Unpacking the advanced producer services complex in world cities: Charting professional networks, localisation economies and markets

David Bassens, Laura Gutierrez, Reijer Hendrikse, Deborah Lambert and Maëlys Waiengnier
Additional contact information
David Bassens: Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Laura Gutierrez: Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Reijer Hendrikse: Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Deborah Lambert: Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Maëlys Waiengnier: Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium

Urban Studies, 2021, vol. 58, issue 6, 1286-1302

Abstract: Limited empirical evidence in support of world-city formation has been the ‘dirty little secret’ of the eponymous research area. Since the late 1990s, inspired by Sassen’s account of The Global City , the field focused on advanced producer services (APS) firms as primary actors in world-city formation. While generating robust insights into the shifting geographies of world cities, empirical attention has mostly focused on mapping inter-urban world city networks formed by APS firms. Despite a rich literature on APS clusters, the degree to which specific intra-urban agglomerations and their inter-firm connections shape up has received little systematic attention. Based on a company survey in Brussels (Belgium), our study charts interactions between APS professionals to better understand the geographies, quality and intensity of their encounters. Our findings reveal that the Brussels-based APS cluster constitutes a hybrid of an industrial complex with stable formal ties and a social network based on informal exchange. Financial services assume a central position in what might be called ‘a para-financial services complex’, revealing close ties with legal services, accountancy and audit, and ICT. Geographically, we find that the APS complex depends on fine-grained localisation economies, which allow a small share of APS professionals to service both domestic and international clients. We conclude that APS actors in Brussels exhibit a strong domestic anchoring, indicative of the continued relevance of world cities as national financial centres amidst financial globalisation.

Keywords: agglomeration economies; Brussels; company survey; financial centres; knowledge-intensive business services; professionals; é›†è šç» æµŽ; å¸ƒé² å¡žå°”; å…¬å ¸è°ƒæŸ¥; é‡‘èž ä¸­å¿ƒ; çŸ¥è¯†å¯†é›†åž‹ä¼ ä¸šæœ åŠ¡; 专业人士 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098020908715 (text/html)

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:sae:urbstu:v:58:y:2021:i:6:p:1286-1302

DOI: 10.1177/0042098020908715

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Urban Studies from Urban Studies Journal Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().