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Open research questions in Global Urban Networks and Dynamics

37 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 1,370 Global Urban Networks and Dynamics papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.

What the literature leaves open

  • Abstract Public procurement in cities is one of the most exciting and under-studied governmental processes, offering an interesting angle into the real state of globalization in cities, the political and bureaucratic battle for the identity of government in connected markets and provides an indication of the intention of city governments to work in a globalized or de-globalizing world.

    The De-globalized City · 2018 · DOI

  • The most notable finding is that significant connectivity gains have been limited to a small set of cities (Dubai, Shanghai, Beijing, and Moscow in particular) in the face of persisting core–periphery patterns at the level of the global economy, with New York and London remaining firmly at the apex.

    Change in the World City Network, 2000–2012 · 2016 · DOI

  • Second, the paper considers the relevance and value of polycentric development thinking for regional economic and spatial planning policy, concluding that there are insufficient grounds for policy intervention aimed at encouraging polycentric regional development or countering the dominance of Cape Town in the region.

    Polycentric development in the Cape Town city-region: Empirical assessment and consideration of spatial policy implications · 2014 · DOI

  • Instead, we shall be focusing on current HSR stations in Italy, such as Turin Porta Susa, Florence Belfiore and Rome Tiburtina, and comparing them briefly, where necessary, with European case-studies, whilst directing our attention towards certain aspects that still need to be examined.

    Infrastructure as Interface: Thinking the Urban and the High-speed Railway Station: Italian Case-studies · 2013 · DOI

  • Despite conflicting findings - influenced in part by the specificities of national contexts - there is considerable agreement among academics that SME development in the countryside may be influenced by the connectivity of rural areas with their urban counterparts.

    SME Strategy, Embeddedness and Performance in East Cleveland, North East England · 2009 · DOI

  • Much remains to be said about the underlying motivations of the LMDC and about hidden planning processes, which were never transparent and only occasionally came to the surface through discrepancies between statements of government officials.

    Uri Ram, The Globalization ofIsrael: McWorld in Tel Aviv, Jihad in Jerusalem · 2007 · DOI

  • In many cases, a lack of data on local and interregional industrial linkages, shared business institutions, channels of technology and knowledge transfer, and other dimensions of the cluster concept means that relatively simple measures (location quotients, industry size) are often used to initially detect clusters in subnational regions.

    National Industry Cluster Templates: A Framework for Applied Regional Cluster Analysis · 2000 · DOI

  • The appropriate application of Delphi methodology in this regard can address a number of important concerns in regional planning analysis, including how to effectively incorporate a qualitative dimension into quantitative data, how to most efficiently utilize scarce data collection and analysis resources, and how to turn data into “usable knowledge” for planning decision makers.

    Enhancing Regional Analysis with the Delphi Method · 1993 · DOI

  • (Washington, D.C.: The Joint Center for Political Studies, 1973). is, Tobe 24. Charles L. Sanders, Black Professionals' Per ceptions of Institutional Racism in Health and Welfare Organizations (Fair Lawn, New Jer sey, R. E. Burdick, 1973).

    Public Technology and the Metropolitan Ghetto · 1974 · DOI

  • Centen * M 1 @ A 8: Activities in Centers 1, 2, 3 1, 2, 3, 4 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 , 6 Gerard Rushton / 155 would be of more value than pursuing further studies of the empirical prop- erties of central-place systems.

    Postulates of Central‐Place Theory and the Properties of Central‐Place Systems · 1971 · DOI

  • Cross-border multimodal transportation systems are essential for regional connectivity, yet their structural concentration, modal imbalance, community organization, and accessibility differentiation remain insufficiently understood from an entropy perspective.

    Structural Entropy, Modal Diversity Entropy, and Accessibility Differentiation: A Study of the Western China–Central Asia Cross-Border Multimodal Transportation Network · 2026 · DOI

  • The limitation of this study is that it is not devoted to urban planning issues directly or the promotion of R&D areas; it is about setting promising S&T priorities in an era of complexity and uncertainty for megacities.

    Setting S&T perspective priorities in an era of complexity and uncertainty: a case for megacities · 2024 · DOI

  • Little is known about KIBS firms clustering in Mexico and emerging economies in general.

    The clustering of knowledge-intensive business services in Greater Mexico City, 2010 through 2020 · 2023 · DOI

  • It argues that one-off spatial planning is insufficient for actualizing infrastructure-led development: this process involves a dynamic interaction with inherited industrial pathways that recursively stimulates the repurposing and/or the revision of infrastructure-oriented developmental plans.

    From the city of steel to Germany’s ‘China City’: economic restructuring, the EU–China transcontinental railway and infrastructure-led development in Duisburg · 2023 · DOI

  • However, few studies have given attention to the huge variations across regions and cities in their (de)industrialization stages, their main functions in urban systems of the country, and the critical issues facing them.

    Urban functional transformation in (de)industrializing China: The heterogeneous roles of state and market · 2022 · DOI

  • This phenomenon, however, is understudied for its impact on economic and spatial relations across geographic scales and economic domains and the mechanism carrying and transmitting that impact.

    Reconnecting Eurasia: a new logistics state, the China–Europe freight train, and the resurging ancient city of Xi’an · 2021 · DOI

  • And yet little is known about the geographical locations through which these transnational corporate elites operate, both nationally and internationally.

    Where is the backbone of the transnational corporate elite? · 2021 · DOI

  • Above and beyond the territorial questions often linked to the issue, further research investigating the architectural aspect of these operations would be highly relevant, but is rather lacking.

    Infrastructure as Interface: Thinking the Urban and the High-speed Railway Station: Italian Case-studies · 2013 · DOI

  • Therefore the opportunities for accelerating the development should be explored in the additional perspectives, which the cluster of enterprises suggests, including the small and middle-sized ones, in connected branches.

    Clusters – Characteristics and Structure · 2007

  • It is insufficient to identify Berlin as the “German Global City” as the city is only in some areas and clusters playing a predominate role in comparison to Frankfurt, Munich, and Hamburg.

    In Search for Meaning: Berlin as National Capital and Global City · 2005 · DOI

  • First, the abundance of theoretical concepts and explanations stands in sharp contrast with the general lack of work aimed at validating these mechanisms empirically and the contradictory evidence found in recent empirical work in the field.

    The Elusive Concept of Localization Economies: Towards a Knowledge-Based Theory of Spatial Clustering · 2002 · DOI

  • This research extends our understanding of quaternary location in that the largest metropolitan areas, containing the most specialized and scarce information, are most strongly interlocked with one another.

    Information Flows among Major Metropolitan Areas in the United States · 1989 · DOI

  • CONCLUSION The central metrics have in common an important property both from a theoretical and an operational point of view: the search for the location minimizing the transportation cost is limited to a finite set of points.

    CENTRAL METRICS AND OPTIMAL LOCATION* · 1974 · DOI

  • An element of randomness in town location is thus entirely consistent with central place theory, though how large this element may be has not been examined theoretically.

    Empirical Verifiability of Classical Central Place Theory · 1971 · DOI

  • It points out the major general propositions concerning retailing from the geographical point of view, and identifi es key research problems, which need to be examined in order to push forward the frontiers of this sub fi eld of economic geography.

    Geography and Retailing · 1971 · DOI

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37 open questions have been extracted from the limitations and future-work passages of 1,370 Global Urban Networks and Dynamics papers in our library. Each one below links back to the study that raised it, so you can read the original claim in context.

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