Human diffusion and city influence

Maxime Lenormand (1) , Bruno Goncalves (2, 3) , Antònia Tugores (1) , José Javier Ramasco (1)

1 IFISC - Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Physics and Complex Systems
2 CPT - Centre de Physique Théorique - UMR 7332
3 CPT - E5 Physique statistique et systèmes complexes

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 analyze centrality measures at different scales. New York and London play a predominant role at the global scale, while urban rankings suffer substantial changes if the focus is set at a regional level.

Domaines: Physique et Société [physics.soc-ph]

Maxime Lenormand, Bruno Goncalves, Antònia Tugores, José Javier Ramasco. Human diffusion and city influence. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 2015, 12, pp.20150473. ⟨10.1098/rsif.2015.0473⟩. ⟨hal-01111981v2⟩