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Metropolitan Geographies of Advanced Producer Services: Centrality and Concentration in Brussels
Author(s) -
Waiengnier Maëlys,
Van Hamme Gilles,
Hendrikse Reijer,
Bassens David
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.766
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1467-9663
pISSN - 0040-747X
DOI - 10.1111/tesg.12394
Subject(s) - centralisation , metropolitan area , centrality , economic geography , decentralization , capitalism , space (punctuation) , regional science , business , economy , geography , political science , economics , market economy , linguistics , philosophy , mathematics , archaeology , combinatorics , politics , law
The literature on global and world cities points towards a growing concentration of advanced producer services (APS) firms in a restricted number of cities, who execute strategic command and control functions over globalised capitalism. However, relatively little attention has been paid to how APS are located within such cities. We argue that APS locations within cities are related to two partly independent processes: localisation economies and centralisation dynamics, which result in patterns of concentration and centrality superimposed on socio‐historical constructions of urban space. Utilising data from a national company register, we analyse the local insertion of APS firms in the Brussels’ metropolitan area in light of these two processes. The outcome reveals that only some of Brussels’ APS firms are concentrated and central, which we suggest to be the most strategic and internationalised APS functions.