GaWC researchers have long shaped agendas on polycentric urban development, from projects including the pioneering ERDF-funded POLYNET to the Regional Studies Association’s Polycentric Urban Regions (PURs) research network.
Among the key outputs are a series of journal special issues addressing globalisation, city-regions and polycentricity in North-West Europe, the identification, evolution and performance of PURs, and governing polycentric urban regions.
We recently published a number of journal papers that further advance thinking in this field, conceptually, methodologically and empirically (with a focus on Chinese PURs):
Xue, J., Hoyler, M. and Harrison, J. (2025) ‘Connecting geographies of innovation and polycentric urban regions through anchoring and mobility’, Regional Studies, 59 (1).
Polycentric urban regions (PURs) and innovation are core concepts in urban and regional studies. Both PURs and innovation promote regional economic development, yet they have never been fully integrated in regional studies. This paper traces how geographies of innovation and PURs have developed in parallel and proposes ‘anchoring’ and ‘mobility’ as conceptual tools for better understanding how innovation occurs within PURs. This is empirically stress-tested through a service value matrix comprising 319 innovative firms and 11 cities in the world’s largest PUR, the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area in China, to reveal how bridging these concepts is key to unlocking a new and deeper understanding of knowledge dynamics, and innovation potential, in PURs.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2025.2525987 (Open access)
Yang, Y., Shen, W. and Derudder, B. (2025) ‘Environmental sustainability in polycentric urban regions: an urban resilience perspective’, Regional Studies, 59 (1).
Regional studies research examining the environmental impacts of polycentric urban structures is often called for, but remains scarce. This study uses urban resilience theory to conceptualise, methodologically specify and empirically assess the effects. We develop an evaluation system to establish a regional environmental sustainability index and apply it to urban regions across China. Gridded population datasets and inter-city co-patent data proxy morphological and functional polycentricity. Results show that morphological polycentricity positively impacts environmental sustainability, while functional polycentricity only positively affects public stewardship in environmental protection. Urban resilience attributes such as diversity and flexibility have uneven explanatory power on these dynamics.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2025.2496417
Liu, X., Yang, Y., Derudder, B. and Witlox, F. (2025) ‘Emerging synergies in polycentric cities? Exploring the impact of intercity cooperation on labour market integration in the Yangtze River Delta, 2014-2021’, Regional Studies, Regional Science, 12 (1), 162-184.
The creation of regional synergies has received much attention, both as an analytical framework and a normative goal in urban and regional development studies. One of the key mechanisms underlying synergies – cooperation – is particularly relevant for understanding how cities and their labour markets regionally integrate. Yet city cooperation remains poorly understood in conceptual and empirical terms. In addition, it is unclear to what extent intercity cooperation and the effects of the ensuing labour market integration are consistent across cities with different urban structures. Drawing on intercity patent transfer data, we explore the presence of synergies by examining cooperative relations between cities. Using a longitudinal analytical framework, we focus on China’s Yangtze River Delta megacity-region from 2014 to 2021 to explore the impact of intercity cooperation on labour market integration within polycentric urban settings. Our analysis reveals that: (1) intercity cooperation derived from technology linkages has a U-shaped effect on labour market integration and (2) polycentric structures not only contribute to this integration but also moderate the relationship between intercity cooperation and labour market dynamics. We reflect on the broader implications of our empirical findings for regional development strategies and discuss possible avenues for future research.
https://doi.org/10.1080/21681376.2025.2472064 (Open access)
Yang, Y., Caset, F. and Derudder, B. (2024) ‘Does urban polycentricity contribute to regional economic growth? Empirical evidence from a panel of Chinese urban regions’, Regional Studies, 58 (5), 1018-1032.
Research examining the economic effects of urban polycentricity remains inconclusive. We contribute to this debate by developing a longitudinal framework in which changes in polycentricity in Chinese urban regions are linked with changes in total factor productivity. While we find no evidence of urban polycentricity being conducive to economic growth, we observe that the relationship depends on population size and the interactions between cities. We also find that cities borrow size from nearby cities in large urban regions, contributing to regional economic growth. We use our findings to reflect on China’s regional economic and urban development strategies.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2023.2255623