Abstract Cities are connected with each other. The natures of cities can only be understood with integrating the cities into world city network. After 1980, the global production and markets began to integrate. The rise of the world cities was the spatial expression of the international labor division. Cohen proposes the concept of global city for the first time. Friedmann conceptualizes the world city and proposes complete research framework. He demonstrates that the openness and international labor division of world cities determine their urban function, industrial structure, and urban form. Sassen proposes new world city theory. She argues that world city is the command center, specialized service and finance innovation center. Castells bring forward a brand new global city analysis framework. He argues that world city is a process in the space of flow. Taylor points out that the hypothesis of urban hierarchy is wrong, studying the complex relations among cities is pivotal to understand the nature of world city network. World city network theories become an important research framework for urban issues. However, Robinson argues that world city network theories have oversimplified cities into points. In fact, the corporation headquarters and specialized service firms with global significance take up only small portion of urban areas. The local firms have absolutely different characteristics from global firms. City is a territorial concept with rich economic, social and cultural meanings, and world city network also includes social and cultural relations. As the nations lose their power in decision making process, city regions rise and become the spatial units in determining urban economic development and competitiveness, studying the interaction between the center and periphery of city regions can help to understand the nature of world cities. The scarcity of relational data restrained the empirical research of world city network for a long time. However, since the mid 1990s, researchers innovatively solved the methodology problems and conducted empirical research on different levels of world city network. China is in the process of rapid urbanization, but there are few researches conducted on the Chinese cities in the world city network. The author points out that the Chinese cities should be the focus of future world city network research.
2010, Vol. 25 
