Intercity connectivity and urban innovation

Xiaofan Liang*, César A. Hidalgo, Pierre Alexandre Balland, Siqi Zheng, Jianghao Wang

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Urban outputs, from economy to innovation, are known to grow as a power of a city's population. But, since large cities tend to be central in transportation and communication networks, the effects attributed to city size may be confounded with those of intercity connectivity. Here, we map intercity networks for the world's two largest economies (the United States and China) to explore whether a city's position in the networks of communication, human mobility, and scientific collaboration explains variance in a city's patenting activity that is unaccounted for by its population. We find evidence that models incorporating intercity connectivity outperform population-based models and exhibit stronger predictive power for patenting activity, particularly for technologies of more recent vintage (which we expect to be more complex or sophisticated). The effects of intercity connectivity are more robust in China, even after controlling for population, GDP, and education, but not in the United States once adjusted for GDP and education. This divergence suggests distinct urban network dynamics driving innovation in these regions. In China, models with social media and mobility networks explain more heterogeneity in the scaling of innovation, whereas in the United States, scientific collaboration plays a more significant role. These findings support the significance of a city's position within the intercity network in shaping its success in innovative activities.

Original languageEnglish
Article number102092
Pages (from-to)1-10
Number of pages10
JournalComputers, Environment and Urban Systems
Volume109
Early online date1 Mar 2024
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Apr 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023

Funding

W. acknowledges the research support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 42222110) . S.Z. acknowledges research support from the MIT STL Chair Professor discretionary research fund. C.H. acknolwedges research support from EUROPEAN RESEARCH EXECUTIVE AGENCY (REA) (grant No. 101086712-Learn-Data-HORIZON-WIDERA-2022-TALENTS-01) and the European Light-house of AI for Sustainability (grant No. 101120237-HORIZON-CL4-2022-HUMAN-02, grant ANR-17-EURE-0010 (Investissements d'Avenir program) and ANR-19-P3IA-0004). The funders had no role in the conceptualization, design, data collection, analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

FundersFunder number
National Natural Science Foundation of China42222110
MIT STL Chair Professor discretionary research fund
EUROPEAN RESEARCH EXECUTIVE AGENCY (REA)101086712-Learn-Data-HORIZON-WIDERA-2022-TALENTS-01
European Light-house of AI for Sustainability101120237-HORIZON-CL4-2022-HUMAN-02, ANR-17-EURE-0010, ANR-19-P3IA-0004

    Keywords

    • Connectivity
    • Innovation
    • Intercity networks
    • Scaling

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