The spatial order of European cities under conditions of contemporary globalisation

Using the concept of world city formation to identify 53 European cities, a typology is produced through a principal components analysis of the locati ons of 46 global firms providing advanced producer services. The typology i s based on grouping cities in terms of similar mixes of service firms. The geography of the typology defines a specific spatial order with two compone nts measuring 'spine cities', minor and major respectively, and three compo nents measuring outer regions, a 'far east' (ex-Soviet bloc), a 'far west' (British Isles), and a triangular combination of north, south-east and sout h-west. This spatial order is related to previous similar depictions of the distribution of European cities; our contribution is in the derivation of the pattern through a theoretically-informed, multivariate analysis. Among the findings is that London is neither very British nor very European. This relates to its global role and we conclude that while there is a spatial o rder to European cities there can be no 'Europe of cities' in any systemic sense under conditions of globalisation.