EVEN IMPORTANT CONNECTIONS ARE NOT ALWAYS MEANINGFUL: ON THE USE OF A POLARISATION MEASURE IN A TYPOLOGY OF EUROPEAN CITIES IN AIR TRANSPORT NETWORKS

Nathalie van Nuffel, Ben Derudder and Frank Witlox

Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 2010, vol. 101, issue 3, 333-348

Abstract: This paper aims to refine existing approaches for classifying nodes in spatial networks. Apart from generally used variables measuring (i) the total connectivity of a node and (ii) the spatial make‐up of this total connectivity, we argue that a third indicator should be taken into account when describing the structure of a spatial network, namely, (iii) the degree of ‘polarisation’ in a node's connectivity configuration. We measure ‘polarisation’ by applying multiple linkage analysis, a technique that allows determining the number of meaningful connections for each node in the network. In this paper, we illustrate this approach by clustering 65 European cities based on their insertion in European air transport networks in 2005. The number of meaningful flows of a city is hereby considered alongside both traditional measures of connectivity. The results of the cluster analysis suggest that including a measure of polarisation may indeed lead to a more satisfying typology.

Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9663.2009.00547.x

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:tvecsg:v:101:y:2010:i:3:p:333-348

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0040-747X

Access Statistics for this article

Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie is currently edited by Jan van Weesep

More articles in Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie from Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().