CONNECTING SYSTEMS
OF SECONDARY CITIES
How Soft and Hard Infrastructure Can Foster Equitable
Economic Growth among Secondary Cities
First published in Belgium in 2019 by:
Cities Alliance
Boulevard du Régent, 37 (1st Floor),
1000 Brussels
Author: Emeritus Professor Brian H Roberts, University of Canberra
and Director of Urban Frontiers
Technical Supervision: Dr. Rene Peter Hohmann, Cities Alliance Secretariat
Coordination: Fredrik Bruhn, Cities Alliance Secretariat
Editors: Dr. Rene Peter Hohmann, Pablo Sebastian Mariani, Cities Alliance Secretariat
Communication coordination: Charlotte Hallqvist, Cities Alliance Secretariat
Produced by: Cities Alliance Secretariat
Design and Layout: Creatrix Design Group
ISBN/EAN: 978-9-0822617-3-8
Legal Depot Number: D/2019/13.481/01
Please cite this publication as:
Cities Alliance (2019), Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities, Cities Alliance/UNOPS,
Brussels.
Acknowledgements:
This study was undertaken by Emeritus Professor Brian H Roberts, University of Canberra
and Director of Urban Frontiers, Australia. The publication included inputs from Dr. Rene
Peter Hohmann from Cities Alliance, and Marcelino Pandin, of the University of Technology
Bandung, Indonesia, Daniel Paez, Land Equity International, Australia, and Florian Steinberg,
Pereira, Colombia. The author acknowledges the advice provided by Trevor Kanaley, former
Director General of AusAID, and Michael Lindfield, former Lead Urban Specialist, Asian
Development Bank who critiqued the text. The author acknowledges the contribution to
the case study of Colombia Coffee Triangle by Dr Daniel Paez, of Land Equity International
and Dr Florien Steinberg.
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this publication are those of the author, and do not reflect the
corporate policies or viewpoints of Cities Alliance Secretariat, its members, the United Nations
Office for Project Services or the UK Department for International Development (DFID).
Cover Photographs:
Top left: Lightrail construction in Addis Abeba, Cities Alliance 2014
Middle right: Roads and wind farm in Hawassa, Cities alliance 2014
Bottom left: Medellin Metrocable station, Cities Alliance 2008
Abstract
Systems of secondary cities play a vital intermediary role as economic, administrative and logistics
hubs within national and global systems of cities. They have three basic spatial typologies:
regional hubs, metropolitan clusters, and corridors. The pattern, rate of development, and role
of systems of secondary cities are changing rapidly in response to urbanisation, globalisation,
structural economic change, new technologies, and the rapid development of transport and
communications systems. These changes have resulted in a growing gap and inequities in
sub-national regional economic development, income, wealth, investment, and employment
opportunities within systems of secondary cities. Closing the gap has become a significant
challenge for governments. Much of the literature on the development of secondary cities
has tended to focus on enhancing the competitiveness of infrastructure, industry clusters,
and enabling environments; however, there has been a tendency to overlook the importance
of external factors: connectivity, networks, and collaboration, which significantly affect the
performance of systems of secondary cities. This book seeks to address this knowledge gap. It
examines ways secondary cities can work more collaboratively to improve their development
prospects, lift prosperity, and leverage public resources to support equitable and sustainable
sub-national economic growth and development. It outlines ways governments and other
stakeholders within systems of secondary cities can invest strategically in public goods and
services, improve connectivity, develop networks, and leverage common user facilities,
infrastructure, and resources at different geographic levels to support inclusive, equitable, and
sustainable development.
KEY WORDS:
Secondary Cities, Connectivity, Equitable Economic Growth,
Hard and Soft Infrastructure Networks, Collaboration
CONNECTING SYSTEMS
OF SECONDARY CITIES
How Soft and Hard Infrastructure Can Foster Equitable
Economic Growth among Secondary Cities
Table of contents
Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................... 9
Foreword .......................................................................................................................................... 11
Preface .............................................................................................................................................. 12
1 Inequities and Systems of Secondary Cities: An Introduction .................................................. 14
2 Differentiating Systems of Secondary Cities ............................................................................. 19
2.1 Features of Secondary Cities............................................................................................. 20
2.2 Systems of Secondary Cities ............................................................................................ 32
2.3 Development Challenges for Secondary Cities............................................................... 34
3 Connectivity and Networks Within Systems of Secondary Cities............................................. 36
3.1 Connectedness, Performance, and Economic Development ....................................... 36
3.2 Connectivity within a System of Cities.............................................................................. 40
3.3 Examples of Secondary City Systems .............................................................................. 51
4 Case Studies: Systems of Secondary Cities................................................................................ 60
4.1 Regional Networks of Secondary Cities .......................................................................... 60
4.2 Clustered Secondary Cities .............................................................................................. 69
4.3 Corridor Secondary Cities ................................................................................................ 71
4.4 Virtual Flows among Secondary Cities ............................................................................ 72
5 Investing In Public Goods and Services to Foster Equitable Economic Growth .................... 76
5.1 Steps in Building Collaborative Advantage for Secondary Cities ................................. 77
5.2 Investing in Public Goods and Service Infrastructure Networks ................................... 82
5.3 A New Agenda for Developing Collaborative Systems of Secondary Cities ................ 87
6 References .................................................................................................................................... 89
Annexe: Connectivity Index Analysis and Case Study ................................................................. 99
A.1 Connectivity Index - Framework Development ............................................................. 99
A.2 Case Study: Connectivity Index of Mekong Economic Development
Corridor Towns and Cities .............................................................................................. 101
A.3 Priority Areas for Improvements .................................................................................... 105
List of tables
Table 3.1 Hard and soft elements of connectivity. ........................................................................ 48
Table 3.2 Types of peer-to-peer networks supporting the development
of systems of cities........................................................................................................................... 58
Table 4.1 Growth in Coffee Triangle businesses in Pereira, Manizales,
and Armenia (2015-2017). ............................................................................................................... 67
Table 5.1 Public goods and services to enhance connectivity
among secondary cities. ................................................................................................................. 84
Table A.1 Framework for an experimental index to evaluate
the scope and scale of hard and soft connectivity. .................................................................... 100
Table A.2 Connectivity Index of Indicators for CMEDC. ............................................................ 102
List of Figures
Figure 2.1 Emerging systems of cities and connectivity. ............................................................. 21
Figure 2.2 Two models of developing systems of secondary cities. ........................................... 22
Figure 2.3 Regional secondary cities. ............................................................................................ 23
Figure 2.4 Regional System of Secondary Cities Networks (Competitive Model). .................... 25
Figure 2.5 Clustered system of secondary cities. .......................................................................... 27
Figure 2.6 Secondary city-metropolitan region linkages. ............................................................ 28
Figure 2.7 Key infrastructure to support corridor systems of secondary cities. ......................... 29
Figure 2.8 International Economic (Trade) Development corridors. ........................................... 31
Figure 2.9 Southern Mercosur Economic Development Corridor Chile-Argentina................... 32
Figure 2.10 Cities connected to the supply chain of the Airbus A 380. ...................................... 33
Figure 3.1 Framework of the interrelationship between hard
and soft connectivity and network infrastructure. ......................................................................... 42
Figure 3.2 The Connectivity Triad................................................................................................... 45
Figure 3.3 Index framework to evaluate the scope and scale
of connectivity between cities. ....................................................................................................... 50
Figure 3.4 Nested levels of urban networks. ................................................................................. 51
Figure 3.5 Regular, random, scale-free, and hierarchical networks. ........................................... 54
Figure 3.6 Two elements of peer-to-peer networks. .................................................................... 57
Figure 4.1 Bratislava, Budapest, Ljubljana, Prague, and Vienna:
a polycentral city network. ............................................................................................................. 61
Figure 4.2 New Zealand network of regional secondary cities. ................................................... 63
Figure 4.3 Priority areas for economic transition - Rwanda.......................................................... 66
Figure 4.4 Map of the urban centres in the main coffee growing area of Colombia................. 67
Figure 4.5 South East Queensland Council of Mayors, Australia. .............................................. 70
Figure 4.6 Taobao: Leading E-Commerce Market in China. ........................................................ 73
Figure 5.1 Framework for Development of Secondary Cites Partnership Programme ............. 78
Figure A.1 Simple network analysis for regional and corridor system
of secondary cities (numbered 1 to n). ........................................................................................ 101
Figure A.2 Connectivity between Towns Central Mekong Economic
Development Corridor .................................................................................................................. 105
Figure A.3 Priority areas of improvement in connectivity along the
CMEDC in Cambodia.................................................................................................................... 106
Abbreviations and Acronyms
ADB
Asian Development Bank
AI
Artificial Intelligence
ASEF
ICT
Information Communications
and Technology
Asia Europe Foundation
IoT
Internet of Things
BRI
One Belt One Road or Belt
and Road Initiative
JWP
Joint Work Program
(Cities Alliance)
CA
Cities Alliance
LED
Local Economic Development
CEDS
City Economic
Development Strategies
LGNZ
Local Government
New Zealand
CPCI
Container Port
Connectivity Index
LGU
Local Government Unit
3D
Three dimensional
EC
European Commission
P2P
Peer to Peer
EIB
European Investment Bank
SME
FDI
Foreign Direct
Investment
Small and medium-sized
enterprises
TOD
Transport-oriented Development
GDP
Gross Domestic Product
UID
Unique Identifiers
GMS
Greater Mekong Subregion
WB
World Bank
1| Executive
Summary
Growing inequalities are emerging between systems of cities and regions in developing
and post-industrialised economies. These inequalities are the product of rapid and
uncertain external and internal economic, social, and environmental events and change.
The effect has been to deprive many people living and businesses located outside of
metropolitan areas from enjoying the same benefits and opportunities as those living in
larger cities. As a result, many metropolitan regions, especially in developing economies,
have prospered at the expense of smaller cities and rural areas in other parts of the
country. Subsequently, the significant development potentials of systems of secondary
cities, and their associated hinterland economies, to contribute more to national and subnational regional development have often been overlooked by the predominant focus on
metropolitan regions as the engines of economic growth.
Much of the recent literature on supporting the development of secondary cities has
focused on enhancing the development of infrastructure, competitiveness, and enabling
environments. This focus has tended to overlook the importance of the relationship
secondary city economies have to each other. Strengthening the capacity of individual
secondary cities to compete for trade, investment, and development, independent of the
relationships they have with each other within national or regional systems of secondary
cities, is likely to have a marginal impact on lifting national economic performance and
prosperity in non-metropolitan areas overall. The importance of connectivity within systems
of secondary cities is crucial to lifting their performance, prosperity, and development.
Very little research has been undertaken on the roles and importance of — and what
governments can do to increase — this connectivity. A key focus of this book has been to
identify the investment in public goods and services and infrastructure needed to support
more equitable development of systems of secondary cities. It includes case studies of
good practice to demonstrate ways to improve connectivity and the development of
networks and foster collaboration within systems of secondary cities, and the benefits
these can have for the development of trade, investment, tourism, and new endogenous
growth industries.
This book seeks to pave a new way of thinking on approaches to the development of
systems of secondary cities. It challenges much of the traditional thinking on the subject,
and it calls for change in the way governments approach national, regional, and local
development policy and planning to support more equitable regional economic
development. It argues the need for a systemic and less structured hierarchical approach
to the way governments support the development of systems of cities. If systems of cities
are to be more resilient, prosper, and develop more equitably, a new kind of ‘strategic
architecture’ must be introduced to support their development and link their economies
in order to create more opportunities for the development of new markets.
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
|9
The book calls on multiple levels of governments, business, institutions, organisations, and
civil societies within systems of secondary cities to strategically target and support public
and private investment in local and national public goods and services. It seeks to foster
not only the creation of crucial ‘hard and soft infrastructure’ to improve local capacity to
produce and trade goods and services, but also to improve connectivity, collaboration,
and networking within national and regional systems of cities. It argues that a focus on
these factors will speed up the flows and exchanges of activities within systems of cities,
leading to the creation of new opportunities for investment and development, increased
prosperity, and better use of resources. In so doing, this will help to address growing
inequities and gaps in development within systems of cities.
The Metrocable in Medellín allowed for better connectivity
between uphill slums and the city, promoting access to labour,
public goods and services.
10 | Cities Alliance
Location: Medellin, Colombia
Photo Credit: @Cities Alliance, 2008
1| Foreword
Rapidly urbanising countries often face various types of inequalities resulting from the
accelerated population growth in their cities. Of major consequences for development
is the limited access to public services and goods within the city, especially for the urban
poor; and distorted investment priorities nationally, between metropolitan regions and
smaller cities. Too many governments neglect these economic and spatial inequalities,
undermining the creation of a sustainable foundation for structural economic and political
transformation. Yet, the global challenge to leave no one behind requires both public and
private decision makers to significantly rethink the role that providing key public services
and improving collaboration between cities can play to foster more equitable economic
growth.
A product of collaboration between UK Department for International Development (DFID)
and the Cities Alliance, this publication demonstrates the crucial link between access to
connective infrastructure and services in cities of all sizes and the potential for equitable
economic growth. Based on case studies across the globe, it makes a compelling case
for a new paradigm that moves beyond the economic competitiveness of cities to find
alternative economic growth models. It examines ways secondary cities can work more
collaboratively to improve their development prospects, lift prosperity, and leverage
public resources to support equitable and sustainable sub-national economic growth and
development. Given the continued growth of secondary cities, what passes as a local issue
is both nationally and globally significant.
We hope that this publication will generate fresh thinking and new policies. We would
like to thank Cities Alliance members and partners, and reiterate our commitment to this
collaboration.
William Cobbett
Director
Cities Alliance
Nicholas Waddell
Head of Growth and Resilience Department
UK Department for International Development
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 11
1| Preface
The key to unlocking the development potential of secondary cities is to overcome local
and external factors that are constraining their growth and development. The focus of this
book is to identify why the levels of inequity in the development of systems of secondary
cities are widening and to explore ways to reduce this. The book is comprised of five
chapters.
Chapter 1
Provides the background, context, rationale, and intent of the book while
focusing on inequities and systems of cities.
Chapter 2
Outlines typologies for systems of secondary cities. It describes three
figurations of a system of secondary cities: regional, clustered and corridor. It
also discusses new and emerging systems of regional and global networked
systems of secondary cities. Cities within these different, and sometimes
overlapping, systems of cities play many roles in national and global markets
and supply chains. For secondary cities to prosper and develop, local
governments must understand what public goods and services are needed
to tap into the supply chains that connect cities in these networks.
Chapter 3
Analyses the crucial role of connectivity and networks to support the
economic development of systems of secondary cities. The chapter
sets holistic indicators of connectivity among secondary cities for the
three types of secondary cities: regional, cluster and corridor — and the
different network systems that connect them (Annexe). These can be
adapted and applied to assess connectivity within hinterland economies.
These indicators are a tool that will enable secondary cities to conduct an
analysis and develop connectivity indicators in the form of an index to
indicate how well they are connected.
Chapter 4
Includes a series of case studies that describe the different approaches
adopted by secondary cities in a variety of regions to support their
development and improve their connectivity. In some cases, this has
involved cities collaborating on economic, governance and social
initiatives which are focused on reducing externality costs to business.
In other cases, it focuses on models that create collaborative-advantage
for smaller businesses, to generate economies of scale, by collaborating
and competing collectively to gain access to larger markets and trade
in goods and services, which might not otherwise have been secured
by acting independently.
12 | Cities Alliance
Chapter 5
Presents a framework for public goods and services in support
of secondary cities. It provides a guide on what businesses, governments, and
local communities can do to develop hard and soft infrastructure networks
with connectivity to existing external networks, which will enable secondary
cities to gain better access to the markets, resources, and information
needed to support their development. This framework can be used for
the preparation of city development strategies and action plans to guide
investment in public goods and services in order to create infrastructure
networks to enhance connectivity and improved opportunities for local
economic development in secondary cities.
Annexe
Includes material for developing an index of connectivity among
secondary cities, as well as a case study drawn from the Mekong River
Economic Development Corridor.
The Métro léger de Tunis was a unique type of transport
infrastructure for Africa when it began operating in 1985.
Location: Tunis, Tunisia
Photo Credit: @Cities Alliance, 2019
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 13
1| Inequities and Systems
0f Secondary Cities:
An Introduction
Growing disparities are emerging between systems of cities – especially in rapidly
developing and de-industrialising economies (Kanbur & Venables, 2005). In Indonesia, the
ratio of GDP per capita between the Metro Jakarta and Denpasar (Bali) is a factor of 4.5.
Similar order disparities can be found between megacities and secondary cities in Asian
and other developing countries. In post-industrialised economies, regional disparities
within systems of cities are less, but are widening (Organisation for Economic Cooperation
and Development, 2018). The growing disparities in the development of systems of cities
deprive many businesses, organisations and people living in secondary cities and more
impoverished rural areas of an equitable share of national growth, wealth and prosperity,
and access to public services, jobs, and wealth compared to those living in metropolitan
regions.
The wealth, development opportunities and economic power of nations are increasingly
being concentrated in metropolitan regions (Dobbs et al., 2012). Urban areas comprise 56
per cent of the world’s population and produce around 75 per cent of its GDP. However,
it is predicted that by 2025, 600 urban centres, with a fifth of the world’s population, will
generate 60 per cent of global GDP (McKinsey Global Institute, 2014). Smaller urban
centres, representing 30 per cent of the world’s population will generate little more than
15 per cent of GDP. This gap will widen unless governments introduce policies to foster
equitable economic growth within systems of secondary cities.
In 2014, the Cities Alliance book, Managing Systems of Secondary Cities (Roberts, 2014)
identified a potential framework for formulating policies for the development of regional,
metropolitan cluster, and corridor secondary cities. Managing Systems of Secondary
Cities focused mainly on the development of local infrastructure and strong enabling
environments for three spatial types of secondary cities (regional, cluster and corridor) to
enhance their competitiveness and attractiveness in order to encourage investment and
development.
Since the completion of that book, there have been new developments in thinking and
approaches on ways governments can foster the development of secondary cities (Ammann
& Sanogo, 2017; ESPON, 2016). The development of enabling infrastructure, services,
innovation, human capital, economic diversity, good government and strong enabling
environments and economics are crucial to making secondary cities more competitive and
attractive as places for investment (Parkinson et al., 2012); however, such investments are
not enough to overcome economies of scale, logistics and transaction cost issues.
14 | Cities Alliance
There are other factors that are essential to fostering more equitable development of
national systems of secondary cities. One of these involves connectivity, i.e., the way cities
within systems of secondary cities are linked or connected economically, socially, politically,
and by language, culture, infrastructure, and physical geography. Connectivity includes
factors related to communications, collaboration, networks, and accessibility (Ammann &
Sanogo, 2017; Besson, 2018; Parkinson et al., 2012; Sassen, 2019).
The scale, scope, efficiency and effectiveness of linkages and flows within systems of cities
are explained in more detail in the book, but they are crucial to fostering economic growth
and development and to reducing inequities within systems of cities.
This book seeks to break new ground in thinking on approaches to the development of
systems of secondary cities. The book challenges current thinking. It argues the need for
a systemic approach and a less structured hierarchical approach to the way governments
support the development of systems of secondary cities.
If systems of secondary cities are to be more resilient, prosper and develop more equitably,
a new kind of ‘strategic architecture’ (Hamel & Prahalad, 1994) must be introduced to
support the development of secondary systems of cities and link their economies in order
to create more opportunities for the development of new markets. It calls on multiple
levels of governments responsible for managing cities, business, institutions, organisations
and civil societies in cities to strategically target public and private investment in local
and national public goods and services to create crucial ‘hard and soft infrastructure’.
These investments improve local capacity to produce goods and services and improve
connectivity, collaboration and networking within national and regional systems of cities.
The book argues that a focus on these factors will speed up the flows and exchanges of
activities within systems of cities, create new opportunities for increased prosperity and
development and begin to address growing inequity within systems of cities.
The need for cities to become more prosperous and networked as systems of cities — to
help foster more equitable prospects for growth and development — has been extensively
documented (WEF, 2016). Improvements to local infrastructure and services are essential
to enhancing the performance, growth and development of local economies, but those
improvements alone are not enough to create a competitive advantage. Similarly, the
emphasis being given by local governments and researchers to make cities smarter,
by investing in knowledge and innovation, creating stronger governance and enabling
environment arrangements alone, is not the answer. Many cities that are investing heavily in
these areas have experienced improved growth, revitalisation and development. However,
others have not witnessed the growth and development outcomes expected. Other factors
of performance, beyond fixing the hard and soft infrastructure of local economies, such
as tacit knowledge and cultural capital among others, also have a critical role to play in
realising a more balanced and sustainable growth and development of cities and regions.
Increasingly, new evidence indicates that enhanced connectivity and collaboration
between towns and cities, especially systems of secondary cities, play a critical role in the
development and improvement of elements of performance and prosperity needed to
foster new trade, investment, innovation, and endogenous growth opportunities in cities
(Cox & Longlands, 2016; Lee, 2016; Neal, 2010; Neal, 2013). The key to unlocking the
development potential of secondary cities is to overcome local and external factors that
are constraining their growth and development.
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 15
The focus of this book is to identify why the levels of inequity in the development
of systems of secondary cities are widening and to explore ways to reduce this. Two
important goals of this investigation are to develop a deeper understanding of first, the
roles of connectivity and networks within systems of secondary cities in supporting their
development and second, of strategic interventions and investments in public goods and
services that help close the inequity gap in the development of systems of cities. It is vital
to know how secondary cities can overcome the economy of scale, the tyranny of distance,
high transaction costs of government, institutions and private business transactions, to
become more prosperous and collaborative. With the move toward a more globally
networked system of cities and economies, the question of how to encourage greater
policy, business, trade, collaboration, networking, and cultural and economic exchanges
are core to the investigations of the research.
Comparatively little has been written about connectivity and networking in supporting
the growth and development of systems of secondary cities, compared to megacities and
metropolitan regions. Five questions are posited for an investigation to identify potential
solutions to support more equitable development of systems of secondary cities:
1. How important is connectivity to the development and prosperity of
systems of secondary cities?
2. How are systems of secondary cities connected?
3. What connectivity factors impede secondary cities from having access
to markets and expanding trade, information, commerce, knowledge,
and improved flows within systems of cities?
4. What approaches have some secondary cities taken to
improve connectivity that have increased their prosperity and
competitiveness?
5. What collaborative investment in hard and soft infrastructure can
secondary cities make to support their development and prosperity,
especially in the context of developing and post-industrialised
economies?
The research draws on current literature, analysis of data and good practice case studies
to demonstrate ways to improve connectivity among secondary cities and the benefits this
can have for the development of trade, investment, tourism, and new endogenous growth
industries.
16 | Cities Alliance
JARGON BUSTER
System of Cities
A system of cities is a network of urban hubs and nodes of varying size, separation and
dependency which are connected by a wide range of agents, links and functions which drive
the growth and development within a country or geographic region. Systems of secondary
cities are subsystem or network of cities within the System of cities which pay a crucial role as
centres of economic activities and an interface in supporting the functions and development
of metropolitan regions, systems of intermediary cities, small cities, and towns and their
hinterland economies.
Secondary Cities
Secondary cities are medium-sized administrative, political, industrial, military, transportation,
tourism and historical centres which function at a level below primate order or metropolitan
region cities. They range in population from 100,000 to 2.5 million but may be larger or
smaller depending on the size of a nation’s population. Secondary Cities play a crucial role as
economic, social and logistics hubs or centres in linking more than half the world’s population
living in smaller regional cities, towns and rural areas to markets, materials, goods and
services needed or produced by primate order cities and vice versa. The size, management
and functionality of secondary cities have a significant influence on the development and
prosperity of national systems of cities, rural and regional areas.
Intermediary Cities
Intermediary cities are cities with a population between 50,000 and 1 million which play a
crucial linking and transformative role in the system of cities between metropolitan regions
and smaller regional towns and cities. The term intermediary cities are often interchanged
with the term secondary city in Latin America and some European countries. In North America,
intermediate and secondary cities are often referred to as middle-sized cities. The differences
in the terminology are semantic, although secondary cities can often have a primary functional
role in the context of global cities but have a secondary functional role in the national
context. Toulouse and Seattle are secondary cities in the national context but are global
cities in the context of the airline industry. Functionality has a more significant influence on
what constitutes a secondary city, an intermediary or middle-sized city in the current era than
population size.
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 17
Internet of Things
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a communication paradigm in which many of the objects used
of everyday life will be equipped with microcontrollers, transceivers for digital communication,
and suitable protocol stacks that will make them able to communicate with one another
and with the users, becoming an integral part of the Internet. The IoT will foster the
development of some applications that make use of artificial intelligence data generated
by such technology devices to provide new services to citizens, companies, and public
administrations. It will have applications in reducing routine jobs, industrial manufacturing
including automation and 3 D printing, medical aids, healthcare, elderly and disabled
assistance, education, intelligent energy management and smart grids, automotive, traffic
management, homes and offices.
Public Goods and Services
Public goods are the infrastructure and services provided by governments for the benefit of
everyone. Some of these include: water supplies, sanitation, sewerage and drainage, power
and electricity, educational and health facilities and services, public transportation, and the
provision of land for housing and businesses. The effective, efficient and equitable delivery
of these public goods has a very significant impact on the degree to which urban society and
economy are strong, inclusive and sustainable (Cities Alliance, 2016).
The well-structured cityscape of La Valeta, Malta.
18 | Cities Alliance
Location: La Valeta, Malta
Photo Credit: @Cities Alliance, 2017
2| Differentiating Systems
of Secondary Cities
A secondary city is mostly determined by population, size, function, and economic status.
Commonly, secondary cities are geographically defined urban jurisdictions or centres
performing vital governance, logistical, and production functions at a sub-national or submetropolitan region level within a system of cities in a country. In some cases, their role
and functions may expand to a geographic region of the global realm. The populations of
secondary cities range between 10 and 50 per cent of a country’s largest city, or between
100,000 and 1.5 million, although some can be larger than this. Almost 20 per cent of the
world’s population live in secondary cities. Secondary cities are likely to constitute a subnational or sub-metropolitan second-tier level of government, acting as centres for public
administration and delivery of education, knowledge, health, community, and security
services; an industrial centre or development growth pole; a new national capital; or a
large city made up of a cluster of smaller cities in a large metropolitan region (Hoffman,
2015).
Secondary cities have been variously described as intermediate, intermediary, middle and
second-tier cities. However, secondary cities are no longer second-tier cities defined by
hierarchy or size. They are a very important sub-set of systems of cities (Berry, 1964). They
are the primary location or mid-point in the exchange of goods and services between
more than 60 per cent of the world’s population who live in rural regional areas, small
cities and regional towns, and metropolitan regions/megacities. Robust, well-functioning
systems of secondary cities are critical to strong, efficient, and collaborative rural regional
economies and those of large metropolises.
Secondary cities are a subset of cities between metropolitan regions and smaller regional
cities that primarily service agriculture and resource-based industry activities of their
hinterlands. Secondary cities vary significantly in size and function. They play a pivotal
intermediary role in the function and operations of national supply chains, value-adding
processes, logistics, and government systems of countries and sub-national regions. Their
role and importance in the development of national and regional economies are poorly
understood and studied, compared to metropolitan regions.
“The critical importance of many secondary cities stems from
and sustains their historical path of development and their
shifting positions in national and global urban systems.”
Secondary Cities and the Global Economy (Chen & Kanna, 2012: 48p)
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 19
2.1 Features of Secondary Cities
There are three general spatial features of secondary cities, with variations on and mixes
of these. The factors responsible for the typology of secondary city development vary
significantly and are shaped by historical, infrastructure, economic, social, political, and
environmental factors. The publication Managing Systems of Secondary Cities: Policy
Responses in International Development (Roberts, 2014) describes the three broad types
of secondary cities as follows:
1. Sub-national regional urban centres of administration, manufacturing,
and agricultural development.
2. Clustered secondary cities, which develop on the periphery of
metropolitan or urban regions and take the form of new towns,
spill-over growth centres, and linear cities. These may also include
migrant and refugee cities.
3. Corridor secondary cities developed along major transportation
corridors.
These three forms of secondary cities play a vital role in the function and operation of a
country’s national system of cities. In some cases, their role and functions expand outside
a geographic region or global level. Some have become specialised centres and hubs of
business, logistics, and trade in the international system of cities. Secondary cities such as
Siem Reap (Cambodia), Wolfsburg (Germany), and Gaziantep (Turkey) are, respectively,
global centres of cultural tourism, the automotive industry, and carpet manufacturing.
The changes to global production systems in the last quarter century, however, have meant
that many centres of economic activity, especially cities, rely increasingly on complex
networks of inter-connected hard and soft infrastructure and services to support the
operation and development of local economies. With the development of the internet,
computer-aided technology, and the increased growth in traded services, a new system of
global networks of intercity business, government, and social exchanges and connections
are emerging, which are less hierarchal, but more virtually networked (see Figure 2.1).
With more intense competition in production, trade, markets, and investment, firms’ profit
margins are being squeezed, and firms are looking at ways to become more competitive
by engaging in collaborative joint ventures and partnerships.
20 | Cities Alliance
FIGURE 2.1 Emerging systems of cities and connectivity.
SUB SYSTEMS OF INDUSTRY SECTORS AND
CLUSTERS OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES
Small
Cities
B
C
B
E
F
E
B
Metropolitan
Region City
Secondary
City
Small
Cities
F
C
A
F
Small
Cities
Small
Cities
E
Secondary
City
Small
Cities
Secondary
City
Internation
Border
Secondary
City
Small
Cities
C
A
A
Small
Cities
Small
Cities
Metropolitan
Region City
Small
Cities
Secondary
City
Small
Cities
Secondary
City
FUNCTIONAL
LINKAGES
Small
Cities
Small
Cities
Small
Cities
A
Source: Author
C
B
E
F
Traditional hierarchical links
Lateral and non hierarchical links
Value and cluster supply chain links
Industry clusters engaged in value
adding to supply chainst
Small
Cities
Collaboration between cities, especially industry clusters, helps to overcome scale issues
for some economic activities and reduce common-user costs of infrastructure and services.
It could also help sub-national systems of secondary cities to create sub-markets and valueadding opportunities to compete against the dominance of goods and services produced
and supplied by metropolitan regions. In some instances, the combined populations and
markets of collaborative networks of regional cities are larger than the largest metropolitan
region. For example, the UK Core Cities Network (Core Cities, 2010) was established to
compete against the market power and dominance of London.
Figure 2.2 shows two models used in supporting the development of systems of secondary
cities. The traditional hierarchical model is shown on the left — the orientation of trade,
investment, political systems, and transportation is towards the capital city. There are lateral
connections between the systems of cities along the corridors, and the focus of valueadding and supply chains is oriented to the country’s largest city. In European and some
East Asian countries, such as Japan and Korea, the spatial concentration and range of cities
are much more closely knit, and there are significant historical city-to-city links based on
trade and manufacturing. Today, with the hollowing out of manufacturing, the orientation
of economic activities is much stronger in the capital cities or large metropolitan regions.
This is very apparent in the USA, showing significant widening of regional disparities within
systems of cities (Florida, 2018).
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 21
FIGURE 2.2 Two models of developing systems of secondary cities.
HIERARCHICAL SYSTEMS
OF COMPETING CITIES*
SYSTEMS OF
COLLABORATING CITIES**
Cities network A
of collaborating
regional towns
and cities and
industry clusters
5th
5th
Cities Network A
4th
4th
3rd
rd
3
Cities
Network B
2nd
2nd
1st
1st
Cities Network C
Cities network B
of collaborating
regional towns
and cities and
industry clusters
Cities network C
of collaborating
regional towns
and cities and
industry clusters
* Economic, political,
governance,
orientation of
smaller cities
and regional towns
is predominantly
to service
metropolitan
region and vice
versa
Source: Author
** Economic, political,
governance,
orientation is towards
collaboration between
systems of cities to
create greater trade,
exchanges and value
adding between
networked cities,
clusters and common
user infrastructures
and services
5th
Cities Network B
4th
3rd
2nd
1st
Network on
interconnected,
collaborating and
value-adding
industries
and governance
arrangements
2.1.1 REGIONAL SECONDARY CITIES
Many regional secondary cities are sub-national centres — state, provincial, or district.
Others are sub-national single- or mixed industrial centres engaged in mining,
manufacturing, processing, transportation and logistics, education, culture, religion,
tourism, or defence. For some of these cities, local firms may be engaged in value-adding
to large, global industry supply chains, such as steel, chemical, automobile, and aircraft
manufacturing. Typically, the city’s population will range from 100,000 to over 1.5 million.
In developing economies, the population of regional secondary cities is likely to be less
than that of the surrounding hinterland/rural population. In developed economies, a much
higher proportion of the region’s population will live in the city than in surrounding towns
and rural areas.
22 | Cities Alliance
FIGURE 2.3 Regional secondary cities.
Rural-urban
linkages
Sub regional towns
and small cities
REGIONAL
SECONDARY
CITY
Inter-urban
linkages
Inter-regional
urban linkages
Source: Roberts, 2014
LARGE
METROPOLITAN
REGION
The spatial features of regional secondary cities (Figure 2.3) are typically a sizable central
business district or services centre, surrounded by smaller subregional cities and towns
serving mostly rural regional populations. The population density (people per square
kilometre) and size of regional secondary cities vary significantly. In sub-Saharan Africa,
regional secondary cities tend to have low population density (>3000 ppkm2) and lowrise building development incorporating large areas of peri-urban informal sector
development. In more densely developed countries, the density may exceed 5000 ppkm2,
with more medium- and some high-rise development.
Monocentric secondary cities are primarily single hub cities, which are the centre of gravity
for most political or economic activities of a distinct sub-national region. They are likely
to be more than 200 km or 2-3 hours of driving distance apart and are a common feature
of systems of cities in many former colonial countries of Africa, parts of Asia, Australia,
and Latin America. Kandy (Sri Lanka), Cusco (Peru), and Arusha (Tanzania) are examples of
monocentric regional secondary cities.
Polycentric systems of secondary cities occur where two or more secondary cities in subnational regions mutually agree to collaborate and cooperate on the development of their
economies. This often occurs where secondary cities are located near each other, such as
in Europe, North America, and China, and they agree to some form of closer cooperation,
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 23
or where monocentric cities in a much wider geographic area agree to engage in trade
and economic development opportunities. The UK Core Cities Network and South East
Queensland Regional Council (see case studies) are good examples of the former.
Two types of approaches can be taken to the development of polycentric systems of
secondary cities networks. The first is based on a collaborative-competitive approach,
where subregional systems of secondary cities work as a partnership to compete with
metropolitan regions (e.g., the UK Core Cities Network). The other is a collaborative model,
where systems of secondary cities collaborate with metropolitan regions to create scale
and access to new markets. The New Zealand Core Cities model is an example of this.
There are hybrids and combinations of both models, for example, the Bratislava approach.
2.1.1.1 Polycentric Regional System of Secondary Cities (CollaborativeCompetitive Model)
In many countries, metropolitan regions win a greater per capita share of wealth, investment,
and development opportunities. Secondary cities can compete against metropolitan
regions by collaborating to develop networks to facilitate the growth of trade between
regional cities and international markets. The approach (Figure 2.4) involves business,
institutions, and governments supporting strategic alliances; collaborative governance
arrangements; and linking industry clusters’ supply- and value-adding chains for identified
industry sectors in order to compete with metropolitan regions to gain a greater share of
national and international production, trade, and investment.
The philosophy behind the polycentric collaborative-competitive approach is that
collective systems of secondary city businesses, institutions, and governments can willingly
collaborate to create a larger internal market within a collective subregional system of
secondary cities. The advantage of the approach is that it can help to reduce leakages
and dependency on metropolitan regions for access to a wide range of public goods
and services. It also offers opportunities for import substitution. The approach can help
overcome economies-of-scale issues, and lower marginal costs that make local production
and supply of goods and services uncompetitive. In some cases, the combined resources
and production capacity of two or more secondary cities could exceed that of a large
metropolitan region.
The secondary cities regional linkages model is based on firms associated with an industry
sector or cluster, for example, the food industry, agreeing to collaborate on producing
value-added food products. A group of firms in an industry cluster in City A may produce
foods with high milk content based on the region’s dairy or goat industry. City B may be a
major producer of flour or cereal crops. Some of these processed foods are sent to a food
cluster in City C, which in turn produces value-added foods that combine the ingredients
from clusters in cities A, B, and C. The primary and value-added products are then traded
between the secondary cities and the large metropolitan region and export markets.
24 | Cities Alliance
FIGURE 2.4 Regional System of Secondary Cities Networks (Competitive Model).
trade
International city
Inte
A
r cit
y tr
ade
T
A
F
T
G
T
e
rad
ty t
A
r ci
Inte
A
G
A
F
T
G
G
Competitive network of trading secondary cities
F
A
COMPETITIVE
METROPOLITAN
REGION
Source: Author
T
A
G
Industry clusters
Industry supply chain
Competitive trade
Collaborative trade
By taking advantage of shared resources, knowledge, and back-loading freight capacity,
the network of clusters and secondary cities will be able to produce value-added products
and services, thereby creating both specialisation and collaborative advantage, rather
than dependence upon a dominant metropolitan region for imports. Such opportunities
are only open to certain industries and products from which the cities can achieve some
form of collaborative advantage. That requires secondary cities to collaborate to build the
infrastructure necessary to enable these opportunities to compete against metropolitan
regions.
With technology-based production, 3D printing, and artificial intelligence, marginal costs
of production are expected to fall dramatically, making many services and goods produced
in secondary cities competitive with those sourced from large cities (Lim & Mack, 2017).
The model is not dissimilar to large national industry cooperatives that pool resources to
reduce transaction costs of production, distribution, and sales, but it is intended to enable
secondary cities to gain a competitive advantage against large metropolitan regions.
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 25
The UK Core Cities Group is a good example of a collaborative network involving
secondary city regional linkages. Collaboration takes the form of smaller firms in similartype industry clusters in two or more secondary cities becoming involved in cross-cluster
partnerships, such as conducting R&D, new product development, value-adding, and comarketing at trade shows. At a government level, an agreement was reached to develop
improved flows of information between cities about markets, growth, and socioeconomic
data. City-to-city trade and development agreements are equivalent to sub-national freetrade arrangements between cities and underpin the model.
2.1.1.2 Polycentric Regional System of Secondary Cities (Collaborative Approach)
In many countries, businesses located in secondary cities are too small to operate at scale,
but they can significantly support national export development or import substitution
products and services by collaborating with firms located in metropolitan regions to create
value and overcome scale and barriers of entry to markets (Figure 2.5). If regional firms
located in secondary cities can be networked with firms in a larger metropolitan region,
the desired scale can be achieved. The approach involves mapping the supply chains
from material or accessory sources of inputs to production, markets and other end-user
demands, and developing infrastructure and enabling the environment to add value to
regional supply-chain industries at scale. The New Zealand Core Cities network is a good
example of this model: Auckland became the hub of the network, but the secondary
cities have identified opportunities to add value to products in the tourism and education
sectors.
The strategic intent of the approach is to develop a system of trading cities where firms,
industry clusters, and local governments can facilitate greater connectivity to create new
opportunities in order to attract investment and develop new value-added industries and
jobs, all of which mutually support a more equitable national and local economic growth and
development. Secondary cities must determine which industry clusters and infrastructure
supply-chain networks in metropolitan regions they can collaborate with and which ones
they want to compete with. The collaborative approach has relevance to the development
of clustered towns and villages surrounding monocentric and corridor secondary cities
and has worked well, for example, in Italy and Vietnam, as will be discussed in Chapter 3.
26 | Cities Alliance
FIGURE 2.5 Clustered system of secondary cities.
Cultural tourisn cluster
C
Secondary City B
Secondary City C
Secondary City A
C
Freight light
assembly
industries
cluster
C
Textile and
garment industry
clusters
Warehousing and
logistics cluster
P
Port
A
C
C
C
Warehousing and
logistics cluster
Airport
CBD
R
METROPOLITAN
REGION
Rail head
C
Large commercial centres
Business tourism
cluster
Metropolitan region arterial
transportation system routes
Source: Author
2.1.2 CLUSTERED SECONDARY CITIES
Clustered secondary cities tend to be located on radial and lateral connector roads which
surround the metropolitan centre. In Asia, clustered cities have become a favoured location
for large industrial estates and economical processing zones, forming an economic base
through co-location of similar types of industries. Many clustered secondary cities in
developing economies, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, have developed into sizeable
informal housing settlement areas with poor connecting infrastructure and arterial and
public transport services to existing built-up areas of metropolitan regions. Many have
elevated levels of informal settlement and employment. In developed economies, they
have become cities for refugees, with poorer quality housing and undesirable social issues.
Extensive investment in hard and soft infrastructure networks is necessary to foster
connectivity and flows of materials, trade, investment, and exchanges within the systems
of cities and the metropolitan area boundaries. Physical networks such as roads and
information and communications technology (ICT) systems are crucial to the flow of
goods and materials between networks of cities. However, soft connectivity infrastructure
networks, such as collaboration on marketing along tourist routes or sharing data and
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 27
knowledge about environmental, economic, and governance information and about
planning and development are becoming increasingly important to fostering local
economic development.
FIGURE 2.6 Secondary city-metropolitan region linkages.
Supply chain value adding
between secondary cities
Secondary City B
Supply chain value-adding
between secondary cities
G
Secondary City A
Secondary City C
A
Airport
G
A
E
T
T
A
Supply chain
value-adding between
secondary cities
and metro region
CBD
T
Supply chain
value-adding
between secondary
cities and metro
region and other
countries
F
G
A
T
Port
Supply chain value-adding
within metro region
Metro Region
T
Source: Author
A
G
Industry cluster
(i.e. garments, electronics)
City to city industry supply chain
One of the most important elements of developing clustered secondary cities is enhancing
the efficiency of city-wide logistics facilities and networks, inter and intra-city movement
and transport systems, and transport-oriented development (TOD). Increasingly these
cities are being driven by the need for land for development, technical skills and
community services, basic infrastructure, and housing. The failure to deliver on these
services is overloading the capacity of existing networks, especially in rapidly urbanising
metropolitan regions. The lack of capacity or the overloading of existing capacity results
in rising externality costs, mainly as the result of congestion, pollution and its effects on
public health, and loss of productivity.
28 | Cities Alliance
China has taken the concept of clustered cities to another level, with the development of
supra-regional systems of city clusters. These clusters are designed to improve connectivity
between large, medium, and small cities to form a supra-regional city designed to take
advantage of agglomeration shortening industry supply chains. The intent is to develop
regions like Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the national capital region, and the Pearl River Delta
and Shanghai regions into a hieratical network of interconnected cities operating as a
cluster. The pattern emerging in China is one of the polycentric city clusters.
2.1.3 CORRIDOR SECONDARY CITIES
Corridor secondary cities comprise multiple, small expanded towns that have joined up
along an inland or coastal transportation route to become a linear or strip city. Some
of these are many kilometres long and a few kilometres wide. The linear-strip urban
development along the south coast of Spain, Turkey, and Sri Lanka are examples of these
types of cities. Strip industrial and commercial development along highways has become
a contiguous strip of urban development with no central business core or district. Linear
coastal tourism and recreational strip development are characterised with nodes of hotels
in locations with high scenic value. Linear secondary cities are dominated by commercial
trade and service industries along the transportation corridor.
FIGURE 2.7 Key infrastructure to support corridor systems of secondary cities.
Value-adding to industry supply
chains between Secondary cities
along a development corridor
Rural urban
supply chains
Industry export import
supply chain
Develop a CBD
for the corridor city
Value adding to inustry supply
chains within a secondary cities by
relocating and and concentrating
industries in clusters
Metro
Industry cluster (i.e. food fabrics)
City to city industry supply chain
Source: Author
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 29
There are two types of corridor systems in secondary city networks: national and
international economic and trade development corridors. The first is much easier to
support and develop, as this type is usually contained within the boundaries of a country,
although it may include cross-border cities at a national or sub-national level. Many of the
investments needed to develop cities are directed to alleviate congestion and freeing up
the capacity of the corridor city to function more efficiently.
A feature of national corridor development is that many lateral links feed into the arterial
corridor, from smaller feeder roads to hinterland areas. These give rise to multiple
nodes and congestion points. There is a tendency for governments to develop bypass
roads to separate local from through traffic. The problem in many developing countries
experiencing rapid urbanisation is that residential and commercial development along
bypasses is not policed, and the problem is transferred. Bypasses reduce the opportunity
for trade with passing-through traffic and are seen as a simple solution to congestion
problems. Bypasses can have a profound, adverse effect on local economies, however, and
can cause the relocation of micro-businesses and petty traders from local communities to
locations along the bypasses.
International economic- and trade development corridors may cross multiple countries
and connect many primary and secondary cities. The promotion of economic development
corridors between countries has become an important focus of attention in recent years,
especially with the One Belt One Road or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) being promoted
by China in the Asian Region (Jinchen, 2016; Lee, 2016). Some economic development
corridors are confined to connecting cities within countries. Increasingly, the focus has
been on the development of multi-country economic development corridors. These are
much more difficult to develop, however, as significant international negotiations are
required on cross-border trade arrangements (Kunaka & Carruthers, 2014). This has been
a significant issue with the development of the West African Economic Trade Corridor
between Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire. Similar issues have been encountered with the
development of the Johannesburg-Maputo Development Corridor connecting South
Africa and Mozambique (Campbell et al., 2009) and the Southern Mercosur Economic
Development Corridor between Brazil, Chile, and Argentina (Paiva & Gazel, 2003).
The World Bank Trade and Transport Corridor Management Toolkit (Kunaka & Carruthers,
2014) provides very useful guidance on the development and management of economic
development corridors, especially for development agencies and governments in
assessing, designing, implementing, and evaluating the impact of trade and transport
corridor projects. It provides useful information on how “corridors affect the space economy
of countries; they are best developed with clear estimates of what the spatial impacts are
going to be” (Kunaka & Carruthers, 2014: xiii p). Second, it notes that “a corridor is a
system made up of several components, including infrastructure (roads, railways, ports),
transport and logistics services and regulations (typically influenced by policy choices of
and financing from the public sector)” (Ibid: xiv p). The Toolkit notes that it is important
for policy-makers to appreciate the linkages between these components, “particularly as
the overall performance of a corridor is determined by the weakest component” (Ibid:
xiv p). The Toolkit deals with corridor management and the motivations of the various
parties and highlights that it is vitally important that the parties involved with the economic
development corridors have the commitment and agreement to purpose, resources and
outcomes needed to support its development.
30 | Cities Alliance
FIGURE 2.8 International Economic (Trade) Development corridors.
Large urban
region with
clustered
cities
Mega-city
Source: Roberts, 2014
Investment in soft and hard infrastructure can help Bangladesh
foster equitable economic growth within its cities.
Economic trade development corridors
Lateral economic development corridors
Rail/road fast transit system
Location: Bangladesh
Photo Credit: @Cities Alliance, 2014
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 31
2.2 Systems of Secondary Cities
2.2.1 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND TRADE CORRIDOR
SECONDARY CITIES
Free trade agreements and economic unions, such as NAFTA and the EU, and city-tocity trade partnerships are leading to the development of economic development and
trade corridors along transportation routes, where secondary cities play a crucial role in
supporting business networks and inputs/outputs of supply chains within and between
countries. These trade corridors may include several secondary cities and large metropolitan
regions. Secondary cities located in the corridor are encouraged to develop as specialised
production, value-adding, export, distribution of goods and services, and logistics hubs.
The Interstate 5 corridor from Tijuana to Vancouver is an example of a well-established
economic development and trade corridor with three large and many secondary cities.
The Mercosur Economic Development Corridor between Chile and Argentina, extending
to southeast Brazil is an example of an emerging corridor (Figure 2.9).
FIGURE 2.9 Southern Mercosur Economic Development Corridor
Chile-Argentina.
Lost Andes
San Juan
Cordoba
Santa Fe
Valparaiso
Rosario
Mendoza
San
Antonio
BUENOS AIRES
SANTIAGO
Rancagua
Talca
MONTEVIDEO
Source: Author - Map data: Google Data SIO, NOAA, U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO Landsat / Copernicus,
2019
2.2.2 GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN SYSTEMS OF SECONDARY CITIES
A feature of globalisation is the development of networks of cities that are vertically
and horizontally integrated into global assembly supply chains. Some of the inputs are
physical, comprising industry parks, factories, and infrastructure. Others are services,
including finance, design, and ICT. These supply chain networks develop over time and are
where many competitive businesses with specialisations are contracted globally into the
production systems of a manufacturing industry, such as aircraft, with Airbus or Boeing. The
main urban centres engaged in the supply chain are connected so that there is seamless
delivery of infrastructure, parts, and services into the production of aircraft (Figure 2.10).
32 | Cities Alliance
2.2.3 SECONDARY CITIES
NETWORKS
There is increasing interest in the
development of collaborative networks
by secondary cities. By collaborating,
instead of competing individually,
businesses
in
similar
industries
can work to create a collaborative
advantage to fill large orders, share
risks, and compete on more favourable
terms with large corporations. The
Core Cities networks in New Zealand
and the UK are examples where
regional city representatives meet
regularly to discuss ways cities can
collaborate and share resources to help
reduce externality costs associated
with common-user infrastructure and
services, collaborative marketing of
industries, and support for policy
development. Some secondary cities
are working collaboratively to ensure
that secondary cities get a more
equitable share of national resources
and stronger support for devolution
(Core Cities, 2016).
FIGURE 2.10 Cities connected to the
supply chain of the Airbus A 380.
Mostyn
Broughton
Filton
Stade
Nordenham
Hamburg
Varel
Bremen Buxtehude
Méaulte
Beauvais
Nantes
St-Nazaire
Laupheim
Pauillac
Langon
Toulouse
Getafe
Illescas
Puerto Real
Cadiz
Transport by roll-on/roll-off
Transport barge
Transport by road convoy
Construction
Logistics
Source: Author
2.2.4 CROSS BORDER CITY GROWTH PARTNERSHIPS
Cross-border cooperation among secondary cities has become a focus of development
in several countries, especially in Europe and Asia. A key example is the cross-border
cooperative arrangement of the Johor Bahru (Malaysia), Bintan/Batam (Indonesia), and
Singapore growth triangle (Yuan, 2011). The intent of the initiative by the three countries’
governments was to strengthen their regional economic links and the competitive
advantages of each location and to optimise the complementarity between the three
adjacent urban centres. The growth triangle does not involve a formal treaty arrangement.
Growth triangles are expected to become a significant force of the 21st-century economy
in Asia, Europe, and North America, allowing metropolises and secondary cities that cross
international and state borders to capitalise on the linking of cultures, language, and
currencies. The commonality of language and culture are crucial elements of cross-border
growth triangles and regional city growth partnerships.
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 33
2.3 Development Challenges for Secondary Cities
The challenges facing the development of secondary cities have been researched and
documented over three decades (ESPON, 2012; Roberts, 2014; Rondinelli, 1983; Roberts
and Hohmann, 2015). These include lack of infrastructure and services, weak governance
and enabling environments, land management issues, loss of skills, and difficulty in
attracting investment and jobs. Many solutions to address these matters have been tried
with varying levels of success, but disparities between metropolitan regions and systems
of secondary cities on fiscal transfers, levels of investment, and infrastructure spending per
capita continue to widen. Even in developed countries like the United Kingdom, 24 times
more is spent on infrastructure per resident in London than for cities in North East England
(Arnett, 2014).
As we move deeper into the information age, many new challenges are emerging that
will affect the development prospects and operation of secondary cities, especially in
developing economies. The future development of urban economies will be driven by
advanced and personal services, rather than manufacturing. Local economic development
is increasingly being driven by information services and affected by events in global and
regional economies. Governance systems will become more transparent, accountable,
participatory, inclusive, and responsive to change as the result of broader applications
of social media, growth in open knowledge and information platforms, freedom of
information laws, and blockchain technology (Ølnes et al., 2017).
Globally, manufacturing employment as a percentage of the total labour force is declining.
Manufacturing employment, as a percentage of total employment, will continue to fall as
technology and capital-intensive production replace labour in agriculture, manufacturing,
and services jobs. As a result, the future of work will change significantly over future decades
with some countries predicting that over 40 per cent of jobs will be lost to robotics and
artificial intelligence (Manyika et al., 2017).
Technology will change the nature of production, distribution, consumer demands, and
markets. Retail and business services are already changing as a result of the Internet.
The Internet of things (IoT) is a system of interrelated computing devices (computers,
smartphones), mechanical and digital machines and objects that are provided with unique
identifiers (UIDs) and the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring humanto-human or human-to-computer interaction. It has broad applications toward improving
efficiency in the delivery of government services.
Disruptive change, technology and the IoT are expected to have a profound impact on
the planning, management, and development of cities (Rathore et al., 2016). Infrastructure
will become smarter, more efficient, and cost less to run as a result of IoT. Its impact on
developing economies is already significant (Gong et al., 2016; Rathore et al., 2016). Few
governments in the developing economies of the world, however, are equipped to meet
the challenges of rapid change and IoT — especially those in sub-Saharan Africa and parts
of Asia and the Pacific. Some countries, like Rwanda and Kenya, are preparing to meet
these challenges, but most others are not prepared for the shocks of the information age
and its impact on the systems of secondary city development and management, or its
implications on economic development policy.
34 | Cities Alliance
The impact of the information age has
Building strategic
already brought a switch in the nature and
infrastructure and
location of production. More multi-national
corporations are nearshoring (relocating)
enhancing connectivity
industries much closer to markets,
will be crucial to boosting
customers, and efficient logistics systems.
A study published by the McKinsey Group
the competitiveness,
(Andersson et al., 2018) found that 63 per
development, and
cent of survey respondents believe it is
prosperity of systems of
likely that fabric production will move to
nearshoring to support regional supply
secondary cities.
chains by 2025. China is moving towards
endogenous growth models to create
industries and jobs, many of which are in secondary towns and cities. The implication of
these changes indicates that countries seeking to use urbanisation and industrialisation as
a way to reduce poverty and attract foreign direct investment (FDI) is a model that is being
overtaken by the advances of the information economy.
The information age is proving a significant challenge for secondary cities in developing
economies, especially those in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Emerging economies can
no longer rely on industrialisation — taking advantage of low-cost unskilled labour to
produce goods and services for export — as the pathway to growth. With poor access
to national and global infrastructure services and networks, a lack of capital and skills,
and the use of low-level technologies, many secondary cities are not in the position to
engage effectively in the information age. Unless governments give priority to investment
in developing ICT systems and networks, and to soft infrastructure support, such
as education and training of SME and micro-business networking, a digital divide will
emerge that will preclude many cities from having access to the essential goods and
services necessary to engage in a growing digital economy.
The prospects for the development of secondary cities are promising—provided steps are
taken by all levels of government, in partnership with the private sector to improve their
functions, infrastructure enabling environments, and accessibility to supply chain systems
and networks. There are many examples of secondary cities grasping the opportunities
of the information age to help support sustainable economic growth and development
in developed and developing countries. The issue for all secondary cities is how they can
address scale issues, access to skills and resources, knowledge, and information as the
Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) unfolds. Many secondary cities, e.g., Wellington (New
Zealand), Wolfsburg (Germany), and Sleman (Indonesia), have realised that connectivity,
networking, and collaboration are crucial to overcoming locational and size constraints,
and they have significantly outperformed many larger metro-city economies.
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 35
3| CONNECTIVITY
AND NETWORKS
WITHIN SYSTEMS OF
SECONDARY CITIES
3.1 Connectedness, Performance, and Economic
Development
Increasing efforts are being made by governments to enhance the competitiveness and
performance of cities. Unfortunately, much of this effort tends to focus on large cities — not
secondary cities (Roberts, 2014). Large cities are where the proportion of national GDP
tends to be highest, but urbanisation issues, poverty, and development problems are
not necessarily as acute as in secondary cities, which have faster growth rates. While
improving the elements of performance of large cities through investment in significant
infrastructure projects to relieve congestion, the development of economic enterprise
zones, and improved governance, helps large cities to become more competitive, often
the flow-on benefits to regional areas, towns, and cities are poor. Enhancing the elements
of performance of metropolitan regions requires the government to give more attention
to the networks and supply chains that feed them — especially to secondary cities, which
provide the vital hubs and links to resources and materials in regional areas.
Most government efforts to support improved performance of cities in developing
economies occur through international development assistance or national grant/loans for
physical infrastructure and institutional capacity building. The Jawaharlal Nehru National
Urban Renewal Mission program covering 63 cities in India (GoI, 2007) is an example of an
infrastructure-driven boost to primary and secondary development. The development of
secondary-city growth poles and economic enterprise zones has been used widely in many
countries, many of which have failed to live up to expectations (Kilroy et al., 2015).
36 | Cities Alliance
3.1.1 CONNECTIVITY IS CRUCIAL TO MAKING SECONDARY
CITIES MORE PROSPEROUS
The building of infrastructure to improve the collaboration, performance, and prosperity
of secondary towns and cities is insufficient to boost local economic development. Many
other hard and soft infrastructure factors need to be addressed to make local economies
more collaborative. A crucial missing element, which is continuously overlooked by
researchers and policy-makers, is the importance of hard and soft infrastructure associated
with connectivity between systems of cities. If cities are not well connected by hard and soft
infrastructure (i.e., roads, rail, air services and political, social, and business networks), the
flows of materials, people, trade, goods, services, and information are slowed down, and
the prospects for sustainable local economic development are minimal. Very few national
and regional economic development plans mention the need to develop both hard and
soft connections between systems of cities to boost local economic development and
address the impact of poor connectivity on regional disparities.
The importance of connectivity and network infrastructure to support the local economic
development of secondary cities has not been researched extensively. Most investigations
on connectivity tend to focus on the role of hard or physical infrastructure connections,
networks, and flows. The skills and competencies of the people who oversee these
systems are critical to ensuring that they operate efficiently and effectively. Personal or
corporate knowledge on how to use the infrastructure, services, and technology that
connect business and people within systems of cities has an impact on performance,
productivity, and prosperity. Historically, the scale and quality of physical infrastructure,
for example, roads, utilities and logistics systems, supported the flow of materials, goods,
services, energy, and merchandise trade between geographic locations, and dictated the
rate, growth, and development of cities. Today, the output and development of cities is
driven increasingly by a range of services delivered in a variety of ways.
“ When we think of cities now, we typically envision
businesses, systems, and people operating among one
another with almost no connection or collaboration.
Now, imagine what will happen once cities become more
connected and smarter? Once local companies realize the
value they could create together through interconnectivity,
the possibilities are virtually endless.”
(Newman, 2016). Smart Cities May Turn Competition into Collaboration.
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 37
The relationship between connectedness and economic performance of systems of
secondary cities is poorly understood. Several studies show the importance of connectivity
in supporting the development of systems of cities (Ammann & Sanogo, 2017; Bank, 2009),
especially global cities, but few studies are specific to the performance of secondary
cities. In a study of 16 states in Europe, Parkinson et al. (2012: 31p) acknowledge that
“one or more second tier cities recorded higher annual growth in total GDP between
2000 and 2007 than their capitals especially in Germany, France, Norway, and Spain. But it
also happened in three former socialist states. And states in Eastern Europe experienced
some of the fastest growth rates, as their economies integrated into the European
economy, with second tier as well as capital cities contributing.“
Other studies of second-tier cities in Europe (ESPON, 2016; Meijers, 2016) note connectivity
as one of the key drivers of improved economic performance, but note also that many
other driving factors, such as innovation, governance, size, and level of human capital
development affect economic performance.
What is emerging from European studies is that soft infrastructure connectivity in public and
private sector services to support the flows of knowledge, innovative ideas, information,
and data in second-tier cities has a significant impact on economic performance and
growth, especially in advanced service-sector employment (Parkinson et al., 2012). The
extent to which any one of these factors affects the economic performance and growth
prospects of systems of secondary cities is difficult to quantify. Once secondary cities have
well-developed transport, communications, and logistics systems and services, investment
in the development of softer connectivity assets and systems, including regional
knowledge, information and business networks, communities of interest, and inter-regional
collaborative governance, becomes important to improving economic performance.
Public-community based partnerships for maintenance of
public marketplaces constitute a type of soft infrastructure
that help develop better trade systems.
38 | Cities Alliance
Location: Uganda
Photo Credit: @Cities Alliance, 2019
3.1.2 NETWORKS
Many types of linkages connect nodes and hubs through networks. Collectively, they bring
together global and national systems of cities and regions. Without these connections, few
current-day cities could function or develop. Connectivity (Buck et al., 2005) plays a crucial
role in supporting the economic development, functioning, and elements of performance
of cities and regions (Behrens et al., 2014). Many studies and reports have been published
on city elements of performance and their link to economic development (Kilroy et al.,
2015; World Economic Forum, 2014). However, the role of connectivity in supporting the
elements of performance and economic development of cities, especially secondary cities,
is not well researched and understood. This relationship is a significant and crucial factor in
the growth and development of secondary cities.
Most firms understand the need for quick and reliable access to the nodes, hubs, and
networks that deliver or receive goods and services from many locations around the world.
The world is connected by 3200 airports and 60,000 routes. Port cities handle 80 per cent of
global merchandise trade, and 40 ports control 60 per cent of world container traffic (United
Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 2017). The efficiency and effectiveness
of these are crucial to business development, elements of performance, and reputation
for goods, people, and the services they deliver and receive. Running a modern business
requires good access to supply chains, transportation systems ports, activity nodes and
networks, internet services, analytical skills, and information technologies. Connectivity
is difficult to quantify and measure, as is knowing how to connect to industry supply
chains, markets, enabling systems, etc. Dispatch companies like DHL have developed a
connectedness index to measure the efficiencies in freight transport logistics between
cities in order to reduce the time-cost of deliveries.
Other factors of connectivity such as business, information and data sharing, or visitor
exchanges have been included in connectivity indexes; however, data in developing
countries are often poor, not easily collected, or not available. These soft connectivity
factors are becoming increasingly important to business, trade, and the economic
development of cities. Most connectivity indexes focus only on metropolitan and megacity
connectedness, and tend to measure indicators of physical movements of goods and
e-services. By comparison, there is little research on indicators to measure the connectivity
of systems of secondary cities. The following section seeks to fill that gap by presenting
a theoretical basis and framework to analyse the hard and soft connectivity factors and
network infrastructure connecting secondary cities. By measuring and ranking indicators
of flows and exchanges in hard and soft infrastructure networks connecting systems of
secondary cities, weaknesses and opportunities can be identified to strengthen these so
that a more competitive and collaborative system of secondary cities can be developed.
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 39
3.2 Connectivity within a System of Cities
Connectivity is defined as “the state or quality of being connective or connected”
(Merriam-Webster, 2018). Connectivity can be applied widely to many kinds of systems and
to the way the different elements or components of a system interact. Connectivity has
both physical (hard) and (soft) metaphysical attributes. These attributes can be measured
in terms of exchanges and flow between hubs and nodes using infrastructure and enabling
environment networks. Physical connectivity is relatively easy to observe and measure.
Metaphysical connectivity, on the other hand, is much more difficult to describe and
measure.
3.2.1 HARD AND SOFT CONNECTIVITY BETWEEN CITIES
The most noticeable features of physical connectivity are infrastructure that supports
accessibility and use of transportation, postal, and telecommunication services within and
between cities and the waterway systems that provide navigational routes between cities.
Physical assets provide the basis of trade, tourism, cultural, social, and other exchanges.
Physical proximity, rivalry, and economic geography often play crucial roles in the way
cities are connected and the alliances that occur between them. The internationalisation
of business, free trade agreements, modern telecommunications, and the Internet have
changed the ways cities connect, as well as the ways businesses and people connect within
cities. As a result, the economic growth and development of cities are being shaped by
physical connectivity. Never have cities been more dependent on connectivity to support
their growth and development.
Much of the literature and debate on the connectivity of cities tends to focus on the need
to improve connectivity and accessibility to physical infrastructure networks and services.
Many city economic development plans stress the need for improved hard infrastructure,
such as roads, airports, and ports (Farole, 2012). Subsequently, the focus on physical
connectivity has tended to be on transport and communications planning. Connectivity, in
the context of cities, is not limited to the quantity and capacity of physical infrastructure,
utilities, transport, and logistics facilities to support the movement of materials, goods,
services, and people. Factors such as quality, density, choice, flexibility, and location also
influence how well cities are connected, and the way they function and develop. The level
and quality of hard infrastructure connectivity in European cities are high because this
infrastructure is extensive, dense, and heavily utilised, adding to production, elements of
performance, and efficiencies in the ways goods and services are produced and distributed.
The same cannot be said of sub-Saharan countries, for example.
The 2014 World Economic Forum Report (2014: 6p) describes soft connectivity as follows:
“the city’s social capital is as important as hard connectivity in the 21st century’s knowledge
economy – while soft and hard connectivity is mutually reinforcing, soft connectivity is
also about supporting an open society in the city, which spurs ideas, entrepreneurship,
innovation, and growth.”
40 | Cities Alliance
Many elements of soft connectivity — like information, reputation, knowledge, social
capital, and creativity — are often latent or intangible features which develop or become
known by reputation over time. Social capital is built up over many years and becomes
deeply embedded in the makeup of the political economy (Woolcock, 1998). It is known
to be a key driver of regional innovation and creativity (Westlund et al., 2013) and also
of the development of industrial clusters and connectedness in cities and businesses,
such as in Italy’s Emilia Romagna region (Botturi et al., 2015). Social capital created within
migrant diasporas has been critical in providing the links to markets, finance, technology,
and expertise behind the development of microenterprises in systems of cities in countries
like China, Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Morocco, Bangladesh, and many Latin American
countries.
The ways different factors of soft connectivity capital are applied and combined, and
the way they flow and interact with each other are what adds extra value to the many
things that cities, businesses, and individuals produce, use, or exchange (Berglund et al.,
2002). Soft connectivity capital and flows are extremely important in the age of artificial
intelligence and IoT to maintain and develop functioning, dynamic, and viable secondary
cities. However, soft connectivity can be extremely fragile and short-lived: social media, for
example, can quickly and adversely impact the perceptions of a city.
3.2.2 BALANCING HARD AND SOFT INFRASTRUCTURE
Improvements in physical accessibility through improved transport infrastructure systems
are no guarantee of an increase in local and regional population numbers, nor of enhanced
economic performance (ESPON, 2016). Physical connectivity is essential, but so is the
soft infrastructure of social and digital networks. The propensity to separate connectivity
into hard and soft elements, while useful, overlooks the importance of the relationship
between the two. They are not mutually exclusive. The size and scale of hard and soft
infrastructure should be determined in relation to future demand, technology, risk, and
other anticipated changes. In seeking to enhance connectivity as a strategy to support the
economic development of secondary (or larger) cities, it is important that policy-makers
understand the need for integration and dependency between hard and soft connectivity
elements and how governments can facilitate their development.
Figure 3.1 shows a conceptual framework of the interrelationship between hard and soft
connectivity and network infrastructure needed to support the development of systems
of secondary cities. Hard connectivity, as noted, consists mainly of physical connections.
These are the transportation, telecommunication, and services networks which connect
human settlements. The size of a population and the function and location of urban centres
have a significant influence on the scope, scale, and types of connections between human
settlements. However, many other political, economic, social, and cultural factors shape
features of hard connections. Many of these factors comprise elements of soft connectivity.
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 41
Soft connectivity has virtual and physical features. Virtual features take various
forms — transfers or transactions of intangible capital, ideas, information, data, and
knowledge exchanges between governments, business, and individuals. The connection
is not physical but is made through the use of technology. Historically, written or other
forms of documentation were used, but increasingly the platform has become digital.
Online learning, blogging and social media are significantly expanding the access, range,
and depth of information, knowledge, and experiences that are crucial to human capital,
social, and local economic development. The nature and mix of transfers and exchanges
occur through different modes of connection and network infrastructure.
FIGURE 3.1 Framework of the interrelationship between hard and soft
connectivity and network infrastructure.
SOFT
HARD
Roads, rail, sea and air
Transportation Systems
Logistics
Pipeline
Electricity
Post & Telecommunications
Source: Author
42 | Cities Alliance
Physical
Social
Cultural
Economic
Education
Environmental
Governance
Techology
Digital
Virtual
The second feature of soft connectivity is physical, and space/place-based. It is linked
closely to and, in many cases, is dependent upon the first feature. It is in the spatial
domain/place where virtual and physical connectivity meet, interface, and interact. The
meeting places are part of the physical exchange space where people and organisations
meet for different reasons to share, exchange, argue and debate ideas and concepts, and
learn from each other. Such spaces and places are crucial to fostering innovation, creativity,
transformation, exchange, and agreement to support human capital, social, and economic
development. Conferences, exhibitions, seminars, teaching and learning activities, and job
exchanges are some ways in which this happens. Others include trade missions, cultural
and work exchanges, and mentoring.
Labour markets are an important element of soft connectivity within systems of secondary
cities. In developing countries, many secondary cities have become the first stage of
urban-rural migration in providing new opportunities for access to employment, health,
education, and trade services. High regional fertility rates and other push factors have
resulted in many secondary cities absorbing population and growing much faster than
metropolitan regions. Urbanisation has led to a rapid expansion of labour markets, with a
high proportion of migrants and residents working in retail, transport, construction, urban
utilities, and domestic services sectors.
Many of the basic skills and competencies of the labour force are developed either from
tacit knowledge or by learning on the job, as most people are not in a position to access
higher education. Basic social, learning, and business skill sets are passed onto family
members, friends, and cultural groups which enable many permanent and temporary
residents of secondary cities in developing countries to start small- and micro-scale
business enterprises. For some, this experience equips them or their children to migrate
to metropolitan regions and overseas in search of higher paying work.
Unfortunately, many secondary cities in developing economies have not been able to
increase skills levels in the labour force or to foster public and private engagement to
provide the necessary development to attract private investment and create decent jobs.
Subsequently, unemployment and underemployment tend to be high, as does the level of
informal sector employment. Secondary cities also end up importing high levels of skilled
labour, capital, and business services which can lead to significant structural problems in
their economies. The exceptions are secondary cities that have created large industrial
areas and attracted FDI in industries in food processing, garment, textile, and parts and
accessories manufacturing, where the demand for labour is high. Lower costs for labour,
housing, and living expenses have helped to offset the high transaction costs for the
transportation of goods and materials to and from ports.
In post-industrialised economies, a situation has arisen where many secondary cities and
regional centres have become net exporters of skilled labour. Populations are ageing,
infrastructure and the housing stock are not well maintained, and community and social
services have become run down. Many cities have developed resilience strategies to lift
the skills base and diversify and restructure into more service-based economies driven by
tourism, trade, education, and health services. Others, especially in older industrial parts
of Europe, Japan, UK, USA, Canada, and Australia have not, and are in decline. In some
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 43
case, for environmental and economic reasons, strategies to support managed decline
may be necessary for many of these cities; however, this does not mean abandoning
support for resilience initiatives. Every effort should be made to revitalise post-industrial
cities, provided they have good prospects for sustainable futures.
The challenge for cities, especially secondary cities, which do not have the depth and
range of capital as larger cities, is how to create the enabling infrastructure and places/
spaces to focus the efforts of governments, institutions, firms, and individuals to maximise
opportunities, and extra yields and the value of connectivity exchanges. Many cities
spread their efforts on connectivity too widely, resulting in diminished returns. On the
other hand, cities that are too narrowly connected could miss opportunities to create new
industries and employment opportunities. The key is a balanced broadening and targeting
of connectivity development to support local economic development in secondary cities
through public policy and other interventions.
Improving the level and quality of hard and soft connectivity and network infrastructure,
especially among secondary towns and cities, is crucial to more equitable, efficient, and
effective access and flows of goods, services, and other exchanges needed to foster
the development of trade, investment, information, knowledge sharing, and visitations
between systems of cities (ASEAN, 2016). The emphasis given in development policy to
the need for hard infrastructure is widely recognised. An Asian Development Bank (ADB)
study forecasts that the needs for hard infrastructure in developing Asia and the Pacific
will exceed US$22.6 trillion through to 2030, or US$1.5 trillion per year, if the region is
to maintain growth momentum (Asian Development Bank, 2017). Much of this will be
needed in cities. Currently, the region invests annually an estimated US$881 billion in hard
infrastructure. Little is known about the level of investment required in soft infrastructure.
The need for focus and balance on the way cities are connected raises an important
question for governments and public policymakers. What aspects of connectivity should
governments focus upon developing, and how can they get the right mix of hard and
soft? A useful way to start is through the development of connectivity indexes, which
attempt to measure the attributes of connectivity and network infrastructure that influence
regional and local economic development. The mix that will return stronger yields in terms
of economic and social development will become more apparent through observation
and experimentation. Efforts by cities and regions to concentrate the depth and focus
of spatial networks to create competitive advantage will result in positive outcomes in
supporting local economic development.
3.2.3 THE SECONDARY CITY TRIAD OF LINKAGES AND NETWORKS
A triad of key hard and soft external connectivity factors or linkages have been identified,
which must be considered carefully in the planning of economic development of secondary
cities. These are urban-rural, secondary city to secondary city, and metropolitan region
linkages (Figure 3.2). In addition, there are many other intra-city connectivity factors,
or linkages, that secondary cities must ensure are in place and operate efficiently and
effectively to enable local economies to grow. Most secondary cities play an important role
44 | Cities Alliance
as regional market, transport, freight and passenger, and logistics hubs or centres. These
facilities can add value to production and end-user demand for goods and services. They
are vital to the flow of materials, goods, and services between rural areas and metropolitan
regions. Poor logistics facilities and transfer systems within systems of secondary cities can
affect the timeliness, quality, and capacity to collect, sort, and dispatch a wide range of
goods and services within industry supply chain systems.
Urban-rural linkages are a crucial part of production value-adding to consumption
supply chains. These supply chains provide most of the materials, food, and cash crops
that manufacturing and processing require to make value-added products. For cities
and nations to maximise their value-adding development opportunities, it is crucial
that producers in rural and regional areas have quality access to industry supply chains.
Secondary and smaller intermediary cities provide the nodes to connect supply chains
that offer opportunities for secondary cities to first-stage value-adding to products and
services to be able to engage in the expansion of trade, investment and other exchanges
beyond their local area or jurisdictions. Secondary city hubs and nodes provide the pivotal
connection point where urban-rural linkages interface and converge, developing and
strengthening the hard and soft infrastructure to enable urban-rural linkages to function
more efficiently to feed into industry supply chains. It is at this point in the supply chain and
production cycle that transaction costs are highest, particularly if it is limited or there is no
competition on the use of public monopoly infrastructure goods and services.
FIGURE 3.2 The Connectivity Triad.
Sub national
logistics
hubs
Intermediary
national
provincial
services
Transformative
value-adding
to supply
chains
Off-season
employment for
rural/regional
communities
Intermediary
markets
Urban-rural
linkages
SC
Regional-rural
linkages
Metro regions comprise
approx. 20% global population
and 50% of global GDP
Metro
Region
KEY ROLES OF
SECONDARY CITIES
METRO
SECONDARY
CITY
LINKAGES
SC
Secondary Cities
comprise approx.
20% global population
and 25% of global GDP
Rural regions and
small cities comprise
approx. 60% of global
population and
25% of global GDP
Source: Author
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 45
Secondary City to Secondary City linkages and Networks play a crucial role in many
value-adding industry processes, especially for industries associated with first/second
stage value-adding, such as processing food, materials and accessory parts and goods.
Supply chains have the role of ensuring inputs into production processes and transport
outputs to a range of end-user demands. These can be additional value-adding, markets,
exports, and development of capital stock. The efficiency of supply chains operating
among secondary cities affects the overall production and productivity of national
economies and metropolitan and rural regions. If these are constrained by poor hard and
soft infrastructure, such as poor interregional roads, weak enforcement of regulations, or
labour skills shortages, the system of conveying goods and services along supply chains
will slow and give rise to high transaction costs.
The weakness in city-to-city or intercity linkages is a significant factor in the failure to
develop national networks of competitive trading secondary cities, which could collaborate
and compete collectively with large metropolitan regions. Instead, much of the focus of
economic development in secondary cities is on trade with metropolitan regions because
they have bigger markets. In many countries, the collective size and market of three or four
secondary cities are much larger than those of metropolitan regions. Nevertheless, it is the
metropolitan regions that get the benefit of trade, investment, and jobs — not secondary
cities
As noted above, most secondary cities give the greatest attention to the development
of their local economies by focusing on links with metropolitan regions. This makes
sense where the travel time among secondary cities and metropolitan regions is less
than a couple of hours. Where secondary cities are dispersed or spread widely within
supply chain systems, the development of regional trading networks of secondary and
intermediary cities may be possible. In centrally planned economies, however, there is
often no choice but to rely on the central government to provide the resources needed
to support local economic development. Opportunities for the development of networks
of secondary trading cities are probably strongest in more decentralised and federated
economies. However, secondary cities must collaborate on developing the infrastructure
that strengthens the connectivity and linkages between them.
Metropolitan region linkages are the third element of the triad. Governments recognise
that improvements to transport and communications among secondary cities and large
metropolitan regions will boost trade, investment, and exchange opportunities. The
emphasis that is given to improvements in hard infrastructure connectivity often overlooks
the importance that should be given to the development of soft infrastructure links to
supporting industry supply chains. Improvements to hard infrastructure significantly
increase the capacity for movement and volume of goods, but have not necessarily led to
a reciprocal growth in services, especially in value-added business services.
Secondary cities offer opportunities to develop (and decentralise) business services to
support the development of metropolitan regions, partly because labour and some
transaction costs are lower. For secondary cities to do so, there is a need to identify niches
in industry supply chains where these can add value to companies and businesses that
may be located away from metropolitan regions. Outsourcing business from metropolitan
regions to secondary cities tends to be limited to lower value-added services, but there
46 | Cities Alliance
are significant opportunities for to develop higher value-added services in the future,
for example in industries associated with 3D printing and advanced business services.
Some secondary cities in India have been very successful in creating new opportunities
for advanced business services, supporting the growth of secondary cities as part of
metropolitan region supply chains.
Factors that affect connectivity between systems of cities include the following:
• Ease of access to hubs, nodes, and connectors that provide seamless
access to infrastructure networks that support the flow or exchange
of information, physical, or spatial movement of many types of goods
and services
• Economic, governance, ideological, social, legal, and other nonphysical types of access to public and private goods and services in
other locations
• Freedom of movement and speech
• General levels of and attitude towards literacy, education, language,
knowledge, skills, and immigration, and openness to change and
ideas
• Quality, scope, scale, flexibility, and capacity of infrastructure and
networks responding to change
• Threats or fears of unknown consequences of opening local
economies
to competition, change, foreign investment, and international
exchanges, and unfettered FDI
• Community beliefs and attitudes.
Table 3.1 lists examples of some hard and soft elements and attributes of flows along with
exchanges that can be a measure for these.
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 47
TABLE 3.1 Hard and soft elements of connectivity.
ELEMENTS OF HARD
CONNECTIVITY
Physical
• Road, rail, sea and air
infrastructure platforms
and network
• Postal and freight and
passenger services
• Utilities (pipelines,
electricity and ICT)
ELEMENTS OF SOFT
CONNECTIVITY
• Internet
• Other ICT data
• Information systems
• E-utility services
• E- monitoring
• Origin-destinations
movements
Economic
and Trade
• Trade flows
• E-finance
• Business documents
exchanges
• E-health
• Passenger flows
• Business exchange
• Tourists
• E-services
• Marketing and promotion
• E-trade and manufacturing
• Telecommuting
• Telecommuting (physical)
Social and Cultural
• Education
• E-learning and conferencing
• Visiting friends and relatives
• Social and public media
• Sports and cultural
• E-library and media
• Conventions, workshops,
and seminars
• Community networks
• Cultural exchanges and
events
48 | Cities Alliance
• Diaspora
ELEMENTS OF HARD
CONNECTIVITY
Governance
ELEMENTS OF SOFT
CONNECTIVITY
• Government to government
meetings
• Political allegiance
• Cooperative services delivery
• E-services
• Collaborative services
delivery
• Partnerships
• Resource sharing
(staff and assets)
• E-governance
• Alliance (Sister cities)
• Vertical and horizontal fiscal
exchange
Environmental
• Environmental flows
(water, air)
• Environmental partnerships
• E-environmental services
• Animal and bird migration
Intrinsic
• Physical identity
• The sense of place and
belonging
• Customary/traditional
ownership
• Experience, image,
reputation
• Security and safety
• Historical legacies
Source: Author
3.2.4 TOWARDS AN INDEX TO ANALYSE CONNECTIVITY AND
NETWORKS FOR SECONDARY CITIES
The various indexes described above provide useful insights into different elements of
connectedness in relation to movements and transfers between countries and the world’s
major cities. In developing economies, however, such data may not be available, and
simpler sets of indicators may need to be used to gain a picture of how well systems of
cities are connected. In some cases, this may involve using a focus group to access the
regularity of meetings between regional levels of government departments or estimates
of the number of buses and passengers travelling between cities. For this publication,
an experimental, analytical framework was developed to measure levels of connectivity
between cities.
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 49
FIGURE 3.3 Index framework to evaluate the scope and scale of connectivity
between cities.
SCALE OF NETWORKS
Scope of connectivity
Hard and Soft Indicators
Intra Regional
(City/rural
urban)
National
(Inter-regional
City)
Global
(Inter-city)
Physical (including ITC)
Economic
Social/cultural
Environmental
Governance
Information/Knowledge
Types of Secondary Cities
REGIONAL
CLUSTERED
CORRIDOR
Source: Author
Figure 3.3 shows a basic framework used to evaluate the scope and scale of connectivity
and networking that supports the development of secondary cities. Scope covers the extent
of the area or subject matter that something deals with or to which it is relevant, or there
is an opportunity or possibility to do or deal with something. It can be used to examine
different elements of connectivity. Scale relates to the size, range, or level of coverage.
It can be used to examine the spatial elements of networking. By using qualitative and
quantitative nominal-scale methods of analysis (flights per day/capita, volume and value
of trade per capita), it is possible to develop a basic index that provides perspectives and
insights into the nature, qualities, and dimensions of connectedness and the infrastructure
networks that support the development of secondary cities. The framework could also be
used to evaluate these characteristics for metropolitan regions, small regional towns, and
cities. Annexe describes a framework which can be used to develop a connectivity index
for systems of secondary cities.
50 | Cities Alliance
3.3 Examples of Secondary City Systems
Secondary cities are part of a much larger system of cities (Berry, 1964) connected to complex
multi-level urban networks, which function at different levels, scales, and intensities. Neal
(2013) classifies urban networks into three levels (Figure 3.4). Macro urban networks are
the connections between cities. They comprise a myriad of physical, economic, cultural,
and social connections which relate to activities and flows occurring at different scales
and intensities. Within macro urban networks sit systems of secondary cities. These form a
distinct sub-system within the systems of cities.
FIGURE 3.4 Nested levels of urban networks.
MACRO-URBAN
NETWORKS
Networks of Cities
MESO-URBAN
NETWORKS
Cities as Networks
MICRO-URBAN
NETWORKS
Networks within Cities
Source: Adapted from Neal, 2013.
Meso-urban networks comprise the rich mixture of connections between people engaged
in business and public activities in different parts and places within cities. These networks
extend beyond the city into peri-urban regions and hinterlands.
Micro urban networks occur between people in communities. These are developed and
shaped by culture, communities of interest, politics, and personal factors. These nested
levels of networks are no longer bound by geography, culture, or language. However,
each level provides a useful basis for a spatial way in which networks operate and how
governments can play a role through policy, information, budgets, and other mechanisms
to support the operations, development, interfaces, and engagements between different
levels of networks present in human settlements.
Networks play a critical role in the development of cities and regions (Boix, 2003). Networks
can be physical or virtual and may include combinations of both. A network may be as
small as three connections. Large networks like Facebook and Twitter involve millions of
connections. In the context of cities, networks are the connecting physical or metaphysical
platforms or mediums which provide the means of movement, exchanges, flows,
transmissions, and other transactions of many things (physical or metaphysical) between
spaces, places, people. They vary in size, coverage, distance, density, accessibility, and
complexity.
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
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Movements that occur within networks are measured in many ways: types, flows, volume,
space, density, time, and other attributes. Some networks provide opportunities for
alternative choices in route, direction, and time. Routes may be direct or circuitous,
depending on factors such as geography or law. Flows in networks can be stable,
alternating, rippling, erratic, or chaotic. Networks, at times, can become unstable or hard
to manage, measure, and model. This is especially so when it comes to managing networks
upon which the operations, functions, and activities of cities and regions rely.
Physical networks, in the context of systems of cities and regions, are vital to well-functioning
cities; they include the mesh of transport, energy, and other utility infrastructure that
services a wide range of land-use activities. There is an extensive field of knowledge on
the operations, development, and modelling of physical networks that service cities. The
modelling and monitoring of urban systems to ensure that flows within physical networks
are not overloaded are part of traffic, electricity, and flood management in many cities. The
mapping of physical networks is crucial in navigating in and around cities. For example,
one of the most famous network maps in the world is the London metro system.
Metaphysical networks in cities are mostly invisible transactions and flows of e-finance,
intelligence, news feeds, and multi-media. These are soft infrastructure networks. They
are crucial to supporting local economic development. Increasingly they must be capable
of being connected to global networks and sub-networks in other countries and cities
(Malecki, 2002). Metaphysical networks predominately service the need for digital
information and data flows. Metaphysical networks are also social and complex. They
manifest themselves as associations, family connections and other links between people,
places, shared beliefs, values, and interests.
There is growing interest in the role and development of soft networks between cities to
support economic development. However, as one author put it, “there is a need to move
away from a one-sided financial/investment-oriented approach of city networking, towards
one that emphasises qualitative partnerships that involve documentation and peer-topeer transfer of knowledge on urban governance and management between cities in a
country or region” (Srinivas, 2015).
The development of networks to support the exchange, sharing, and accumulation of
social, cultural, corporate, and technology capital are important and add to the intrinsic
capital stock of cities — especially accumulative human capital and knowledge. Networks
allow the creation and flow of intrinsic knowledge and capital which are essential in the
creation of smart cities (GMSA, 2016; McClellan et al., 2017). Without the presence of
these networks, cities of today would have difficulty functioning.
The effect of technology and ICT change is that city networks are becoming less hierarchical
in form and structure, more dispersed and, in some cases, localised. The emergence in
cities of local area networks and grids for energy, water, and information is becoming more
common. Local area networks and grids reduce the dependence and risk associated with
reliance on large national networks, especially national electricity grids, which are prone to
failure. A downside of an increasingly networked society is that many big system networks
are currently controlled by the government or large corporations, creating concerns about
security, privacy, and accessibility if these become privatised and closed systems.
52 | Cities Alliance
A critical factor in secondary city development is the creation of opportunities to build
local physical and metaphysical networks that can connect and be integrated, without
having a dependence upon large metropolitan regions for the provision of higher-level
services and other needs. Access to the IoT will help break that dependence and is already
creating opportunities for regional towns and cities to gain access to virtual communities
of interest and to specialised services, products, and markets, which connect like-minded
and even competing interests globally.
3.3.1 TYPES OF SECONDARY CITY SYSTEMS
Changes in global trade and the IoT have given rise to very complex networks of hubs and
nodes within systems of cities. Networks have spatial, physical, and virtual elements: they
are made up of many connections, which allow many different things to interact with each
other in time, space, and place. There is a high degree of interaction between all three
elements. A rail network, for instance, requires both physical infrastructure, signalling, and
time tables to operate. How well a network functions, however, depends on many other
factors, such as use, scale, capacity, technology, and the skills and competencies of the
people who build and operate it. Physical networks comprise a system of interconnected
people or things; their purpose is to support the movement and the exchange of physical
things. Railways, roads, telecommunications, and river and canal networks have the
primary purpose of servicing the needs of human settlements. Non-physical networks
relate to the exchange of data and information and are developed by personal interests
and professional or social contacts — although these networks have become much wider
and deeper with the IoT.
Networks related to the spatial development of systems of cities can be identified as
regular, random, scale-free, and hierarchical (Figure 3.5). Regular networks are ‘regular’
because each node has the same number of links. This is the pattern associated with rural
development in many countries prior to historical industrialisation. Random networks are
generated by starting with a disconnected (independent) set of nodes that become linked
up in relation to the proximity and scale of nodes in the network. For example, clusters
of villages become more interconnected to an urban centre as the result of a new food
processing industry being developed in a town or small city. This is the pattern of human
settlement development that often occurs with the initial stages of industrialisation or
regional tourism development.
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FIGURE 3.5 Regular, random, scale-free, and hierarchical networks.
Hierarchical Networks comprise a series of
secondary hubs and nodes which function
mainly through a centralised hub. Hierarchical
networks of cities are evident in many African,
South American and some Asian systems of
cities.
Regular Networks are not homogeneous. The
pattern can be a regular grid or other patterns
where the links and separation of hubs and nodes
tends to be uniform. These uniform spread of
nodes tend to happen around a major hub within
a country. This type of networks are features of
densely populated decentralised countries.
M
S
Random Networks are nearly homogenous. Most
nodes have approximately the same numbers
of links. The road system, for pre-industrialised
countries with low levels of urbanisation, fits
this type of network model. Many of these
are transforming into hierarchal or scale-free
networks as a result of urbanisation.
Source: Author
54 | Cities Alliance
S
Scale-Free Networks are not homogeneous.
Most nodes have two or three strong links but
a few highly-connected nodes, so-called hubs,
have a large number of links. This network
pattern is reminiscent of North American, Brazil
and some Asian countries.
Scale-free networks are networks that emerge with the presence of hubs, or with a few
nodes that are highly connected to other nodes in the network. This pattern of systems
of cities settlement is associated with advanced levels of industrialisation, i.e., Europe,
USA, and China. Hierarchical networks are those associated with the development of
strong clusters of hubs and nodes of economic activities in geographic regions connected
through a major global hub. The development of the Jingjinji (Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei) supra
region in China is an example of this form of the hierarchical network system of cities.
There are, however, many variations and mixes of all the above networks.
The most significant differences between regular, random, and scale-free networks
are observed in urban hubs. Fixed regular networks are the physical and governance
infrastructure systems and structures that connect many parts of cities and regions.
Examples of governance network infrastructure are legal procedures, protocols, and rules
that shape the actions of government and how citizens should behave. Without them,
urban and regional systems would not function.
The scale-free network model assumes that systems of
cities will grow more uniformly as populations rise. The
model has strongly influenced spatial planning for the
balanced and equitable development of urban systems.
Developments in the field of mathematics, scale-free and random networks (Barthélemy,
2003) offer new insights into the creation of networks which could be applied to shaping the
development, growth, and functions of primary and secondary cities. In the development
of scale-free networks (Barabási & Albert, 1999), the degree of the largest hub rises as a
nonlinear relationship with the size of the network. In random networks (Erdős & Rényi,
1961), the degree of importance of the most significant nodes rises faster or slower than
other hubs in an extensive network. These occur where a hub city within a regional system
of cities network is able to gain some form of competitive advantage. An example of this is
the rise of Palo Alto (Silicon Valley) (Saxenian, 1996), which developed as a global IT centre)
within the San Francisco Bay area. In the pre-internet age, scale-free networks dominated,
but in the IoT, random networks are emerging. It is crucial however that “optimal network
[of connections which] minimises both the total length and the diameter ties in between
the scale-free and spatial networks” (Barthélemy, 2003: 915p).
The scale-free network model assumes that systems of cities will grow more uniformly
as populations rise. The model has strongly influenced spatial planning for the balanced
and equitable development of urban systems. It has also strongly influenced central
government policies and decisions on the spatial location of major public investment to
support new industries in poor or depressed regions to create jobs. It is also associated
with political favouritism, with decisions made without proper consideration of access to
skilled labour, access to supply chains, and transaction costs.
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The scale-free network model has driven the development of cities in countries like
Argentina, Thailand, and Ghana, where primary cities have dominated the development
of the national economy and systems of cities. Unfortunately, the trickle-down effect in
the development of systems of cities in scale-free networks has not been uniform and
has contributed significantly to the disparities in sub-national, regional development,
elements of performance, and diversity in the development of secondary and tertiary
systems of cities.
The random network model provides a better explanation of what happens to the growth
of networks and urban patterns. The random model recognises that economics and other
factors are far more influential in shaping the growth and development of cities than is
population growth. Cities develop as the result of a unique combination of factors that
attract the investment, capital, and labour needed to support their development. The
progressive accumulation of wealth and other intrinsic factors result in the creation of
competitive advantage. The level of connectivity and network development gives some
cities a competitive advantage over others. In most cases, these cities networks tend to
become broader and more specialised over time, so cities become known by what they
produce or offer through reputation. Focusing on the development of random networks
offers diverse opportunities for the development of secondary cities.
While the size and the growth of random and scale-free
networks are still important to the development of cities,
it is the random networks that create the point of difference
between the elements of the performance of cities.
A hierarchical network divides the network into discrete layers relative to scale and proximity.
Each layer, or tier, in the hierarchy, provides specific functions that define its role within a
national or global network of cities. Population size and economic output are central to
the explanation of the way cities fit within a world system of economic power or influence.
While the size and the growth of random and scale-free networks are still important to
the development of cities, it is the random networks that create the point of difference
between the elements of the performance of cities. Random networks tend to form and
build around clusters and communities of interest, especially associated with creativity,
innovation, and knowledge sharing, which are becoming increasingly important to the
development of cities. Weakness in the development of random networks is curtailing
the development of many secondary cities. Secondary cities that have become smarter
in developing random networks, for example, Gaziantep in Turkey, which is developing
global leadership in carpets (Kilroy et al., 2015), shows how significant the development of
random networks are to the development of secondary cities.
3.3.2 PEER-TO-PEER SYSTEMS OF SECONDARY CITIES
The diverse types of connections and networks described above have a crucial role in
supporting the functions, operations and development of systems secondary cities. However,
56 | Cities Alliance
new types of networks are emerging that
are a hybrid of the networks described
above. The difference is that these are
increasingly virtual and they rely on the
Internet to support their operations and
development. These are peer-to-peer
(P2P) networks (Andrews & Manning,
2016) linked to the sharing economy.
Such networks are about major changes
and developments in transport, travel,
retail, business, education, and health
services sectors in all economies.
FIGURE 3.6 Two elements of
peer-to-peer networks.
Overlay Network
In its simplest form, a P2P network is
created when two or more computer
devices are connected and share
resources without going through a
separate server computer. There are
Physical Network
two elements of the network (Figure
3.6): there is the overlay network,
Source: Moltchanov, 2013
which includes the Internet Protocol
or IP addresses that are assigned to
computers, as well as the flow of digital information that translates into many different
forms of exchange (i.e., text, data, information, pictures, and words); and there is the
physical network, which is the hard and soft infrastructure needed to make the Internet run
(Moltchanov, 2013). A P2P network allows multiple connections between internet-linked
devices supporting teleconferencing, mass education, and management of emergencies,
among other things. Peer-to-peer networks are not constrained by hierarchy and scale,
but by the capacity of the network infrastructure that drives them. That constraint is being
overcome in many developing economies, however, with the rollout of 4G and 5G systems,
low orbit satellites, and other devices which will permit Internet access in almost any place
on earth.
Peer-to-peer networks have the capacity to remove the significant disadvantages (such as
scale and accessibility) affecting the competitiveness and cost of doing business within
systems of secondary cities. The advantage of P2P networks is that data and information
can be compiled and sent instantaneously to almost any communications device. The
importance of P2P networks in supporting economic transactions and many other activities
is increasing rapidly and is constrained by the capacity of communications infrastructure.
As a result of the development of P2P networks, many other networks within systems of
cities are emerging (Table 3.2). Such networks will make access to public and personalised
goods, services, information, and communications in systems of secondary cities easier
and cheaper. The advantage of these new networks is that secondary cities will become
much less dependent on hierarchical networks to access markets for the purchase,
sale, despatch, and delivery of a wide range of goods services, data, and information.
Transaction costs for time, travel, and intermediary supply chains will all fall dramatically,
allowing systems of secondary cities to be more collaborative and enjoy more equitable
access to goods and services.
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
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TABLE 3.2 Types of peer-to-peer networks supporting the development of
systems of cities.
• Personal Area Network (PAN)
• Storage-Area Network (SAN)
• Local Area Network (LAN)
• System-Area Network (also known as
SAN)
• Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN)
• Passive Optical Local Area Network
(POLAN)
• Wide Area Network (WAN)
• Enterprise Private Network (EPN)
• Campus Area Network (CAN)
• Virtual Private Network (VPN)
• Metropolitan Area Network (MAN)
Source: Bourgeois, 2016
The above networks have developed with the growth of the Internet and with new
technologies in digital production, materials, and IT systems which have substantially
reduced marginal costs of production and access to information of many products. Peerto-peer networks will create opportunities for governments, business, and organisations
within systems of secondary cities to collaborate to create virtual economies of scale and
critical mass. These opportunities can be achieved through the development of virtual
industry clusters, where the physical elements of production/assembly/distribution
are dispersed, but the core elements connecting them will be networks of business,
organisations, and communities of interest (WEF, 2017).
The development of P2P networks has the potential to create many new opportunities
for the development of systems of secondary cities in all countries. However, the
development of internet infrastructure is expensive, especially in developing countries
which are landlocked or dispersed across oceans. Many developing countries (e.g.,
Indonesia, Rwanda) are hurrying to develop the infrastructure to roll out internet services
to regional areas; however, speed, bandwidth, and volume use have an impact on the
quality and price of services. One of the most significant constraints to the development
of P2P global networks is the “internet pipe” — the point where national internet systems
join the Global Internet. Many of these pipe connections have low bandwidth capacity
and, if volume flows are small, unit data transfer costs can be high. Pipe capacity and costs
are a significant factor in the growing problems of the digital divide, and they have a flowon effect onto many sectors of the economies of developing regions and cities, including
education, business, trade, information services, and government services.
58 | Cities Alliance
3.3.3 WHY ARE PEER-TO-PEER NETWORKS VITAL TO THE
DEVELOPMENT OF SECONDARY CITIES?
The contribution of the Internet to national and regional economies is growing rapidly.
Measured by the combined value of ICT production and integrated digital inputs, China’s
digital economy was estimated to have contributed to 30 per cent of GDP in 2016, up
from 15.2 per cent of GDP in 2008 (Lau, 2017). However, when measured by the valueadded effect of ICT industries in the sector, China’s digital sector amounted to 5 per cent
of GDP in 2012. In countries like Japan, Korea, and Ireland, it was 8 per cent (International
Monetary Fund, 2018). The Internet and P2P networks are infrastructures for the building of
21st-century economies, and data and information are the fuels that drive them.
In the developing regions in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, relatively sparse infrastructure
is in place to allow citizens to access the Internet. In secondary cities, download speeds,
even on mobile networks, are less than 3 Mbs. Moreover, even when there are connections
available, many people in those regions cannot afford either the devices required or the
account access (IMF 2018).
Peer-to-peer networking is developing, but mainly in social networks, not in business,
government, and education. The development of infrastructure to support internet
capacity, spread, and P2P networking offers significant opportunities to strengthen
connectedness between regional systems of secondary cities to boost exchanges and the
flow of trade, investment, and visitors between regions. It is vital that this is recognised
in national urban- and regional development policies and infrastructure programmes. Of
more critical importance, however, is the development of a system of secondary cities P2P
networks for business, trade, education, community services, and government.
Light rail construction in Addis Abeba.
Location: Addis Abeba, Ethiopia
Photo Credit: @Cities Alliance, 2014
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
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4| CASE STUDIES:
SYSTEMS OF
SECONDARY CITIES
Case studies are a useful way to show how some countries and secondary
cities are taking a more collaborative and networked approach to local
economic development. The following chapter presents case studies
from developed and developing economies which describe good
practice examples of initiatives to enhance connectivity, networks, and
development initiatives for different types of secondary cites.
4.1 Regional Networks of Secondary Cities
The development of regional networks of secondary cities engaged in collaborative
competition is an emerging phenomenon. The reason regional secondary cities are
examining ways to collaborate is the recognition that many local businesses find it difficult
to compete or gain access to markets because they are not able to achieve the same
economies of scale as large industry clusters located in metropolitan regions close to
major transport facilities and services. Many secondary cities are located inland or in landlocked countries, which adds significantly to transaction costs for many businesses.
The model for the development of systems of secondary cities has tended to have a strong
focus on enhanced governance, economic, social, and historical connectivity to support
the development of capital cities or large metropolitan regions. This has built on a strong
social capital base of family and firm specialisation and value-added production activities
along primary supply chain routes, except in Europe and some more densely settled
countries. This metropolitan-centric form of development has reduced the possibilities of
developing sub-national systems of trading secondary cities.
Several countries have come to realise the need for change in the model of regional
cities’ economies in order to overcome the problems of isolation, being land-locked,
high transaction costs, and the dominance of and dependence on metropolitan region
markets and supply chains. As a result, some countries have been encouraging a more
collaborative model of regional economic development to reduce business transaction
costs and achieve economies of scale. The following case studies provide insights into
60 | Cities Alliance
approaches that regional and local governments have taken to improve soft connectivity
and networked infrastructure in order to create a competitive advantage to support the
development of secondary cities.
4.1.1 BRATISLAVA, BUDAPEST, LJUBLJANA, PRAGUE, AND
VIENNA: A DANUBE REGION POLYCENTRAL CITY NETWORK
An example of a polycentral network of a system of cities can be found in the Danube region,
where the central European capitals of Bratislava, Budapest, Ljubljana, Prague, and Vienna
(BBLPV) have formed a distinct interrelationship and collaborative governance (Kramar &
Kadi, 2013) (Figure 4.1). Strictly speaking, three of these are metropolitan regions, but are
small by international standards. Based on a shared history and collaborative culture, these
five cities have built a spatial triangle of economic flows between them. Proactively fostered
by collaborative territorial cooperation, several inter-municipal planning initiatives have
been established to capitalise upon these flows through the harmonisation of municipal
spatial planning practices towards a joint, regional spatial-development strategy across
several national borders. The main reason for territorial cooperation was to find a balanced
way to work together and, at the same time, compete and identify the potentials and
challenges for such cooperation/competition (EPSON, 2017).
The idea to create a collaborative
advantage
model
of
economic
cooperation and development in order
to strive towards a common regional
economic corridor between the cities was
based on the significant role and nodal
point of each of the five cities within their
respective national system of cities. Data
used in reviewing the locations of 100
FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate) firms
in 315 global cities indicate the shared
role of Vienna and Prague in the Danube
region. Of importance to the operation
of the soft connectivity and network
infrastructure is the function of Vienna.
It is the catalyst for the network, hosting
more high-ranking company locations
than its surrounding partner cities in
the region. Prague leads the number of
hosted FIRE company relations within
the region (ESPON & Vienna University
of Technology, 2012).
The emerging role of this network of
cities is also recognised by the European
Union and its financing institutions,
FIGURE 4.1 Bratislava, Budapest,
Ljubljana, Prague, and Vienna: a
polycentral city network.
Prague
Bratislava
Vienna
Budapest
Ljubljana
Source: Adapted from EPSON, 2017
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
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such as the European Investment Bank (EIB), shifting both attention and financing in
support of this network. All cities are benefitting from a stronger orientation to the TransEuropean Transport Networks (TEN-T), Trans-European Networks for Energy (TEN-E), and
Trans-European Telecommunications Networks (eTEN) linking investment priorities to
key connective infrastructure in cities, which allows better access to the single European
market.
The BBLPV polycentric network is developing slowly. There is recognition that it will take
time to develop more advanced networks of cooperation between stakeholders that
result in more significant economic cooperation and development between the cities.
Polycentricism is showing promise at the micro (intra-regional) level, with the development
of networks between the core cities and their surroundings being financially supported
by existing ‘Convergence’ or ‘Regional Competitiveness and Employment’ objective
programme. However, learning gained from the initiative show that programmes need to
be better aligned to support the integration of municipal systems — not spatially aligned
by national administrative borders within the EU countries involved. There is a need for a
better city-to-city integration of clusters and collaborative business development across
borders that aims at fostering all kinds of city networks. There are opportunities also for
the development of bilateral relations between cities supported by the interregional
co-operation programme.
4.1.2 A NETWORK OF NEW ZEALAND REGIONAL SECONDARY
CITIES
The New Zealand Core Cities Network was developed as a project designed to create
a collaborative governance arrangement between central and local governments to
realise the development potential of the country’s cities. It drew upon the UK model, but
the approach to its development is less formalised and operates more as a networked
organisation collaborative partnership. It began with the nation’s six largest cities agreeing
to collaborate on a range of initiatives to support their development and influence the
national urban policy agenda for cities. It grew out of a concern that New Zealand cities
needed to collaborate to become more competitive to support business and engage in
trade, investment, and tourism development. It has subsequently been expanded to ten
cities (Figure 4.2).
There was realisation also by New Zealand local governments that geographic location,
the small size of its cities, and the fragmented ways each were competing for trade and
investment opportunities were not maximising the use of urban and regional resources
and the development potential of the country. Collaboration between city governments
and the national government was a way to reduce business transaction and externality
costs, to share marketing intelligence, and to pool resources to create critical mass and
scale in order to gain a competitive advantage for trade and investment.
The initial partnership focused on four areas: development of collaborative networks
internationally; policy and research answers to determine the role of city networks in
New Zealand; city competitiveness and city place in the national economy; and research
options that would produce a database to assess regional economies (GoNZ, 2012).
There was recognition by the councils involved that New Zealand cities are small and
62 | Cities Alliance
remote, and that collaboration in areas
of trade, information sharing, tourism,
and economic development helps to
reduce externality costs through shared
services. The collaborative arrangement
has enabled the cities to overcome
economies of scale and entry barriers to
new and emerging markets.
FIGURE 4.2 New Zealand network
of regional secondary cities.
Auckland
Tauranga
Hamilton
The NZ Core Cities Research Summary
(LGNZ, 2012) is a summary of the six
Palmerston
competitive advantage and distinctiveness
reports completed for Auckland, Tauranga,
Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch, and
Queenstown
Wellington
Dunedin, the first significant output of
Lakes District
And 2 local
the initiative. Analysis of the reports and
Council
councils
summary led the network to progress
Christchurch
two key projects considered to add the
most value to its membership. The first
of these was a collaborative project
Dunedin
across the network that produced a
LEGEND
set of guidelines for councils on the
development of business-friendly policies
Capital
(LGNZ, 2014). The policies set out good
Major cities
Source: Author
practices and principles for creating soft
infrastructure and networking to support
the development of cities. The second was the development and progression of the China
engagement project, a practical programme of facilitated workshops run quarterly by
LGNZ. The outcome was the formation of a new network of international relations teams
from each of the core cities. The value over the two years was the establishment of new
relationships, information sharing, and a joint strategic approach to future engagement
with China. This project laid a foundation for a conversation with the Chinese Peoples
Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC) about establishing a new subnational mechanism of exchange between China and New Zealand.
The first New Zealand China Mayoral Forum was launched in 2014 in the presence of
President of China, Xi Jinping. A second was held in Xiamen 2015, and a third is planned
for 2020 (LGNZ, 2017). The mayoral forums provide collaborative sub-national engagement
to enhance and develop further political and trade relations between Chinese and
New Zealand cities for the future. These forums provide opportunities for cities in both
countries to discuss and explore trade and investment opportunities. The initial focus was
on education, tourism and primary industries, reciprocal trade between cities, skills and
technology transfer, and improved access and integration into supply chain value-added
production systems. The result has been a steady increase in the city-to-city trade between
New Zealand and China.
The New Zealand Core Cities Network began as a catalytic project for six local governments
to collaborate to support local business and economic development, increase elements
of performance, gain easier access to world markets, and develop mutual trade and
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
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investment opportunities between cities within and outside the country. It was an
ambitious and complex project led by LGNZ and carried out with some risk. As an entity,
the New Zealand Core Cities Network no longer exists, but it provided the driver to create
the soft infrastructure and networks to link cities in a more collaborative arrangement to
support local economic development. The metamorphosis of the formal arrangement of
Mayoral Council meetings has ensured more significant levels in the exchange of data
and information, collaborative marketing, and innovation in local government reform and
working arrangements with business in support of local economic development.
The New Zealand Core Cities Network is a good model, which indicates that collaborative
governance arrangements to support the development of soft connectivity and networks
must be adaptive, flexible, and responsive to change, creating and developing innovative
ideas. It has proved that simple adaptive structures of collaborative governance between
cities can result in many innovative and creative opportunities to foster connectivity and
can work together on win/win solutions of mutual benefit to the cities engaged and to
their country. This is particularly important, as both central and local governments around
the world grapple with an increasingly complex policy setting.
The Core City concept of collaborative governance in New Zealand and the UK, The
Netherlands, and Finland provide good practice examples of how secondary cities can
work together to build political capital that gives them stronger competitive advantage,
rather than seeking to compete individually. It is a model that highlights the key role
local government can play in the achievement of national economic outcomes. This can
be applied to the development of political and financial connectivity and networking
infrastructure in middle income and developing economies.
4.1.3 RWANDA NETWORKED CITIES
Rwanda is a small land-locked country of 26,338 km2, located more than 1000 km from the
nearest ocean port, with a population approaching 12.5 million. Rwanda is a country of few
natural resources, with an economy based on agriculture. Around a third of the population
live in urban areas, of which more than 1.3 million live in Kigali, the capital city. Rwanda is
ranked 170th out of 190 countries in terms of GDP per capita, estimated at US$765.20 in
2017. Its economy is among the fastest growing in Africa at over 6 per cent, annually.
Rwanda suffered massive devastation as the result of genocide and civil war in the early
1990s. The Rwanda Vision 2020 (GoR, 2000), launched in 2000, set out an ambitious mediumterm goal of transforming the country from an agrarian to a knowledge-based economy.
Vision 2020 provides a roadmap for Rwanda that supports urbanisation; promotes regional
economic integration and cooperation; actively encourages science and technology,
education, and ICT skills; and addresses the fact that the country is land-locked. Rwanda
has developed several progressive initiatives, such as flagship programmes to support
private-sector development in the Skills, Employability and Entrepreneurship Programme
(SEEP) and has prioritized ICT as an enabler of its socio-economic development through
the five-year (2013-17) national strategy on ICT development called ‘Smart Rwanda’
(Nimusima et al., 2018). It has also taken the lead in Africa in the rollout of a broadband
network (Box 5-1). These initiatives are moving the country towards the achievements of
Vision 2020 — which are strongly related to improved connectivity between cities.
64 | Cities Alliance
Rwanda is embarking on an ambitious task of developing a network of six green secondary
cities. Two key priorities are integrated development planning and management, and
the development of secondary cities as growth poles. It has a priority also to focus on
green urbanisation and innovation (Figure 4.3). In May 2016, the Government of Rwanda,
in partnership with the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), launched the National
Roadmap for Green Secondary City Development in Rwanda (GGGI, 2015). The National
Roadmap will support Rwanda’s Green Growth and Climate Resilient Strategy and serve as
an implementation tool for the country’s Economic Development and Poverty Reduction
Strategy (EDPRS2). A key element of the green cities agenda is focused on connectivity
around five priority areas of economic transformation for rapid growth.
The significance of the Rwandan green cities initiative is that it uses both hard and soft
elements of connectivity between cities to support the development of regions throughout
the country. The focus on education and ICT seeks to address significant factors that
contribute to inequity in the development of the systems of cities. Rwanda is the only
country in sub-Saharan Africa to do this.
FIGURE 4.3 Priority areas for economic transition - Rwanda.
THEMATIC
AREAS
ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION
FOR RAPID GROWTH
ECONOMIC
TRANSFORMATION
1. Increasing the domestic interconnectivity
of the economy through investents in
hard and soft infrastructures
Priority 4:
i) Integrated development
planning and management;
ii) Develop secondary
cities as poles of growth
2. Increasing the internal connectivity
of the economy and boosting exports
PRIORITY
AREAS
3. Transforming the private sector by
increasing investment in priority sectors
4. Transform the economic geography of
Rwanda by facilitating and managing
urbanisation and promoting secondary
cities as poles of economic growth
5. Pursuing a “green economy” approach
to economic transformation
Priority 5:
i) Promotion of Green
urbanisation;
ii) Green innovation industrial
and private sector
CROSS-CUTTING ISSUE
Environment
and climate change
Source: Jeong, 2014
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
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Rwanda has taken the lead in Africa to roll out a broadband
network to support the development of secondary cities
as part of a programme to support regional economic
development through a model green city programme.
The initiative is supported by the World Bank with the aim
to network six secondary cities and towns, to provide a
basis for information and knowledge sharing, e-education
and health services, and green industry development in
regional towns and cities.
(Jeong, 2014)
4.1.4 COLOMBIA COFFEE TRIANGLE: A HISTORY OF
COLLABORATIVE CITY DEVELOPMENT
Colombia, located in the northern part of South America, has extraordinary biodiversity,
allowing the country to have urban and rural developments with unique characteristics. For
more than 50 years, coffee has been the main agricultural product of Colombia.
The Colombian Coffee Triangle Region (Spanish: Eje Cafetero), is a part of the Colombian
Paisa region, in the rural area of Colombia famous for growing and producing most of
Colombia’s coffee. Located in the Central West section of the Andean region, the three
departments (local government regions) Caldas, Risaralda, and Quindío host a population
of over 2.5 million (Figure 4.4). Three secondary cities, of between 300,000 and 500,000
people each, are in this main growing area: Manizales, in the Department of Caldas,
Armenia in Quindío, and Pereira in Risaralda, are home to over 50 per cent of the triangle’s
population. The triangle is also engaged in tourism, automotive production, agribusiness,
cosmetics, and ICT (Cuesta et al., 2010).
From an administrative perspective, the cities have significant autonomy, as they are the
capitals of their respective departments or states. During the 20th century, this autonomy,
and their traditional, monolithically structured economy based on coffee cultivation and
rivalry, characterised the relationship between the cities (Duque Escobar, 2017)
However, after a devastating earthquake hit the region in January 1999 and coffee prices
fell internationally, these Colombian secondary cities faced significant economic hardship
and were forced to re-invent themselves.
66 | Cities Alliance
As a result of the national government’s
promotion of prosperity agreements
between 2010 and 2014, a new urban
cooperation was formed between
Armenia, Pereira, and Manizales. The three
cities realised that coffee growing could
no longer be the only source of economic
prosperity and that specialisation and
positive interdependencies would benefit
all cities. To support this integration, the
national government provided funding
to improve the road infrastructure
connecting the three cities and promoted
the development of a regional airport.
As a result, even though cities in the
triangle maintain their uniqueness, each
has a focus on diversifying its economy
from coffee by providing supportive
products and services needed by the urban
areas that previously were seen only as
competitors. The partnership between the
cities has led to significant improvements
in the three cities’ economies (Table 4.1).
FIGURE 4.4 Map of the urban
centres in the main coffee growing
area of Colombia.
Manizales
Pereira
Armenia
Source: Shadowxfox, 2015
TABLE 4.1 Growth in Coffee Triangle businesses in Pereira, Manizales, and
Armenia (2015-2017).
2015-16
2016-17
New
Businesses
Per cent
Increase
New
Businesses
Per cent
Increase
Pereira por
Risaralda
553
1.88
1003
3.24
Manizales
por Caldas
36
0.24
630
4.08
1341
8.45
1992
10.37
Armenia por
Quindío
Source: La Republica, with info from Cámara de Comercio de Manizales por Caldas-CCM, 2018
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
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Today, Manizales has an education focus and offers the largest and most diverse tertiary
education services of all three cities. Pereira, the urban centre most affected by the
earthquake, decided to focus reconstruction efforts on providing industrial zones and
vibrant retail activity. Armenia, although the smallest of the three cities, took advantage of
its unique location and climate to promote tourism.
Full integration of these urban centres has not yet been achieved, and work remains to be
done. There is a lack of both inter-urban public transport services to facilitate workforce
movement between these urban centres and more plans for better rural integration.
However, the path of cooperation is politically, socially, and economically accepted in
the Triangle. Investment and support from the national government were fundamental
to the success of this cooperation, and all parties — local and national — recognise this
collaborative approach as the best way for small cities to prosper together, while promoting
sustainable development.
4.1.5 UK CORE CITIES GROUP
The UK Core Cities Group (2015) is a collaborative advocacy group representing ten of the
United Kingdom’s largest regional cities outside Greater London. The Group covers wideranging secondary city interests, encompassing transport and connectivity, innovation and
business support, skills and employment, sustainable communities, culture and creative
industries, climate change, finance, industry, and governance. It is politically led by the
elected leaders and mayors, and each city has responsibility for a portfolio area that
reflects national interests at the secondary city level. Members of the Group aim to work as
collaborative partners with central government to support the development of cities and
their economies.
The UK Core Cities Group typically undertakes activities such as the following:
• Developing strategies
• Conducting policy research
• Addressing information barriers
• Developing and disseminating best practices
• Enhancing links to the education sector
• Influencing the central government policy setting
The Group has been highly successful in leading collaboration on important issues
affecting the development of cities. Each city has a lead role in developing key public policy
issues, for example, Birmingham on industrial strategy, Manchester on Brexit/international
development, and Glasgow on smart cities. The collaborative efforts of the Group have
enabled the ten cities to leverage considerable political and competitive advantage in
securing development funds and access to negotiations on Brexit, which will affect some
of the cities significantly and require structural adjustment funding and collaboration on
data sharing and knowledge exchange.
68 | Cities Alliance
4.2 Clustered Secondary Cities
There has been a growing tendency for metropolitan regions to develop a polycentric
development pattern, where the older core area of a city becomes ‘full’, and the growing
population spills over political boundaries or green belts into urban growth centres in
neighbouring local government areas, which eventually grow into middle-size and large
secondary cities, creating clusters of cities. Some of the growth of clustered secondary
cities is planned, such as the satellite cities or new towns around London and Paris.
However, in rapidly developing economies, it is spreading, uncontrolled, for more than 100
km from the core city centre. Megacities such as Jakarta and Manila have grown into huge
super regions, with populations of more than 20 million and a fused system of secondary
cluster cities encompassing a built-up area of more than 4000 km2.
The cohesiveness of metropolitan areas with a ringed-cluster of secondary cities has often
resulted in dysfunctional regional governance, high peripheral-to-centre commuting and
congestion, metropolitan and regional disparities, and uneven patterns of development
and poverty in clustered secondary cities. However, some metropolitan regions have
developed new models to improve hard and soft infrastructure connectivity and networks
to substantially enhance governance, elements of performance, and the functional capacity
of clustered secondary cities within the region.
There is growing recognition that industry clusters in secondary cities that are part of
larger metropolitan regions face significant development problems, caused by a lack
of coordination, parochialism, and a lack of willingness to collaborate. Governance
fragmentation is inhibiting the development of metropolitan regions. Some countries and
regions have attempted to resolve these governance issues through the establishment
of regional organisations of councils (Bay Area Council, 2018; Marshall et al., 2003). The
following provides insights into the way one metropolitan region in Australia with a
cluster of secondary cities has significantly improved the planning, infrastructure, and soft
connectivity and networks to develop strong political, human, and economic capital to
create competitive advantage.
4.2.1 SOUTH EAST QUEENSLAND REGIONAL ORGANIZATION OF
MAYORS, AUSTRALIA
The Council of Mayors for the South East Queensland (SEQ) Region of Queensland,
Australia was established in 2005 as an independent political organisation to represent
the interests of one of the nation’s fastest-growing regions (SEQ Council of Mayors, 2018).
The Council of Mayors is a registered propriety company, with a board of 11 mayors
representing the councils of SEQ. Brisbane and the Gold Coast are the two largest local
governments in Australia. Brisbane is the capital city of Queensland and the largest city
in the region (Figure 4.5). It is surrounded by a cluster of eight inter-regional networked
cities to the north, south, and west, covering a geographic area of 22,420 km2 and with a
population of 3.5 million (2016), 14 per cent of the Australian population.
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
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The Council acts as a regional collaborative
governance body that is engaged in
advocacy, regional planning, infrastructure
and economic development, marketing,
and promotion. The Council’s mission
has three primary outcomes: Advocate
for a better-resourced SEQ region, with
world-standard infrastructure to support
economic development; influence other
levels of government to ensure that their
policy and legislative positions support
SEQ regional growth, and collaborate
in effective and innovative cooperative
programmes across and within the SEQ
region.
FIGURE 4.5 South East Queensland
Council of Mayors, Australia.
Sunshine Coast
(341,050)
Morten Bay
(425, 482)
Ipswich
(193,015)
Brisbane City
(1,162,186)
Redland
The Council has been very successful in
(149,989)
accomplishing elements of its mission,
Toowoomba
such as securing resources for the SEQ
Logan
(163,232)
(306,681)
region nationally to build infrastructure,
collaborating on regional waterways
management, and the developing one
Gold Coast
of Australia’s best public and private
(555,608)
transportation systems. The Council
is developing many elements of soft
Source: Author
connectivity, including an agreement with
a large US ICT services company to work
collaboratively on becoming one of the
world’s first ‘smart regions’ (Cisco, 2015), based on improved hard and soft connectivity
and networking infrastructure between Brisbane and the region’s clustered cities. The
outcomes of this initiative are interesting, as their focus is on the community, business, and
government.
The community outcomes are focused on reduced commuter frustration and increased
commuter comfort, empowering commuters to choose alternatives that achieve these
outcomes. This is an excellent example of local governments seeking to use soft connectivity
to address behavioural issues which affect regional productivity and performance. The
business outcomes are expected to result in fewer employees being impacted by public
transport delays and both easier commutes and transportation of goods on the road
because of more commuters taking public transport. The government outcomes are
expected to result in improvements in commuter route planning and decision-making;
increased reliability of the public transport network; and increased patronage and load
optimisation, resulting from the new technologies and improved services (Cisco, 2015:12).
Recently, the Council of Mayors agreed to collaborative planning and funding of a $42
billion, ten-year programme of integrated regional transportation infrastructure to avoid
gridlock.
The Council of Mayors is a cluster model of collaborative governance that has a strong focus
on the development of soft and hard connectivity and network infrastructure to support
70 | Cities Alliance
the long-term development of SEQ. Other initiatives that support the development of soft
infrastructure include information sharing, joint planning, environmental partnerships, and
research and social development (SEQ Council of Mayors, 2018). South East Queensland
has become a region that, in practical terms, functions as a polycentric metropolitan
region, under a non-legislative collaborative governance model.
4.3 Corridor Secondary Cities
The concept of corridor secondary cities development is a phenomenon that has been
given much greater prominence by the BRI concept (Jinchen, 2016; Lee, 2016) being
promoted strongly by China. Corridor development connecting large and smaller size
cities along trade routes is not a recent phenomenon. As Neal (2010) notes, “The ancient
network of trade routes known as the Silk Road played a key role in the development of
cities as commercial centres” throughout Asia, Africa and Europe (see also Frankopan,
2015). Today’s trade corridors include those passing along the west and east coasts of the
USA, the intercontinental corridors that crisscross Europe (EC, 2014), and the developing
West Africa corridor (US Agency for International Development -USAID, 2015).
The diagnostics of corridor development have tended to focus on physical measurements
of the connecting and networked flows of goods, vehicles, materials, and utility services
using a range of metrics. The analysis provides handy information about what happens to
the dynamics and development of small towns and cities along corridors as the physical
flows of people, goods, and accessories increase as they become more connected.
However, it explains little about what causes information, trade, and traffic to flow between
cities, especially when the structure of their economies and the goods and services they
produce and sell are similar.
The answer to this question lies in setting up soft connectivity and networks that facilitate
similar types of firms and industries within a regional system of cities to collaborate
and combine resources. This then creates critical mass to collectively conduct research,
innovate, pool capital, share risks, and focus on producing more specialised (or value added
to) local products and services that would not be possible to do if firms were to compete
independently as rivals. This also applies to regional and clustered systems of secondary
cities. Soft connectivity and networking in economic development corridors are important
in creating social capital, trading agreements, marketing intelligence, knowledge, and
local financial markets. These are all crucial elements of soft connectivity infrastructure
that stimulate and develop exchanges and trade between business enterprises within the
corridors. Initially these smaller towns and cities compete for much the same businesses
and provide much the same service; however, as the merging and lateral expansion of
corridor secondary cities occur, opportunities for collaboration, specialisation, and
innovative industries begin to occur.
Elements of soft connectivity between countries and large cities have been measured
using the DHL and ASEF indexes. However, there is little evidence of the development of
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
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an index of connectivity between towns and cities at the sub-national level. The annexe
provides an example of an experiment to develop an index of connectivity between towns
and cities along the Mekong River Central Economic Development Corridor in Cambodia
and Lao PDR, which has been identified as one of the ADB-funded Greater Mekong
Subregion Economic Corridors development projects (Asian Development Bank, 2015).
4.4 Virtual Flows among Secondary Cities
The internet is changing the model of economic development for secondary cities. Many
cities play a crucial role in the services and networks of supply chains supporting largescale manufacturing industries associated with automobiles, aircraft, shipbuilding, textiles,
chemicals and pharmaceuticals, spacecraft, and defence equipment. Other secondary
cities are becoming more involved with collaborative networks to leverage political
advantage and gain greater access to public and private capital to support urban renewal,
new industry development, research, and innovations. The building of connectivity and
network infrastructure is all part of the emerging sharing economy (Economist, 2013; Hamari
et al., 2015), where firms and governments work collaboratively to create opportunities to
become more connected, with opportunities created in open markets and trading systems.
The following case study of the Taobao networked cities provides an example of the
way Chinese cities in different regions and counties are working on collaborative models
of engagement using networks and partnerships to create competitive advantage and
expand opportunities for local economic growth and development. Taobao is providing a
new model for the application of combining the IoT, with applications of soft connectivity
and network infrastructure to enable small towns and secondary cities to become more
integrated vertically into supply chains and gain market access that was previously hindered
by accessibility and economies of scope and scale.
4.4.1 TAOBAO CHINESE SYSTEM OF CITIES: PRIVATE SECTOR AS
THE FIRST INITIATOR OF VIRTUAL INTEGRATION
In 2003, Alibaba Group Holding Limited in China, through its subsidiaries, developed
e-commerce with a vision to link villages to secondary and major cities, and then to
export markets. Most secondary cities in China continue to be dominated by agricultural
activities, small- to medium size trading, light manufacturing, and subcontracting as part
of domestic and global supply chains. Alibaba developed a virtual integrator labelled as
Taobao Rural. This virtual platform integrates market information, production capacity,
logistics, financing and payment, trading, exchange of innovation/practices, and future
services. Taobao’s aim was that with CNY 10 billion investment, it could facilitate e-trading,
investment, and innovation in more than 29 provinces, 700 counties, and 30,000 villages/
towns with 1000 service centres in towns and 100,000 service centre stations in China. By
the end of 2016, Taobao had achieved service coverage of more than 500 counties and
22,000 villages.
72 | Cities Alliance
Today, China leverages this platform to implement its BRI (Mayer, 2017), linking cities not
only within China but also along the Silk Road routes from Asia to Europe, the Middle East,
and Africa. The government of China encourages its cities to invest in and accelerate the
effective implementation of this virtual integration platform.
FIGURE 4.6 Taobao: Leading E-Commerce Market in China.
MARKET SCALE
TALENT
29 Provinces
30,000 Rural
Taobao Partners
700 Countries
60,000 Assistants
3000 Villages
14.6% Bachelor Degrees
32% Associate Degree
INFRASTRUCTURE
30 plus
Logistics Partners
3,000 plus Logistics Trucks
Source: Chen, 2017
The operational structure of the Taobao system is that it places its service station centres
(i.e., entrepreneurial logistics centres) in towns and cities near productive villages (Figure
4.6). Many of these cities are classified as secondary cities. The efficiency of the logistics
system (Cainiao Network) is achieved through specialisation and well-networked local
partners (Luo, 2016). Within the Taobao system, rural areas are the production centres,
whereas secondary cities focus on supporting services, logistics management, capability
development, and innovation sharing. The service stations help farmers and manufacturers
to access and exchange market information, latest innovation, financing and payments,
and selected public services that require electronic transactions. For example, one service
station provides online education, video conversations for families and return-home
training, together with a unique service for left-behind children.
A group of service stations will be managed by a service centre located in a county, or a
secondary or tertiary level city. The role of these service centres is to manage the daily
operations of the system at the county level, control logistical movement, ensure capacity
building for service stations at village/town level, and respond to requests for innovation
from farmers and local manufacturers. Taobao Alibaba Headquarter supervises the service
centres in Hangzhou, China. All of the transactions are processed and analysed in their
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
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office, using big data analytics, which allows for best practices and opportunities extracted
from the big data to be shared with the service station centres. The Alibaba Group believes
that to be successful, it needs to combine both online platforms and supportive hard
infrastructure, such as road, ships, trucks, and other modes to connect cities.
A recent trend in city administrations in China has been
for larger cities to develop their systems, like Taobao’s, to
serve urban supply chains and innovation, including the
collaborative work of several cities within the supply chain.
While the early version of the Taobao system, managed solely by private sector Alibaba
Group, did not involve local governments as partners, it later began to collaborate
closely with many city administrations. It has an agreement with local governments to
build warehouses for farmers and manufacturing products. The Taobao model invests
extensively in data technology and management, payment systems, and exchanges,
including marketing, and innovation and international trade platforms. It maps the
connectivity and physical infrastructure of cities and towns, such as roads, restaurants,
hospitals, and bridges, as part of the partnership with the local government. The map is
used by its logistics fleets to navigate and courier packages, from food and raw materials
to merchandise, within and between villages/towns, cities and counties and, in some
cases, across borders to South Korea and the USA.
A recent trend in city administrations in China has been for larger cities to develop
their systems, like Taobao’s, to serve urban supply chains and innovation, including the
collaborative work of several cities within the supply chain. Fuzhou city, for example,
combines smart city technologies with the Taobao model (Wei, 2018). In several other cities,
the Taobao model provides joint location activities with local government programmes
or shared infrastructure such as warehousing or workshops and service stations. The role
of local government is to provide the infrastructure of service stations in each village/
town, including staff salaries to operate the stations, and to allow the Taobao system to
leverage village entrepreneurship and innovation centres to disseminate new, innovative,
and modern practices.
As Alibaba Taobao delivers meaningful results and brings prosperity, many cities in China
have changed their strategic course from being just an enabler of the virtual integration
platform to building and operating the platform by themselves to serve better their
citizens and earn new own-source revenues from the user-fees-like the city of Fuzhou
(Fuzhou Internet of Things Open Lab, 2017). Following the success of the Taobao system
in China, local governments in India and South Korea have adopted the model, with minor
modifications, to empower their secondary cities and rural development in remote areas.
74 | Cities Alliance
Learning from its success, Alibaba Taobao plans to expand its coverage to connect cities
at a global level. A new initiative called the electronic World Trade Platform (e-WTP) was
launched in 2017. Alibaba, together with the federal government of Malaysia, is now
preparing the global ecosystem for the initiative. A pilot project in Malaysia (Jaipragas,
2017) is underway, connecting Malaysian cities as a countrywide supply chain to address
the country’s declining economy and rising unemployment among its youth and new
graduates. For this, Alibaba will tap Malaysia’s super-corridor capacity with a hub in
Kuala Lumpur. The hub, which is already operating, will function as a centralised customs
clearance, warehousing, and fulfilment facility for Malaysia and the region in order to
deliver faster clearance for imports and exports.
Taobao is developing a new model for connecting towns and cities into a broader
network of trading partners and service systems using the IoT. The Internet provides the
hard infrastructure to facilitate connectivity and the exchange of data and information,
which can be transformed into new knowledge sharing of ideas, creativity, and innovation
at any level of human settlement. However, it is the soft connectivity and infrastructure
networks that provide access to small firms and to new markets and opportunities that
have changed the scale and scope of opportunities for small towns and secondary cities
to grow and develop. A key learning outcome of the Taobao initiative is that it has had
to build soft connectivity and network infrastructure in parallel with the roll-out of hard
ICT infrastructure and the IoT. To do this, Alibaba Taobao had to work closely with local
governments and local business to develop the village nodes and secondary and primary
city hubs to grow and develop the network. The Taobao connection and networking of
towns and cities provide valuable learning and good practices for other countries to follow.
4.4.2 OTHER EXAMPLES OF SYSTEMS OF CITIES
Other diverse types of networked cities exist. Some are becoming increasingly
internationally connected through value chains (A380 Airbus (Steff, 2006), city-to-city free
trade agreements (Chicago-Mexico City Trade Partnership) (Liu & Donahue, 2013), and
regional growth triangles, such as the Johor-Singapore-Riau Regional Growth Triangle
Partnerships (Yuan, 2011). The Taobao study has many different elements including physical
(IoT), economic (web infrastructure), social (social media), and governance (collaborative
marketing and supply chain management), and providing greater knowledge on access
to data and information on markets, innovation, and new products. Without substantial
investment in soft connectivity infrastructure networks, Taobao might not have happened.
Taobao provides an example of a promising practice in engaging with private sector
partnerships and networks, especially for developing economies like Rwanda, which
are rolling out ICT in the expectation that business development will follow. Taobao
demonstrates the crucial role of soft connectivity and network infrastructure in building
the development of towns and cities engaged in supply-chain production and distribution
between markets and individual producers and consumers. The development of soft
networked cities engaged in value-adding requires new forms of partnerships, which
are built upon soft connectivity, and network infrastructure. Without it, the building of
hard infrastructure will not be enough to encourage cities and economies to flourish and
develop (Lee, 2016).
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
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5| INVESTING IN PUBLIC
GOODS AND SERVICES
TO FOSTER EQUITABLE
ECONOMIC GROWTH
Connectivity is crucial to the development of systems of cities and regions. Cities with poor
connections to knowledge, skilled labour, fast ICT systems, and markets may grow rapidly
through rapid urbanisation, but they are likely to struggle to capture investment, create
strong employment, increase public and private wealth, and grow sustainably. Many subSaharan African secondary cities will continue to struggle to attract investment and create
quality jobs unless they can improve connectivity between their systems of cities. Much of
the policy focus on local economic development in secondary cities in sub-Saharan African
remains on building hard-infrastructure networks. The region must begin to focus on the
development of soft connectivity infrastructure networks to prepare for the changes 4IR
will bring. Countries such as Rwanda and Kenya have realised this and have begun to build
soft infrastructure networks to support their long-term development. Significant efforts are
needed to improve connectivity in sub-Saharan Africa secondary cities.
In post-industrialised secondary cities of Europe and North and South America, the
challenges are equally hard. Many have realised that they need to face up to the disruptive
effect of change and become better connected. The lessons gained from the revitalisation
of secondary cities like Danville, Virginia, USA (Willingham, 2006), Dundee, Scotland
(Harris, 2017), and Newcastle, Australia (Goodyear, 2015), is that enhancing connectivity
by building hard and soft infrastructure networks is crucial to urban resilience. Secondary
cities need to be aware of and be prepared and able to respond to these changes if they
are to transform, grow, and develop their local economies, regardless of their state of
development. The prospects for the future of secondary cities are good, provided they
build networks that deliver essential public services and goods that enable business,
institutions, and governments to be responsive to change, to innovate, and grow.
Implementing changes in policy, attitudes, and practices on economic development
for secondary cities is difficult. There is a prevailing paradigm that secondary cities look
to national and metropolitan governments to secure public resources, services, and
goods to fund investment to develop infrastructure networks to support local economic
development. A shift in ideology is needed where secondary towns and cities look to each
other and collaborate to create an alternative market for the trade in goods and services
they produce and purchase. What is needed in national economic policy is a system of
76 | Cities Alliance
decentralised, regional trading secondary
The future development
cities that operate collaboratively, where
expedient, to compete with large cities or
of secondary cities relies
work collaboratively with industry clusters
on collaborative advantage
in large metropolitan regions to develop
through the development
national export industries. The future
development of secondary cities can no
of intercity networks and
longer rely on each city independently
partnerships.
trying to create some form of competitive
advantage, but on ways they can work
together with or against metropolitan
regions to achieve collaborative advantage (Johnsen & Ennals, 2012). The focus on
building infrastructure, networks, and clusters within systems of secondary cities will be
crucial to achieving this.
In this concluding chapter, some insights are provided on how secondary cities can build
strategic infrastructure networks to grow and develop local economies. This requires
secondary cities (and their associated hinterland local governments) to work with central
and state/provincial governments, other secondary cities, businesses, institutions,
and communities to decide what public services and goods cities need to invest in to
gain a collaborative advantage in order to help develop local economies. This must be
done collaboratively, consultatively, and transparently in order to build the infrastructure
networks that connect national systems of cities more closely, and with the right policies to
encourage more significant trade, investment, and exchange between them.
5.1 Steps in Building Collaborative Advantage for
Secondary Cities
The emerging model of economic development is based on the concept of the sharing
economy (PriceWaterhouseCoopers, 2015). A model of collaborative advantage is replacing
older models of competitive and comparative advantage in both regional economic and
business development. In the drive for firms to become more competitive, opportunities
to reduce business cost margins are limited, except through innovation, investment in new
technology, and low labour costs of production. Business and governments are attracted to
collaboration arrangements and other partnerships to reduce externality costs and to gain
better access to knowledge, public infrastructure, and resources. The growing importance
of industry clusters and networks has been identified as a way firms in secondary cities can
create collaborative advantage and secure a greater share of national investment in new
industries and jobs (Turiera & Cros, 2013).
For secondary cities to be successful in growing and developing local economies,
investing in the right strategic infrastructure and enabling environments, and becoming
better connected to supply chains, markets, support services, it is essential they have a
framework and governance arrangements to guide the process. This is a valuable lesson
gained from the network partnerships for economic development described in some of
the case studies in Chapter 4.
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 77
FIGURE 5.1 Framework for Development of Secondary Cites Partnership
Programme
1
AGREEMENT TO COLLABORATE
Secondary Cities Joint partnership
meeting and MOU collaboration
agreement to set up Secondary Cities
DevelopmentPartnerships Program
(SCDPP)
2
CITY CONNECTEDNESS AND
CLUSTER ANALYSIS
Secondary Cities share plans and
information with partnership participants
to identify area of collaboration
ANALYSIS OF SECONDARY CITY
LOCAL ECONOMY INTENDING TO
COLLABORATE
• Structure
• Trends
• Prospects
• Risks
SECONDARY CITY CONNECTIVITY
NETWORK INDEX ANALYSIS
• Local Area Indexes (Industry cluster analysis)
• City-wide networks (Urban system analysis)
• Rural Urban networks (Rural urban linkages)
• Systems of city networks (External linkages)
3
FEASIBILITY STUDIES OF
COLLABORATION OPPORTUNITIES
ANALYSIS OF SECONDARY CITY VALUE
ADDING SUPPLY CHAIN LINKAGES
Potential Local and External Industry
clusters, business, institution and
government partnerships opportunities
identified and feasibility studies conducted
• Local industry clusters value-adding
options
• Local endogenous value-adding options
• Rural-Urban linkage value-adding options
• City networks (external) linkages
value-adding options
HARD AND SOFT INFRASTRUCTURE
NETWORK INVESTMENT
DEVELOPMENT PLAN
NEEDS AND GAP ANALYSIS OF
INFRASTRUCTURE NETWORK LINKAGES
4
• Local Area Networks
• Secondary City Regional Network
Partnership
• Clustered Secondary City Network
Partnership
• Corridor Network Partnership
• Global Industry Network Partnership
5
SECONDARY CITIES ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT PARTNERSHIP
PROGRAM
• City to City and Industry to Industry
Cluster Partnership
Source: Author
78 | Cities Alliance
• Local industry clusters value-adding options
• Local endogenous value-adding options
• Rural Urban linkage value-adding options
• City networks (external) linkages
value-adding options
CITIES INVESTING IN PUBLIC GOODS
AND SERVICES INFRASTRUCTURE
NETWORK FOR PRIORITISED ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT PARTNERSHIP
• Local industry clusters value-adding options
• Local endogenous value-adding options
• Rural Urban linkage value-adding options
• City networks (external) linkages
value-adding options
Figure 5.1 outlines a framework that can be used to guide the process to build the strategic
infrastructure to enhance connectivity for secondary cities. Elements of this framework are
drawn from the New Zealand and UK Core Cities initiatives. There are six basic steps in the
framework and three analytical processes.
Step 1: Agreement to Collaborate: This initial step involves three or more secondary cities
agreeing to collaborate as a network to support local economic development and trade
between them. For this to happen, there must be agreement on specific types of activities
which the cities can mutually support to generate competitive advantage and mutual
benefit from the development of partnership arrangements. The partnership might involve
specific industries, clusters, or provision of public goods and services. This initial process
takes time. Considerable effort is necessary to win the confidence of businesses and
public agencies in order to collaborate. In secondary cities, interests are often parochial,
territorial, and myopic — especially if power, position, or market share is threatened.
Collaboration and co-operation (Brandenburger & Nalebuff, 1996) is a new model
of business and local economic development; however, it takes time for business to
understand its advantages. Unless the benefits of collaboration and a willingness to work
towards co-investment in public goods and services are clear, secondary cities should not
seek to rush into agreements to develop collaborative industry structures and systems to
support local economic development. Experience in building industry clusters shows that
it takes many years to educate, win trust, and gain confidence among stakeholders within
local communities that collaborative approaches will benefit local economic development.
Step 2: City Connectedness and Cluster Analysis: Before secondary cities can begin to
develop infrastructure networks to enhance connectivity and foster trade between cities,
there must be a thorough audit of the state, capacity, and performance of the local
economy and the network infrastructure that supports its operations and developments.
Secondary cities engaged in development need to prepare city development strategies,
as these have a crucial role in identifying the potential of co-investing in infrastructure to
support industry and cluster network partnerships that add value to local business and
public services. The analysis conducted to prepare city development strategies should not
only identify structure, trends, risk, and prospects, but the current strength of connectivity
in city networks and connectivity between cities.
This involves the preparation of connectivity indexes for the following:
• Local area indexes (industry cluster analysis)
• Citywide networks (urban systems analysis)
• Rural-urban networks (rural-urban linkages)
• Systems of city networks (external linkages)
The Annexe provides an example of the method that can be used to prepare connectivity
indexes, as described in Chapter 3.
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 79
The information gathered to prepare secondary city economic development strategies
(CEDS) is then shared by the partners, so that opportunities to start linking development
activities between industry clusters and public service providers can be identified. These
opportunities provide the platform for further discussion and research on development
potential, network infrastructure, and capital goods and services investment needs. Much
of the discussion will focus on the strategic infrastructure needed to enable business
activities and markets in the respective cities to develop, and what key investment is
needed in public goods and services to develop the infrastructure networks to enable the
free flow of exchanges to occur.
If cross-border secondary cities and national governments are involved, the process
becomes more complex. However, this should not dissuade secondary cities that have
similar cultural, religious, legal, and language systems from agreeing to engage in
secondary city regional- or economic development corridor partnerships. There are good
prospects for this to occur in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Step 3: Feasibility Studies of inter-City Local and External Industry Cluster Partnerships:
The sharing of information on respective secondary city local economies will enable
businesses, governments, and institutions to identify opportunities to collaborate,
innovate, or share information. This is the concept behind smart cities, where information
is shared so that individuals, entrepreneurs, and industry groups can identify and assess
the feasibility of developing and launching new or adapted products into local and
external markets. Experts and research can facilitate these connections. This process may
involve cities working collaboratively with firms, industry groups, and clusters to develop
their private sector partnership, e.g., food processing, tourism, and agricultural machinery,
among others.
The importance of intra-city and urban-rural linkage partnership should not be overlooked.
Local area networks and production outputs can be significantly enhanced to expand their
contribution to a broader industry-secondary city partnership, at the regional, corridor,
metropolitan, and global levels. This is one of the principles behind the development of
the European Cluster Collaboration partnership initiative (European Commission, 2018).
A valuable example of facilitating opportunities for connecting and collaborating is the
NZ Innovation Council. Through the Council, New Zealand innovators’ websites post
opportunities for businesses and public institutions in the country’s largest cities to connect,
collaborate, and form partnerships that support intercity industry cluster development.
Feasibility studies should be undertaken of industry and public services for which there
is agreement on the potential for collaboration and development. Priorities should be
determined on what partnerships should be developed. Ideally, an industry or an associate
public services partnership, if not both, should be developed, preferably one that is
not too complicated. This would help create confidence in the building of city-to-city
government and business partnerships. The first partnerships will always be a learning
experience; therefore, an action-learning (learning by doing) management approach
should be adopted as a good practice technique used to promote the development of
industry cluster partnerships (OECD, 2004).
80 | Cities Alliance
Step 4: Hard and Soft Infrastructure Network Investment Development Plans: A crucial
step in creating partnerships for building networks within systems of secondary cities is to
identify types, arrangements, and priorities for their establishment. Studies and research
are needed to investigate the nature, scale, reach, and technology for building the hard
and soft infrastructure to support many different types of networks for systems of secondary
cities for the following:
• Local area networks
• Secondary city regional network partnerships
• Clustered secondary city network partnerships
• Corridor network partnerships
• Global industry network partnerships
Connectivity indexes (See Chapter 3) are a useful tool to produce sets of indicators showing
the relative strengths, weaknesses, risks, and gaps in soft and hard infrastructure network
elements supporting industry supply chains and other types of exchange between cities.
Assessing collaborative government arrangements can also help identify what public
investments are needed to strengthen and develop enabling environments and commonuser infrastructure and services. In some cases, collaboration can help to reduce transaction
and operational costs of services, such as e-services and compliance and enforcement of
regulations, where costs are shared between cities.
Step 5: Secondary City Partnerships Programme: The Bratislava, Budapest, Ljubljana,
Prague, and Vienna, a polycentral city network in the Danube region, is a good example
of a way that secondary cities and metropolitan regions can develop into a fully-fledged
network of government and industry collaboration. At a smaller scale, the North Carolina
Research Triangle offers a model for regional collaboration on education and research.
The Singapore, Johore Bahru, Bitan/Batam Triangle offers another model of partnership.
There is no single model that best suits city-to-city collaboration and network development;
however, some form of agreement that provides for collaborative governance and
resource sharing for the development of public goods and services in order to develop
strategic infrastructure networks is essential for raising capital and allocating resources in
city budgets involved in a secondary-cities partnership programme. In some cases, the
partnership can be strengthened by state/province/district and national governments
being party to industry partnerships. Such an arrangement can help provide a guarantee
for capital and other resources to develop strategic infrastructure for supporting intercity
partnership arrangements.
For city partnerships to work, there must be agreement on governance and resources,
guarantees to invest in capital, and (public and private) goods and services to build and
maintain the networks within and between cities. Some capital investment will require
co-partnering on finance and risk sharing. Other investments will be the responsibility of
individual governments.
Step 6: City Investment in Public Goods and Services Infrastructure Networks: This final
step is the subject of Section 5.2
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 81
5.2 Investing in Public Goods and Service
Infrastructure Networks
For secondary cities, especially those in developing economies, to be able to gain a more
equitable share of economic growth and investment a fundamental shift is required in
national government spatial-development policy. In most countries, secondary cities are not
gaining an equitable share of public and private investment or wealth. The consequences
of this situation are that GDP and incomes per capita, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, can
be as little as half that of large metropolitan regions, and the difference is considerably
worse in rural regions and small towns. Unless more significant opportunities and efforts
are made to support the development of secondary cities, most countries will be unable
to maximise their development potential. Without greater focus and more decentralised
investment in public services and goods to support secondary cities, the gap between
them and metropolitan regions is likely to widen.
A fundamental shift in urban and regional development policy is needed for secondary
cities to be given opportunities to grow and develop. Secondary cities will perform better
if they have greater political and financial autonomy to collaborate and make decisions
about what is best for their development. Secondary cities tend to perform better in more
decentralised states, where there is less reliance on the central government to provide
the public capital and resources to support their development. The report on secondtier cities in Europe found these perform better where “national government policies
support them, give them significant powers and resources and where investment is more
deconcentrated. National governments should decentralise responsibilities and resources
to cities and deconcentrate public investment more” (ESPON, 2012: 62p.).
However, there is also a need for a second significant shift in economic and trade
development policy. This involves secondary cities engaging with each other and
collaborating on a wide range of activities to create a system of trading cities. Currently,
secondary cities are trapped by the pulling power of the markets and forces of metropolitan
regions and megacity economies. Secondary cities, collectively, have a larger population
than metropolitan and megacities (25 per cent compared to 20 per cent). They can,
therefore, have significantly more market influence if they operate more collaboratively.
Unless more significant opportunities and efforts are made
to support the development of secondary cities, most
countries will be unable to maximise their development
potential. Without greater focus and more decentralised
investment in public services and goods to support
secondary cities, the gap between them and metropolitan
regions is likely to widen.
82 | Cities Alliance
The hierarchical systems of transport, trade, and communications have served the
development of cities for more than 2000 years, but 4IR and IoT will completely change the
dynamics in the location patterns of production, trade, consumption, and markets. This
will affect both developed and developing economies, but in diverse ways. Size will no
longer be the advantage it has been in shaping the competitiveness of cities: functionality,
speciality, and ease of connectivity will increasingly provide that advantage.
The challenge to make secondary cities more relevant and central in national urban and
economic development policy is complicated. The focus on cities has a strong bias toward
the development and challenges of managing megacities and metropolitan regions. Yet
without a well-functioning system of cities and regional economies, neither the rural nor
the metropolitan economies will reach their full development potential. It is the failures of
the infrastructure networks and systems which connect cities and regions that are adding
substantially to supply chain and externality costs of production systems. If infrastructure
networks that connect systems of cities can be improved so that secondary cities, which
form the hubs and nodes of rural-urban supply chains, are more efficient, the sustainable
development of cities will positively be affected.
The need for improved connectivity infrastructure networks raises the question of which
public services and goods should secondary cities develop and provide to ensure that
industry supply chains and logistics facilities can perform more efficiently. Substantial
investment in public services and goods is necessary at multiple levels in order to form local
area networks to improve international transportation, logistics, and telecommunications
services significantly. Secondary cities, alone, cannot be expected to address all these
levels, but they can work together to address problems and issues that are preventing
improvements in connectivity between them and the forward and backward linkages in
supply chains.
Table 5.1 lists some key public services and goods that metropolitan and secondary cities
can focus on improving in order to enhance connectivity and the development of networks.
Addressing just a few of the items listed could result in significant multiplier effects and
create greater opportunities to support the development of secondary cities.
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 83
TABLE 5.1 Public goods and services to enhance connectivity among
secondary cities.
NETWORKS
PUBLIC GOODS
SERVICES
LOCAL AREA
Physical
Economic
Social
Environmental
Governance
Intrinsic
• Secured and protected
services corridors
• Co-located urban services
• Local area network services
• Local, pedestrian,
and cycle-way roads
• Collocated community social,
education, and recreational
facilities
• Public-community based
partnerships for asset
management and maintenance
of public infrastructure
• Acquisition of public land for
community facilities
• E-libraries
• E-maintenance and repair
reporting
• Localised (ward) single-point
information and services
centres
• Just-in-time emergency,
disaster, and security response
service
• One window (‘One Stop Shop’)
services for accessing public
information and services
• Application of smart city
concepts and practices
CITY
Physical
Economic
Social
Environmental
Governance
Intrinsic
• Development of specialised
and integrated employment
zones and collocated logistics
and public transport facilities
• Disaster and flood
management works to
protect vital economic
infrastructure and human life
84 | Cities Alliance
• One-government information
and services
• Development of community
colleges focusing on
enhancement of technical skills
• Collaborative governance to
develop integrated planning,
budgeting, construction and
maintenance.
NETWORKS
PUBLIC GOODS
SERVICES
URBAN-RURAL
Physical
Economic
Social
Environmental
Governance
Intrinsic
• Shared integrated regional
information systems for
information services, data
sharing, and emergency
management
• Shared use, maintenance,
and funding of common
user public resources and
infrastructure
• 4/5-G internet services to
all regions
• Integrated subregional
logistics freight handling
and passenger service hubs
• Regional common user
(‘Uber’-type) services for ride
sharing, public transport,
goods and services delivery
• Collaborative governance
involving revenue collection,
research, marketing and
resources sharing for a range
of public services
• Regional e-markets for
sale and exchange of
localised information,
goods and services
• Regionally significant natural,
cultural and architectural
assets for tourism, scientific
and recreational use
CITY-TO-CITY
Regional
Physical
Economic
Social
Environmental
Governance
Intrinsic
• Co-investment in key
infrastructure services to
improve efficiency and speed
of physical connections
• Facilities for centres of
excellence for collaborative
trade, education, innovation
and creative industries
development for secondary
city partnerships
• Inter-region significant
natural, cultural and
architectural assets
for tourism, scientific
and recreational use
• Collaborative initiatives to
develop new secondary city
network partnerships for
trade, culture and economic
development
• Development of resource
sharing and specialised
knowledge centres to support
networked cities
• Collaborative research and
development on managing
cities, logistics systems
• Joint trade missions and
exchanges
• Regional air services
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 85
NETWORKS
PUBLIC GOODS
SERVICES
METROPOLITAN
Physical
Economic
Social
Environmental
Governance
Intrinsic
• Development of national
facilities, but with physical
networks and infrastructure
that permit virtual (visual,
digital and audio access from
other cities and regions of
the country (national libraries,
museums, statistical and GIS
data, etc.)
• Integrated systems for
information sharing which
support the development and
efficient operations of national
systems of cities
• Development of efficient,
integrated and intelligent
regional transport, logistics,
ITC, and Water, Sanitation
and Hygiene (WASH) services
• Metropolitan regional core
and clusters secondary-cities
collaborative governance
arrangements
• High-level telecommunications,
medical research, and
governance services for
conferencing, business,
operations and production
activities in regions
CLUSTERED CITIES
Physical
Economic
Social
Environmental
Governance
Intrinsic
• Strategic location and
development of extrametropolitan regional services
• Equitable cost sharing and
outlays recovery of services
provided by core city and
secondary cities and vice versa
CORRIDOR
Physical
Economic
Social
Environmental
Governance
Intrinsic
• Development of efficient,
integrated, and intelligent
regional transport, smart
logistics, ITC and WASH
services
• The strategic location
of corridor emergency
management response
centres
• City by-passes for heavily
congested towns and cities
located along the corridor
• Fast train corridors
and infrastructure
• Good 24-hour logistics
facilities at borders to
avoid delays
86 | Cities Alliance
• Corridor collaborative
partnerships between local
governments for planning,
economic, and trade
development and provision
and maintenance of corridor
services.
• Corridor traffic and transport
information services for road
users
• Fast train services between
larger cities and towns
• Virtual cross-border services
and inspection services
NETWORKS
PUBLIC GOODS
SERVICES
GLOBAL AND VIRTUAL
Physical
Economic
Social
Environmental
Governance
Intrinsic
• 24-hour international port/
airport/train/bus terminal
and transfer facilities
• Transport facilities working
at international best practice
standards
• 24-hour international business
services
• 24-hour services for visitors
and growing non-business
hour services.
• International hotels, trade,
and conferencing facilities
• Security of nationally and
internationally significant
assets and landmarks
• ‘Night mayors’ or executives
to run the city at night
• International language signage
and information services
Source: Author
5.3 A New Agenda for Developing Collaborative
Systems of Secondary Cities
This book set out to fill a knowledge gap on ways to improve connectivity between systems
of secondary cities to help support inclusive, equitable, and sustainable economic growth
and development. It has addressed important questions about the nature and importance
of connectivity in the performance and prosperity of local economies.
The findings of the research show the importance of networks in the development
of systems of secondary cities. They point to the need for secondary cities to invest
strategically in public goods and services to develop not only the enabling environment
of a city and its rural linkages, but also the linkages between systems of cities, especially
secondary cities. Enhanced connectivity between national and regional systems of cities
opens new prospects for growth and development of secondary cities, primarily through
embracing ICT. Increasing the breadth and depth of connectivity among secondary cities
can make a significant contribution to more equitable growth in national systems of cities,
especially smaller regional cities and towns, and cities in land-locked countries.
The case studies provide some tangible evidence that enhancing connectivity between
systems of secondary cities (metropolitan regions and their hinterlands) and building
different types of networks is crucial to raising the overall performance of national and
sub-national regional economies. However, this requires national governments, when
developing urban and regional economic policies, actions, and budgets, to allocate a more
equitable proportion of public funds within the fiscal transfer systems to the infrastructure
networks outside metropolitan areas.
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 87
Secondary cities will continue to be disadvantaged and fail to gain a more equitable share
of national development and investment if they continue to compete independently
against each other. Systems of secondary cities must adopt better ways to utilise resources
more efficiently (DeSantis & Stough, 1999), reduce costs, and obtain economies of scale
for business to compete nationally and internationally. They can do this by collaborating.
Collaboration between firms and cities is not done to win a higher market share — its
purpose is to grow the market, and in so doing, make more efficient use of public and
private goods and services to develop and grow local economies. Collaboration is a pillar
to building smart, prosperous, and sustainable modern urban economies.
As nations become more urbanised and incomes rise, national and local economies become
more service orientated, and the need for ways to expand soft infrastructure connectivity
becomes more important (Lee, 2016). Factors such as internet speed, quality, and
accessibility; access to knowledge; advanced technology, health, and education services;
and social networking for either business, pleasure, or both become increasingly important
in shaping the dynamics and development of local urban economies. The strength of and
access to enabling environments that support soft connectivity and infrastructure networks
are increasingly important to the functions, operations, performance, and development of
cities. They will become even more critical in the future.
The rapid development of the information age demands investment in soft connectivity
in ICT technologies and network infrastructure and, at the same time, is opening new
opportunities for collaboration. The challenge is identifying the balance needed in both
public and private sectors between soft and hard connectivity services and infrastructure
required to support the sustainable growth, development, and operation of cities.
Finally, if secondary cities are to become more prosperous and develop sustainably, a
change in the model of national and regional physical and economic development is
required. This calls for a new agenda for the development of networked secondary cities.
Secondary cities in many developing economies can no longer rely on population growth,
low skilled migration, metropolitan regions, and limited export markets to develop and
grow their economies. In post-industrial economies, secondary cities must develop
the resilience that enables existing infrastructure networks to be revitalised and skills
developed to enable them to participate in the rapidly expanding digital economy.
Regardless of their locality, secondary cities must become more collaborative and
competitive to attract investment, create decent jobs, encourage trade and new valueadding advanced technology manufacturing and business services opportunities, and
create new sub-national and international market development opportunities. This calls
for governments to make policy changes that encourage some re-orientation of supply
chains to a less hierarchal system of city development and trade, to support collaborative
network systems of trading cities at the sub-national level, and to ensure more balanced
investment in both hard and soft infrastructure in areas outside metropolitan regions.
88 | Cities Alliance
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ANNEXE |
CONNECTIVITY
INDEX ANALYSIS
AND CASE STUDY
Measuring the attributes of connectivity and scale networks for secondary cities is difficult,
especially in developing economies. There are no standard metrics available for measuring
connectivity between cities. Factors such as scale or level of population/development/
economy, import-export/trade and visitor flow between cities, immigration flows, business
transactions, and megabyte exchange are all measures of connectedness which can
be described, quantified, or both. However, the collection of less tangible measures of
connectivity and network data is difficult to obtain, even in advanced economies. Much of
the spatial data on information flow by categories is privately held and not readily compiled
and formatted into composite data sets. Few cities collect information on trade flows, for
example, between cities, yet the volume, nature, and velocity of trade between cities have
a significant impact on economic activities, growth and development.
A.1 Connectivity Index - Framework Development
Section 3.2.4 (Figure 3.3) showed a conceptual framework for measuring the scope and
scale of hard and soft connectivity between cities This basic framework can be developed
to collect indicators to produce an index to analyse connectivity and networks for secondary
cities. The advantage of the framework is that it can be made relatively simple, and it can
use quantitative and qualitative data gathering and computational analytical techniques,
depending on the level of sophistication desired. Figure A.1 elaborates on Figure 3.3,
with indicators developed under each category. A measure of flow or connections is
made of traffic flow, level of service, and passenger flow, among others. These are given
a quantitative or qualitative scale valve in a range of 0 to 3, 5, 7, and so on, using a scale
system (Duncan & Stenbeck, 1987; Spector, 1992). In developed economies, data is more
readily available, and the use of quantitative methods can be applied. In developing
economies, data is often not available, so that qualitative methods, using Delphi and
expert group scoring, may be required.
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
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TABLE A.1 Framework for an experimental index to evaluate the scope and
scale of hard and soft connectivity.
SCALE OF NETWORKS
Hard and soft Indicators
City
Network
1-2
City
Network
2-3
City
Network
3-4
City
Network
(n – 1)-n
Median
Network
(C1...Cn)
Scope of Connectivity
Physical Assets (a1 … an)
Economic (b1 … bn)
Social/cultural (c1 … cn)
Environmental (d1 … dn)
Governance (e1 … en)
Information/Knowledge
(f1 … fn)
Index Score Median (a1-fn)
Source: Author
Figure A.1 shows two types of simple linear network analysis that could be used to develop
an index of connectivity. The left side of the diagram shows a simple two-way assessment
of connectedness between Cities 1 through n. The right side is an example of a corridor
connection for Cities 1 to 2, 2 to 4, and 4 to n. The problem with matrix network analysis
is that it can become extremely complex as more cities become involved. Thus, keeping
the number of indicators between 15 and 20 is often enough to indicate the strength
of connections and flows between cities in a region, corridor, or metropolitan cluster of
cities. The critical factor in the analysis is to identify which indicators are crucial to lifting
connectivity and the development of networks to support city trade development.
100 | Cities Alliance
FIGURE A.1 Simple network analysis for regional and corridor system of
secondary cities (numbered 1 to n).
n
n4- 4
n
2
4
2-1
1-2
3
3
1
3- 3
1-
4
1
2
n-1
21
12
n-1
1-n
n
Regional network analysis
1
Corridor network analysis
Source: Author
A.2 Case Study: Connectivity Index of Mekong
Economic Development Corridor Towns and Cities
As part of the Fourth Greater Mekong Subregion Corridor Towns Development Project
(Asian Development Bank, 2016) preparation and design, one of the authors who led the
regional economics team for the project developed an experimental index of connectivity
to measure the breadth of connectedness between cities along 1500 km of the corridor in
Cambodia and Lao PDR. Thirteen towns and cities, which lie in the Economic Development
Corridor (CMEDC) between Vientiane and Sihanoukville, were included in the study. The
index was developed to provide an indicator of the relative strength of hard and soft
levels of connectedness between the cities, to identify possibilities to include projects
and programmes that would strengthen the networks and connectivity of towns and cities
along the Mekong River. The index was made up of a set of 21 qualitative/quantitative
indicator measures (Table A.2) using a 5-point Likert scale.
The use of a gravity model to scale some measures of connectivity, using a log scale,
helps to overcome issues of scale and connectedness. In some cases, towns/cities of
comparable size and of short distances apart can have a similar level index of connectivity
to larger cities that are farther apart.
Figure A.2 shows the index measures of connectivity between the 13 towns and cities
along the corridor. Data was collected for the indicators shown in Table A.2 from primary
or secondary sources where possible, or by using an expert panel to provide an informed
assessment where data was not available. The left side of each bar shows the current
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
| 101
overall index score of connectivity between cities along the corridor. The scores on the
right show a measure of improvements needed to meet the connectivity index score set
for a target date of 2025. An expert panel set the target level for improvement score. The
measure between the target and current score is a measure of the two-way connectivity or
connectedness gap.
TABLE A.2 Connectivity Index of Indicators for CMEDC.
INDICATOR
DESCRIPTION OF INDICATOR
Distance
Using Google Maps estimates: Distance between cities less than
50 Km = 5; Distance < 75 = 4; Distance < 150 = 3;
Distance < 225 = 2; Distance > 225 = 1
Travel time
Using Google Maps estimates: Time between cities less than
30 mins = 5; Time between cities less than 60 mins = 4; Time
between cities less than 90 mins = 3; Time between cities less than
180 mins = 2;
Time between cities > 120 mins = 1
Average
speed Kmh
Using Google Maps estimates: Capacity 2800 vph 2 ways aver >
80 Kmh/hour = 5; Capacity 1900 vph 2 ways aver 70 Kmh/hour = 4;
Capacity 1400 vph 2 ways aver 60 Kmh/hour = 3;
Capacity 900 vph 2 ways aver 50 Kmh/hour = 2;
Capacity 600 vph 2 ways aver > 40 Kmh/hour = 1
Road condition
Sealed dual-lane freeway = 5; sealed two-lane wide, good condition
= 4; sealed two-lane, moderate condition = 3; sealed two-lane,
poor condition = 2; sealed/unsealed two lanes = 1
No trucks
(peak flow/hour)
> 1000 passengers/hour (2X) = 5; > 500 passengers/hour (2X) = 4;
> 250 passengers/hour (2X) = 3; > 250 passengers/hour (2X) = 2;
< 250 passengers/hour (2X) = 1
Estimate freight
flows/day
>100 trucks/hour (2X) = 5; >75 trucks/hour (2X) = 4; >
50 trucks/hour (2X) = 3; >25 trucks/hour (2X) = 2;
< 25 trucks/hour (2X) = 1
No buses (peak
flow/hour)
> 20 buses/hour = 5; > 15 buses/hour = 4; > 10 buses/hour = 3;
> 5 buses/hour = 2; < 5 buses/hour = 1
Intercity passengers
flow per day
> 100 buses/hour (2X) = 5; > 75 buses/hour (2X) = 4;
> 50 buses/hour (2X) = 3; > 25 buses/hour (2X) = 2;
< 25 buses/hour (2X) = 1
102 | Cities Alliance
Indicator
DESCRIPTION OF INDICATOR
Domestics Visitors/
capita/annum
> 4 visitors/capita/annum = 5; > 3 visitors/capita/annum) = 4;
> 2 visitors/capita/annum = 3; > 1 visitors/capita/annum = 2;
< 1 visitors/capita/annum = 1
International
Tourists/capita/
annum
> 4 visitors/capita/annum = 5; > 3 visitors/capita/annum) = 4;
> 2 visitors/capita/annum = 3; > 1 visitors/capita/annum = 2;
< 1 visitors/capita/annum = 1
No Cars/pickups
(peak flow/
hour)
> 500 two ways = 5; > 400 two ways = 4; > 300 two ways = 3;
> 200 two ways = 2; > 100 two ways = 1
Momentum
(Vehicles X aver
speed of vehicles)
Log of vehicles x velocity > 5 = 5; > 4 = 4; > 3 = 3; > 2 = 2; > 1= 1
Level of air services
connection
International = 5; National = 4; Region to capital city = 3;
Local small aircraft = 2; Emergency helicopter services = 1
No meetings
between Chambers
of Commerce
6-12 meetings/year = 5; 3-6 meetings/year = 4;
1-3 meetings/year = 3; 1 meeting/year = 2;
1 or 2 occasional meetings/last 5 years = 1
No meetings
per year between
tourist agency
officials
No meetings
per year between
government
officials
Meeting
of mayors
Once/month, multiple region agencies = 5; Once/3 months,
multiple agencies = 4; Once/3-6 months, multiple agencies = 3;
Once/3-6 months, single agency = 2; Once/year or less = 1
Once/month, multiple agencies = 5; Once/month, single agency = 4;
Once/3-6 months, multiple agencies = 3;
Once/3-6 months, single agency = 2; Once/year or less = 1
Using Chamber of Commerce interviews on level of two-way trade
between cities: Very high = 5; High = 4; Moderate = 3; Low = 2;
Very low/negligible = 1
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Indicator
DESCRIPTION OF INDICATOR
Trade dependency
between cities
Using interviews with meetings and visits to market stall owners
on level of two-way trade between cities: Very high = 5; High = 4;
Moderate = 3; Low = 2; Very low/negligible = 2
Regional joint trade
missions/shows
Joint Participation in international trade mission/show = 5;
Joint participation in national trade mission/show = 4;
Joint participation in provincial trade mission/show = 3;
Joint regional show = 2;
Discussion on participation in trade mission/show = 1
Average
Internet download
speed between
cities
Information
exchange
between Cities
Source: Author
104 | Cities Alliance
> 20 Mbs = 5; > 10 Mbs = 4;
= > 5 Mbs = 3;
> 3 Mbs = 2; < 2 Mbs = 1
Very high level of information sharing between city governments =
5 (e sharing of data); Moderate level of information sharing between
province and city governments = 4; Moderate level of information
sharing between province and low level for city governments =
3; Low level of information sharing between province and city
governments = 2; Little information sharing between province and
city governments = 1
FIGURE A.2 Connectivity between Towns Central Mekong Economic
Development Corridor
Phnom Penh/Kampon Cham
1.84
Kampong Cham/Kratie
1.48
Kratie Stung/Treng
Stung Treng/Laos Border
1.66
1.52
0.92
1.58
1.00
Laos Border/Pakse
1.00
0.80
1.20
Pakse/Savanahket
1.77
Savanahket/Thaket
1.84
Thaket/Pakxan
Pakxan/Vietiane
Current levels of conectivity
.073
1.16
1.59
1.41
1.75
1.25
Desired increase in level of connectivity improvement 2025
Source: Author
A.3 Priority Areas for Improvements
Figure A.3 shows priority areas of improvement in connectivity along the Mekong Economic
Development Corridor for each indicator derived from the gap analysis. The targets for
connectivity were set by an expert panel. There are five significant gaps in connectivity
along the corridor: information exchange between cities, Internet speeds, the frequency
of meetings by the government, tourism, and chamber of commerce organisations.
Momentum is a measure of speed/mass ratio, with mass being the number of vehicles per
hour multiplied by average speed. Momentum is affected by speed, which is slow due to
congestion, the condition of roads, and insufficient capacity on the national highway roads
network.
There are differences in indicator gaps between individual cities. Cities like Phnom Penh
in Cambodia have better road connections and services than more remote cities like
Kratie. The same applies to Lao PDR. These differences need to be considered when
formulating external development policies in respect to cities along the corridor. In some
cases, indicators such as the number of rail services will not improve because these are
not available. Indicators related to increasing the flow of passengers, goods, and services
will also be dependent on the growth of population in markets. The analysis, however,
provided a useful focus for prioritising investment in enhancing connectivity along the
corridor to open new opportunities for trans-corridor investments and increased trade and
visitor travel between cities located along the corridor.
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities
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FIGURE A.3 Priority areas of improvement in connectivity along the CMEDC
in Cambodia.
2.50
Distance
Travel time
1.00
0.50
1.75
Average speed Kph
Road condition
No trucks (peak flow/hour)
Estimate freight flows/day
1.00
1.50
No buses (peak flow/hour)
2.00
No cars/pickups (peak flow/hour)
2.00
2.02
Momentum (vehicles X ave speed of vehicles)
No meetings between chamber of commerce's
1.00
1.50
Estimated passengers per day
Level of air services connection
1.25
3.00
1.00
1.00
1.50
No meetings per year between tourist agency officials
1.00
No meetings per year between government officials
1.00
2.50
2.50
2.00
Meeting of mayors
2.00
1.00
Trade dependency between cities
2.00
1.00
Regional joint trade missions/shows
1.00
Average Internet down load speed between cities
Information exchange between cities
Current levels of conectivity
1.00
2.00
1.25
2.00
2.75
Desired increase in level of connectivity improvement 2025
Source: Author
The analysis of connectivity factors confirms the need for policies and strategies to support
the development of enabling environment capacity to improve the flow of goods and
services between cities within the corridor. Investment in high-speed Internet services
is crucial to supporting the development and growth of service industries and towns
and cities along the corridor. With an average download speed of less than 5 MB per
second, Lao PDR had rates far below those of neighbouring countries such as Vietnam
and Thailand. These countries have recognised the importance of high-quality Internet
services along economic development corridors in order to develop manufacturing and
service industry jobs in regional towns and cities.
The connectivity index is a first attempt at developing a measure for levels of connectivity
and dependency between cities. The tool is very much developmental, and in the context
of Cambodia and Lao PDR, is limited by lack of reliable data. Information on traffic
counts, passenger flows, volumes and freight movement, and Internet traffic, is difficult
to obtain. In many cases, the team had to use proxy values based on expert assessment.
Despite the shortfalls, the connectivity index provides a useful platform to measure gaps
in performance needed to improve diverse types of links between towns and cities, their
hinterlands, and their internal logistics systems.
106 | Cities Alliance
About the Book
Connecting Systems of Secondary Cities seeks to pave a new way of thinking on approaches to
the development of systems of secondary cities. It challenges much of the traditional thinking
on the subject, and it calls for change in the way governments approach national, regional,
and local development policy and planning to support more equitable regional economic
development. It argues the need for a systemic and less structured hierarchical approach to
the way governments support the development of systems of cities. If systems of cities are to
be more resilient, prosper, and develop more equitably, a new kind of ‘strategic architecture’
must be introduced to support their development and link their economies in order to create
more opportunities for the development of new markets.
Cities Alliance
United Nations Office for Project Services
Boulevard du Régent, 37, 1000 Brussels
Brussels, Belgium
www.citiesalliance.org
Legal Depot Number: D/2019/13.481/01
ISBN/EAN: 978-9-0822617-3-8
9 789082 261738