Human diffusion and city influence

Maxime Lenormand1, Bruno Gonçalves2, Antònia Tugores1 and José J. Ramasco1
1Instituto de Física Interdisciplinar y Sistemas Complejos IFISC (CSIC-UIB), Palma de Mallorca, Spain.
2Aix Marseille Université, Université de Toulon, CNRS, CPT, UMR 7332, 13288 Marseille, France.

(July 2015)

Cities are characterized by concentrating population, economic activity and services. However, not all cities are equal and a natural hierarchy at local, regional or global scales spontaneously emerges. In this work, we introduce a method to quantify city influence using geolocated tweets to characterize human mobility. Rome and Paris appear consistently as the cities attracting most diverse visitors. The ratio between locals and non-local visitors turns out to be fundamental for a city to truly be global. Focusing only on urban residents' mobility flows, a city-to-city network can be constructed. This network allows us to analyse centrality measures at different scales. New York and London play a central role on the global scale, while urban rankings suffer substantial changes if the focus is set at a regional level.

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