Creative City Networks: A Social Network Analysis of a Virtual Community of Designers in China

Inter-firm linkages have been commonly applied to measure urban relations. However, this is believed to be less suited to the study of today's project-based and people-centred production network of creative sectors. This paper aims to re-delineate creative city networks by highlighting the role of social relations in representing the inter-city links in cultural production. Using a large number of interpersonal connections extracted from a virtual community of designers in China (Zcool), we demonstrate the architectural features of this specialised urban network and probe for explanatory factors with regard to its centrality and connectivity. Our findings suggest that the structure of urban networks in design communities in China is polycentric, with a few large cities dominating the network. The centrality of cities is highly dependent on their economic and political power but does not necessarily follow the existing urban hierarchy. The presence of super celebrities plays a more important role than the size of the population. Moreover, it is the real-world communications arising from transport connectivity, cultural homogeneity, and economic closeness rather than geographical proximity that determines the strength of inter-city connectivity in virtual communities of designers. The paper contributes to current scholarship about urban networks in cultural production by adding a ‘socialised’ account in the conceptualisation of creative city networks and a better understanding of the formation mechanism of such networks.