ATLAS #2 – City Views: Regional Compacting

Atlas #2 represents a fundamental shift in the research group’s thinking about how to enhance the World City Network visualizations. After developing the first two Atlases, the research group realized that using flow lines to represent strength was limiting. Considering that a primary goal of the visualizations is to address a recurring theme in World City Networks—connectivity is changing the way we view the world—we focused on displaying this new effect.

A key issue with Atlas #1 and #1A is that they emphasize absolute geography over connectivity. In order to show how connectivity is changing the way we view the world, the research group realized we need to be emphasizing connectivity first and geography second.

For Atlas #2, the research group decided to depart from the concept of using flow lines to represent the strength of a city’s connection to its peers. Instead, we addressed the clutter problem in Atlases #1 and #1A by developing more schematic visualizations. Using a concept called multi-dimensional scaling, the research group to develop visualizations which show how Peter Taylor’s world city network connections are changing “absolute” geography.
 

London

Beijing

New York

Houston