ACTA GEOGRAPHICA 
GEOGRAFSKI ZBORNIK 


SLOVENICA 

2020 
60 
1 
ACTA GEOGRAPHICA SLOVENICA GEOGRAFSKI ZBORNIK 60-1 • 2020 
Contents 
Mojca POKLAR
Comparison of the sonar recording method and the aerial photography methodfor mapping seagrass meadows 7 

Vanja PAVLUKOVIĆ, Uglješa STANKOV, Daniela ARSENOVIĆ 
Social impacts of music festivals: A comparative study of Sziget (Hungary) and Exit (Serbia) 21 
Péter János KISS, Csaba TÖLGYESI, Imola BÓNI, László ERDŐS, András VOJTKÓ,István Elek MAÁK, Zoltán BÁTORI 
The effects of intensive logging on the capacity of karst dolines to provide potential microrefugia for cool-adapted plants 37 

Radu SĂGEATĂ 
Commercial services and urban space reconversion in Romania (1990–2017) 49 

Kristina IVANČIČ, Jernej JEŽ, Blaž MILANIČ, Špela KUMELJ, Andrej ŠMUC
Application of a mass movement susceptibility model in the heterogeneous Miocene clastic successions of the Slovenj Gradec Basin, northeast Slovenia  1 

Andrej GOSAR 
Measurements of tectonic micro-displacements within the Idrija fault zone in the Učjavalley (W Slovenia) 79 

Piotr RAŹNIAK, Sławomir DOROCKI, Anna WINIARCZYK-RAŹNIAK 
Economic resilienceofthe command andcontrolfunctionof citiesin Centraland EasternEurope 95 

Mateja FERK, Rok CIGLIČ, Blaž KOMAC, Dénes LÓCZY 
Management of small retention ponds and their impact on flood hazard prevention in the Slovenske Gorice Hills 107 
Gregor KOVAČIČ
Sediment production in flysch badlands: A case study from Slovenian Istria 127 

Vesna LUKIĆ, Aleksandar TOMAŠEVIĆ 
Immigrant integration regimes in Europe: Incorporating the Western Balkan countries 143 

Mitja DURNIK 
Community development: LocalImmigrationPartnershipsin Canadaand implications forSlovenia 155 
ISSN 1581-6613 
9 771581 661010 


ECONOMIC RESILIENCE OF THE COMMAND AND CONTROL FUNCTION OF CITIES IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE 
Piotr Raźniak, Sławomir Dorocki, Anna Winiarczyk-Raźniak 

Warsaw CBD. 
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3986/AGS.7416 UDC: 911.375:338.1(4) COBISS: 1.01 
Piotr Raźniak1, Sławomir Dorocki1, Anna Winiarczyk-Raźniak1 

Economic resilience of the command and control function of cities in Central and Eastern Europe 
ABSTRACT: The authors propose a new approach to the analysis ofcities in a time of potential major cri­sis in a dominant sector consisting of the largest firms generating the command and control function of acity.ThispurposeisservedbythecreationoftheCentralandEasternEuropeanEconomicCentreIndex (CEEECI), which reflects the potential of each studied city and its development and/or fields of economic specialisation of its largest companies capable of generating regional command and control (C&C) func­tionsofcities.ResearchhasshownthattheC&CfunctionsofcitiessuchasWarsaw,Prague,andBudapest are the most resistant to economic crisis of the dominant sector. More than half of the analysed cities are economically dominated by the consumer business and transportation and manufacturing sectors. 
KEYWORDS:cities,economicresilience,headquarters,regionalcommandandcontrolfunction,Central and Eastern Europe 

Ekonomskaodpornostfunkcijevodenja inupravljanja srednje-in vzhodnoevropskih mest 
POVZETEK: Avtorji v članku predlagajo nov pristop k analizi mest med morebitno veliko gospodarsko krizo vodilnega sektorja, v katerem največje gospodarske družbe opravljajo funkcijo vodenja in uprav­ljanjamesta. V ta namen avtorji oblikujejoindeks srednje- in vzhodnoevropskih gospodarskih središč, ki izraža potencial posameznega proučevanega mesta in njegov razvoj in/ali področja gospodarske speciali­zacijenjegovihnajvečjihgospodarskihdružb,kilahkoopravljajoregionalnofunkcijovodenjainupravljanja mest.Raziskavajepokazala,dasofunkcijevodenjainupravljanjamest,kotsoVaršava,PragainBudimpešta, najbolj odporne na gospodarsko krizo vodilnega sektorja. Glavni gospodarski sektorji v več kot polovici analiziranih mest so sektor izdelkov za široko rabo, prevozništvo in proizvodni sektor. 
KLJUČNEBESEDE:mesta,ekonomskaodpornost,sedež,regionalnafunkcijavodenjainupravljanja,Srednja in Vzhodna Evropa 
The paper was submitted for publication on May 16th, 2019. Uredništvo je prejelo prispevek 16. maja 2019. 
1 Pedagogical University of Cracow, Institute of Geography, Poland, Cracow, Poland piotr.razniak@up.krakow.pl, slawomir.dorocki@up.krakow.pl, anna.winiarczyk-razniak@up.krakow.pl 

1 Introduction 
The concept of a command and control function appears in many research publications and descriptions of the economic strength of cities and their international connectivities. One seminal paper on this sub­ject is that of Hall (1966) who created the world city concept. Friedmann (1986, 70–77) argues that one measure of a world city is its control function in the global economy: »…The global control functions of worldcitiesaredirectlyreflectedinthestructureanddynamicsoftheirproductionsectorsandemployment…«. He also notes that world citiesinvite foreign capital (Friedmann 1986, 73) by functioning as open systems, thus attracting investment and yielding additional command and control functions in the world econo­my.Sassen(1991)describesNewYork,London,andTokyoasthemostcriticalcitiesintheworldeconomy due to their accumulation of world economic control functions. Beaverstock, Smith and Taylor (1999) analysedtheinternationalconnectivitiesofcitiesviathelargestcompaniesintheservicessector,account­ingsector,advertisingsector,bankingsector,andthefieldoflaw,butconnectivitiesmayalsobeexamined for other sectors including global media firms, maritime-producer services, and non-governmental organisations (Derudder and Taylor 2018). It appears at this point in time that New York and London are the most highly linked cities via what is known as the NY-LON city-dyad concept (Taylor et al. 2014). Command and Control Function (C&C) is determined on the basis of location of the headquarters of the main multinational companies. The C&C functions in city research are strongly linked to the notion of citiesascommandandcontrolcentresoftheworldeconomy(Csomós2013;CsomósandDerudder2014). The command and control (C&C) function may also contribute to the prestige of a city (Alderson and Beckfield 2004). It seems that research on the corporate headquarters of the largest firms shows a partic­ular strength of cities in terms of their command and control role in the global economy; however, this is not the only measure of the global rank of a city (Taylor 2004). 
Other studies on the number of corporate headquarters per city and corporate financial results as factors in the economic strength of cities as well as their impact on other parts of the world include the following:Heenan(1977),FriedmannandWolff(1982),Tayloretal.(2009),Huang,LeungandShen(2013), Raźniak, Dorocki and Winiarczyk-Raźniak (2018b), Csomós (2017), Derudder et al. (2018), Śleszyński (2018),Raźniak,DorockiandWiniarczyk-Raźniak(2019).Sincethe1970stransnationalcorporationshave become increasingly important in the world economy and many have relocated their principal office or corporate headquarters to new locations in Asia (Csomós and Derudder 2014). This may be due to the fact that geographical diversification of investments is one of the key issues considered by investors eager toreducetheirlevelofrisk(Bacsosz2019).ItisnoteworthythatcompanieslocatedinCentralandEastern Europearestartingtoplayanincreasinglysignificantroleintheworldeconomy(RaźniakandWiniarczyk­Raźniak 2015). 
Existing conceptualisations of the city, e.g. world city (Internet 3), global city (Sassen 1991), city com-mandandcontrolfunction(Csomós2013)donotassesstheresilienceofthesefunctionstoperiodiccrises in the world economy. While cities may be very important in the world, they may not be ready to counter economicrecessioneventsthatmaystronglyaffectagivenkeyfunctionoftheireconomy.Itmaybeargued thatacitycharacterisedbyastrongcommandandcontrolfunctionisnotnecessarilypreparedforamajor crisisevent.Thecommandandcontrolfunctionofcitiesdominatedbyasinglesectororcompanyisprone toeconomiccollapseintheeventthatthedominantsectororcompanyfacesproblems.Ontheotherhand, the C&C function of cities basing their growth on multiple successful companies or sectors is better able tooffsetlossesatselectedcompaniesorstructuralproblemsinsomesectorsbythesuccessfulperformance ofothercompaniesorentiresectorsofthecommandandcontrolfunction(Raźniak,DorockiandWiniarczyk­Raźniak 2017). 
Citiesarecomplex,adaptivesystemsofpeople,economics,andthenaturalenvironmentdrivenbykey processes sustaining them and determining their abilityto resist crisis events (Hooling 2001). This means thatacity’sresistabilitymaybedefinedintermsoftheflexibilityofitscommunitiesandeconomies,which areabletopredict,preparefor,andrespondtodisruptionsintheirfunctioning(Barnett2001;Foster2007). 
We argue that a given city’s command and control function stability can be measured in terms of its abilitytoresisteconomiccrisisofthedominantsectorrepresentedbyleadingcorporations(Raźniak,Dorocki and Winiarczyk-Raźniak 2017). This paper assesses this level of resistance to crisis for key economic sec­torsandkeycorporateemployersinthestudiedcities.Crisisisdefinedbytheauthorsinthiscaseasadecline in the financial performance of firms in a given sector, which causes them to become excluded from the list of the 500 largest firms in Central and Eastern Europe. This type of decline forces a sector to lose its dominant economic position and effectively its ability to play a regional command and control role in its parent city. 
In current world economy the increasingly important question is the following: »How will these cities change when/if these principal functions are lost (Raźniak, Dorocki and Winiarczyk-Raźniak 2017)?« It is not only important for a city to rank high in a good economic situation, but also in an economic crisis thatmayaffectitsmainfunctions.Thispromptsthefollowingquestion:»Whatwillhappentothecitycom­mandandcontrolfunctionsincaseofeconomicrecession?«Theauthorsusetheconceptofthecitycommand and control function to determine the resilience of the cities to possible future economic crises that can affect a city’s overall rank in the world economy. 
2 Research data and methods 
ThestudyanalysesthelargestcompaniesinEasternEuropeandcomparestheirperformanceovertheperi­od 2008–2015 based on data obtained from the Deloitte company (Internet 1), which has been compiling sales revenue data on the top 500 companies headquartered in Central and Eastern Europe since 2008. 
According to Anh, Thuy and Khanh (2018) an economic crisis may be triggered by a budget deficit, international currency reserves or increases in national debt. In a purely financial sense, a crisis may be defined by a depreciation of local currency against the U.S. dollar of at least 30%, and this decline is high­er than 10 percentage points relative to previous years (Delbianco, Fioriti and Tohmé 2019). Corporate performancesuffersoverthecourseofafinancialcrisis,asdoescorporatemanagementquality,withexec­utives attempting to maximise their own compensation packages at the expense of company financial performance (Cornett et. al. 2009). 
In this research crisis is defined as a decline in financial performance among companies in the most profitable sector present in a city, which results in a substantial loss of market status of the sector’s com­paniesthatgeneratethecommandandcontrolfunctionofacity.Thistypeofanalysisisservedbythecreation of an World Economic Center Index that illustrates the rank of a city in terms of the value of the largest corporateheadquartersbysectoraswellasthestabilityofthisrankuponsuddenremovalofthemostimpor­tantsector.Thisindexiscalculatedusingbasicstatisticsincludingstandardisationviathestandarddeviation value and the weighted average. These methods represent the basis for descriptive statistics and are used in the calculation of most statistical indices employed in socioeconomic studies (Benos, Karagiannis amd Karkalakos 2015). This method is designed to produce information on the command and control poten­tial of a city, but also on its path of economic development or economic specialisation of the companies creating this function. In addition, it may be assumed that strong company resistance to economic crisis is linked with a city’s high degree of international connectivity, as financial losses generated by a compa­nyatonelocationmaybeoffsetbyprofitsgeneratedananotherlocationintheglobalisedworld(Raźniak, Dorocki and Winiarczyk-Raźniak 2017). 
Deloitte’s Central Europe Top 500 List + 50 banking and 50 insurance companies (banking and insurance companies are in the same reports but not in the main Top 500 list) (Raźniak, Dorocki and Winiarczyk-Raźniak 2018a) is not representative of the studied region, as it could be affected by a poten­tialoverrepresentationofthebankingandinsurancesectors.Inaddition,salesrevenueisnottheonlyfactor that describes the rank of a company. In light of this issue, Deloitte Central Europe Top 500 Reports were usedtocreateacustomisedlistofthemostimportant500companiesinCentralandEasternEurope.Deloitte Central Europe Top 500 Report (Internet 2) is based on standardised financial data, and it was used to create a New Eastern Europe Top 500 list of major companies. Sales revenue was standardised along with net profit for all 600 Deloitte companies by calculating the share for each individual company where the maximum relative value is 100. Next, an average value (Equation 1) was calculated for this set of revenue and profit values (xtop) (Shiller 1991). 
@ ä 
A 

(1), 
@ a 
6 
where x is the sales revenue and y is the net profit. 
The xtop value was used to assign a rank to each company on the list. The first 500 companies were then selected for further analysis. Further analysis focused on selecting only cities with corporate head­quarters representing three or more sectors of the economy in any given year. 
ThestudiedcompaniesweredividedintoninesectorsusedbyDeloitteinitsresearchwork(Internet 1): banking, consumer business and transportation, energy and resources, insurance, life sciences and health care, manufacturing, the public sector, real estate, technology media and telecommunications. The geo­graphic location of each company was determined based on the location of its headquarters. Companies were assigned to specific major metropolitan areas. 
BasedonRaźniak,DorockiandWiniarczyk-Raźniak(2018a)itisassumedthatregionalaswellaslocal commandandcontrolfunctionsaregeneratedinEasternEuropeancitiesbycompaniesontheNewEastern Europe Top 500 List created by the authors. The benefits of the presence of these companies presumably gototheirparentcities.BasedonNewEasternEuropeTop500ListCentralandEasternEuropeanEconomic Center Index(CEEECI) was created, which assesses cities in terms of the value of corporate headquarters by sector and stability in cases where one or more sectors are excluded. This approach yields information not only on the potential of a given city, but also on its economic evolution and/or specialisation. Cities with at least three economic sectors were included in the analysis. Cities featuring only two sectors were excluded in light of the substantial decline of the command and control function in the event of crisis in one of the sectors. 
The rank of the studied cities was compared by calculating standardised values based on mean nor-malised revenue and net profit (x) for each studied sector of the economy (z) in the calculation of the comprehensive potential index (CPI) for each studied city (Equations 2 and 3): 

Ô 
L . 
. 
(2) 

. 

(3) 
5 Ô 
where x=revenue plus net profit for each sector of the economy, s – is the sectors of the economy and N – is the number of cities per sector of the economy. 
One goal of the research was to verify which sector of the economy impacts a city’s economic poten­tial the most. This purpose was served by subtracting the value of individual sectors from the total standardised value calculated for 2009, 2012 and 2015. The objective was to observe how the sum of stan­dardised values (z’) changes for a given city,assumingthat the initial value constitutes 100% (Equation 4). Citiescharacterisedbyahighrangefollowingsectorsubtractiontendtospecialiseinoneareaoftheecon­omy and tend to remain underdeveloped in other areas of the economy. On the other hand, cities with low range tend to have both, advanced and multifaceted economies. The paper analyses cities with three or more sectors. 


. (4) 
 
Then a stability index (SI; Equation 5) was constructed using standardised values CPI and variances invaluesresultingfromthesubtractionoftheselectedindividualsectorsoftheeconomy(z’)fromallstud-
 iedsectors.Thevalueoftheindexwasthendividedbythestandarddeviation(SD)ofvaluesresultingfrom the subtraction of selected sectors (z’) [4]. This index also illustrates how financial crisis in a city’s main economic sector impacts the city’s overall economy. 



(5) 
a 
 
The final step consisted of the construction of a Comprehensive Development Index for cities based on sectors (CEEECI). The index includes the degree of stability, number of sectors, and the number of corporateheadquarters(Equation6).TheweightsofthevariablesusedtoconstructtheCEEECIwerecal­
culatedusingprincipalcomponentanalysis(PCA),whichincludedthestabilityindex(SI),numberofsectors 
 
of the economy (S) and the number of headquarters (HQ). Data for 2008, 2012 and 2015 were analysed separately and the value of the CEEECI was calculated only based on the first principal component. 
; 


(6) 
e 
whereHQisthenumberofheadquarters,SisthenumberofsectorsoftheeconomyandSIisthestabilityindex. 
Calculationscannotbeperformedforameansectorvalueofzero.Normalisationwasperformedonly inrelationtoanormaldistributionwithoutcheckingfordataasymmetryandassumingthatanormaldis­tribution will suffice. This must be considered in data analysis and normalisation must not be used for data that is strongly skewed. 
Similarmethodsofconstructingeconomicindicatorswiththeuseofstandardizedvalues,weightedaver­ages,principalcomponentanalysis,andmixedmodelswerediscussedbyMorrison(1967),andMarinoand Tebala(2016).However,themethodusedinthispaperwascreatedbyitsauthors,anditisusedalsobythe authorsofotherpublications(Dorocki,RaźniakandWiniarczyk-Raźniak2018and2019;Raźniaketal.2019). 

3 Ranking of Eastern European cities based on the CEEECI 
A total of 500 companies had their headquarters in 125 cities in 2008, 124 in 2012, and 156 in 2015. The number of cities declined by one (–0.8%) during the global economic crisis in 2008. A significant diver-sificationofheadquarterslocationswasnotedintheperiod2012–2015,andthenumberofcitiesincreased 25.8%.Anoppositetrendwasobservedinthecaseofthelocationofthelargestworldcorporations(Internet2). 

Figure 1: CEEECI values for 2008, 2012 and 2015 based on Deloitte’s Central Europe Top 500 Reports. 
Thenumberofcitieswiththelargestcorporationsincreased7.9%intheperiod2008–2012andthendeclined 5.4% in the period 2012–2015. Hence, a spatial deconcentration is observed for the largest corporations in Central and Eastern Europe, while a spatial concentration is observed on a world scale. 
The highest CEEECI values in 2008 were noted for Warsaw (4.7 points), Budapest (2.5 points), and Prague (2.4 points; Figure 1). Warsaw had the highest CEEECI in subsequent years. Resistance to crisis in the main sector of Budapest’s economy declined in 2012 and 2015 leading to a decline to third rank, behind Prague. Other capitals were also characterised by rather high CEEECI values in 2015: Bratislava (1.99),Bucharest(1.94),Ljubljana(1.46).Ontheotherhand,Kiev’sresistancetocrisissignificantlydeclined. The reason for this may be the current state of war between Russia and Ukraine, influencing the econo­my (Charap and Colton 2017; Feklyunina and Romanova 2017). 
Its CEEECI in 2008 was 1.42, while in 2015 it was almost 40% less. The lowest values (less than 0.5) for CEEECI cities in the study period were those of Pardubice, Brasov, and Tallinn. The largest increases wereobservedforsmallercitiessuchasŁódź(240%),NovoMesto(189%),Poznań(176%),Pardubice(158%), and Kraków (153%). However, only Poznań exceeded a value of one in 2015. Several cities were classified as CEEECI cities in one or two years of the study period: Riga, Wrocław, Sofia in 2008 and 2012; Donetsk, Ostrava, Pardubice, Dnepropetrovsk in 2012. It may be argued that these cities were not affected by the global economic crisis of 2008, as they had lost their rank after 2012 (Figure 1). 
In 2015 a total of 18 Central and Eastern European economic centres were identified and divided into four categories based on their ability to resist an economic crisis. Three cities were given the top CEEECI ranking. Six cities were ranked major. Seven cities were ranked midsize. Two cities were ranked minor. TheRomaniaandSloveniafeaturetwocitieseach.AnothersevencountriesinEasternEuropefeatureonly onetop-rankedeconomiccentreeach.Finally,norankedeconomiccentreswerenotedinAlbania,Bosnia 

Figure 2:CentralandEasternEuropeaneconomiccentres in2015based onDeloitte’sCentralEuropeTop500Reports(author:AnnaWiniarczyk-Raźniak). 
andHerzegovina,Montenegro,Moldova,NorthernMacedonia,andSerbia (Figure2).All of theabovesix countries are characterised by small geographic area, small population, low total GDP, and low GDP per capita (Internet 2). Most of these countries became independent only in the 1990s following the dissolu­tion of the much larger Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Warsaw, Prague, and Budapest are now the three most significant Central and Eastern European Economic Centres, and are classified in the top category due to their economic dominance in the region and very strong resistance to economic crisis. At the same time, only Prague is home to all nine of the studied sectors (Warsaw and Budapest are home to eight). These three top CEEECI cities differ in terms of their dominant economic sector. In Warsaw, it is consumer business and transportation, while in Prague energy and resources, and lastly in Budapest itismanufacturing.CitiessuchasBratislava,Bucharest,Ljubljana,Zagreb,PoznańandtheKatowicewere classified in the major category due to their strong ability to resist economic crisis (Figure 2). The only non-capitals in this group (Poznań and Katowice) are located in Poland, but they are »balanced« regional centres (Páthy 2017). The region continues to develop in an economic sense as well as in the sense of its residents’well-being(EgriandTánczos2018)andhometoanumberofrobustforeigncorporations(Nazarczuk and Umiński 2018). 
However, each of thethree cities is dominated by a different sector of the economy except Zagreb and Poznań (consumer business and transportation). Hence, it may be argued that the rank of these six cities may change in different directions in the event of crisis in a particular sector. The strength of Polish cities (7cities)isapparentinthisstudy,with38.9%ofCEEECIcitieslocatedinPoland.Polishcitiesarenotstrong­ly differentiated by main sector and are classified mostly as major and medium type. Three Polish cities aredominatedbythelifesciencesandanotherthreearedominatedbyconsumerbusinessandtransportation. Cities described as minor-type usually feature three or four sectors. In the event of crisis in a dominant sector, midsize-type cities are likely to decline substantially in economic terms (Figure 2). 
ThemostfrequentlyencounteredsectorinCentralandEasternEuropeaneconomiccentresisthecon­sumerbusinessandtransportationsector–eightcities(44.4%).Thisisespeciallythecaseincountriesthat usedtobepartoftheSovietUnionuntiltheearly1990sincludingLithuania,Latvia,Estonia,andUkraine. Manufacturing is dominant (22.2%) in four key urban regions – usuallyold industrial regions such as the Tri-city (Gdańsk, Gdynia and Sopot) and Łódź in Poland. However, Eastern European companies in this sectorarenotimportantplayersontheglobalscene(Krätke2014).Insummary,CentralandEasternEuropean EconomicCentresaredominatedbyconsumerbusiness,transportation,andmanufacturing(66,7%).The next key sector is banking (3 cities; Figure 2). 


4 Discussion 
The largest companies in Central and Eastern Europe became concentrated in a larger number of cities intheperiod2008–2015(Internet1).Thisistheoppositetrendtowhatisnowobservedintheworldecon­omy,withfewercitieshostingthelargestcorporationsaroundtheworld(Internet2).Thismaybetheresult of the opening of some offices of foreign corporations headquartered in Eastern Europe in order to limit operating costs and invest more profits in the home country. What is important is that this occurred sev­eral years after the global economic crisis of 2008. 
Economicstabilityofthecommandandcontrolfunctionofcitiesintimeofcrisiswasanalysedinterms oftheeffectsofstructuralchangeontheeconomy.Thesmallestdifferencesinthelevelofeconomicdevel­opment based on sector specialisation and corporate financial performance were noted in Prague, Warsaw,Ljubljana,Vilnius,Zagreb,andPoland’sTri-city.However,thelatterfourcitieswerecharacterised by low standardised values, which is why the difference in values triggered by the loss of a major sector of the economy was quite small. A high degree of specialisation and a close link with a single sector were observed in the case of Donetsk, Bucharest, Kiev, and Bratislava. 
Two thirds of the analysed cities are economically dominated by consumer business and transporta­tion and manufacturing. A crisis in any of these key sectors could trigger a decline in the city command and control function. Consequently, the cities of Warsaw, Prague, and Budapest may be called the lead-ingCentralandEasternEuropeanEconomicCentres.Thethreecitiesarehighlyresistanttocrisisandhave significant international connectivities. At the same time, these three cities possess an adequate amount of potential to play a meaningful role in the world economy. However, Prague outpaced Budapest in 2012 and 2015 compared with 2008. 
GiventhepoliticalhistoryofCentralandEasternEuropeanditslinkstoglobalisation,itremainsaunique region where many companies operating in this part of the world are in fact just regional offices of lead­ing corporations. Śleszyński (2015) argues that strategic decisions regarding their key functions are made outside of Central and Eastern Europe, and argues that the largest companies, even those whose head­quartersarelocatedinaforeigncountry,maygeneratethecommandandcontrolfunctionsofagivencountry’s economy. 
DespitebeinglistedintheDeloitteCentralEuropeTop500Report,manycompaniesinthestudyarea do not fully perform the command and control function in their home cities. However, regional offices located in the Central and Eastern Europe may have some decision power at the local and regional level. Regional managers thus may perform a limited regional or local command and control function, but not higher-level functions that remain reserved for main offices located outside of the study area. For exam­ple, the decision to close a plant or regional office made outside of the studied region may strongly affect thestabilityofacity’sregionalcommandandcontrolfunction.Hence,itisimportanttostudycitiesnotonly intermsofthefinancialresultsofkeycorporations,butalsointermsoftheabilityofthecommandandcon­trol function to remain stable in times of economic crisis in a principalsector generating thisfunction. 
It may be argued that, for a city, important is not only the magnitude of the C&C function, but also its ability to weather a crisis. This is important, as the economy of a city and its C&C function are not only affected by economic processes, but also by historial problems and ongoing warfare in some cases. 

5 Conclusion 
In a global world, it appears that a city’s global rank in a periodof economic growth is not the only impor­tant issue. What is also important is its global rank in periods of economic recession, which may affect its primaryfunctions.Themethodologypresentedinthepaperanswersthefollowingquestion:»Whatwould happen if something goes wrong in the realm of a city’s C&C function?« Similar research needs to be per­formed as part of other urban conceptual modelssuch as the concept of the world city. Standard forecasts arenotsufficient(Neal,DerudderandTaylor2019);insteadwhatisneededisanalysisonwhatwouldhap-pen to intercity connectivities in the event that the number of linkages between a given city and its main connectivity partner city would strongly decrease. Would it continue to be connected as well as before? Would it continue to be a world city? 
Research has shown that cities can resist economic crisis in their command and control function bet­teriftheyarehometoalargernumberofeconomicsectorsandfollowamoresustainablepathofeconomic development.Inordertoincreasetheattractivenessofacitytoglobalinvestors,itwouldbehelpfultohelp streamlinecitymanagementpracticesbyreducingredundanciesbetweenlocalgovernmentsandthenation­al government, and increasing the effectiveness of the local job market. These steps would reduce differences between cities (Wolman et al. 1992) and may also help cities weather any potential crisis that may occur. Alderson and Beckfield (2004) speak of a certain type of prestige associated with a city’s com-mandandcontrolfunction.Citiesinthestudiedregioncouldattempttobuildtheirbrandascitiesperforming a regionalcommandandcontrolfunction resistant to economiccrisisinamainsectorof theirlocalecon-omy.Astronglocalorregionalbrandwouldthenhelpthemtotriggeravirtuouscycleofbrandrecognition and continuous foreign direct investment. 

6 References 
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