City connectivity via global intra-firm linkages: An analysis of Indian cities

This paper analyses the global connectivity of Indian cities to understand the varying pace of city growth in the context of Indian Urban Development. Using Globalisation and World City (GaWC) network's 2016 data, this paper examines each city's connectivity via their intra-firm-office transactions. First, Mumbai, New Delhi and Bangalore were identified as the top-most group strongly linked with the advanced economies in North America and Europe. Second, India's second category cities-Chennai, Calcutta, Hyderabad, Pune and Ahmedabad-had dominant connectedness with South Asian cities growing at a moderate pace. Third, the lowest-tier cities-Allahabad, Nagpur and Nashik-were fast catching up with their global service activities, demonstrating India's emerging South-South multilateral cooperation. Confirming to the global urban literature, the above pattern reflects those greater intra-firm linkages that contributed to higher connectivity between cities, being leveraged through the ICT infrastructure growing beyond the primary (X) citiesto engage smart (Y) cities. This finding provides evidence against postcolonial critiques that argued for place-specific history of colonial cities explaining emerging geographies.