Sunbelt XXXI International Network for Social Network ... - INSNA

Local Cities, Global Influence: An Inquiry Into The Relationship Between The Global City And Its RegionMendelsohn, S J.Geographic and Social SpaceEconomic Networks, Globalisation, Geo‐location Networks, Transportation Networks, Urban SpaceWED.PM2What makes a global city? Some scholars have argued that global cities occupy structurally advantageous positions within the global network, while othershave focused on special processes that occur between the city and its region, imbuing the city with distinctive global strengths. I contend that there is anunder‐examined tension between these two proposed mechanisms ‐‐ one posits that regions are very relevant to the success of the global city, while the otherimplies that regions become irrelevant as the city comes to depend on the global system. Here, I examine this latent incongruity from a network standpoint,using air‐traffic patterns to uncover the kinds of city‐region relationships that distinctively characterize global cities. My findings suggest that, compared toother cities, global cities have stronger intra‐regional ties, relative to their inter‐regional ties. This favors theories that posit that the region remains relevant tothe global city, because global cities have stronger (not weaker) regional ties than other cities. This relationship is robust, remaining consistent and statisticallysignificant under a variety of conditions.Local Convergence And Global Diversity: From Interpersonal To Social InfluenceFlache, Andreas; Macy, MichaelSimulation and Agent Based ModelsSimulation, Homophily, Social Influence, Dynamic Networks, Agent Based Models, PolarizationFRI.PM1How can minority cultures resist assimilation in an increasingly “small world”? Paradoxically, Axelrod found that local convergence can actually preserve globaldiversity if cultural influence is combined with network homophily, the principle that “likes attract.” However, follow‐up studies showed that this diversitycollapses under random cultural perturbation. We discovered the source of this fragility – the assumption in Axelrod’s model that network influence isinterpersonal (dyadic). We replicated previous models but with the more empirically plausible assumption that influence is social – people can be influenced byseveral network neighbors at the same time. Computational experiments show that cultural diversity then becomes much more robust than in Axelrod’soriginal model or in published variations that included either social influence or homophily but not both. We conclude that global diversity may be sustainednot by cultural experimentation and innovation but by the ability of cultural groups to discourage those activities in dynamic networks.