The barrier presented by distance has gradually been removed by high-speed transportation systems over the last century. As a result, hub cities have experienced economic growth. In other words, hinterland of each city has been reformed by these new transportation systems. It is needless to say that spreading information technologies (IT) open the door for new world, namely it could cause more drastic changes on the order of world cities. In order to achieve an efficient infrastructure and an affluent society, the conformational changes occurring in societies and regions as a result of the new technology must be examined beforehand.
The objective of this study is to estimate the changes of the order of world cities, caused by distance free cyber-space, that are created by IT. A couple of analyses based on different assumptions are examined below.
1) Language barriers are assumed to be the greatest obstacles to the exchange of information. To estimate the new order of cities in each language unit, composition ratio of the demographics and the number of net sites are compared.
2) From a global point of view, no barrier is assumed in the world. The concept of globality is defined, as the potentiality to invite more cyber access to that city. Model analysis is also examined to clarify factors to affect globality.
From these analyses, it is clarified that each language unit shows different future. More concentration could occur in Japan and France, and more dispersion could occur in Germany. It is also found that the complex of IT industries in the U.S.A. is likely to obtain higher globality. Therefore, it is said that the order of world cities, namely city rank, could change in the world in information era.
JEL classification : R12, R14
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