its emerging policentric structure; and within sub-regional industrial districts. In the first case, the empirical evidence suggests the existence of "synergy networks," occurring among similar centres performing headquarter and advanced production-services functions; in the second case, mainly "complementarity networks" and "milieu" type of interactions are revealed.
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