Urban Referencing Styles and Networks: How Cultural Domination and Local Interests Shape Policy Discourse

In the global arena of municipal policymaking, cities do not merely address local concerns but actively engage with other cities in a global relational space, referencing and being referenced by others. Within these networks, certain “model cities” emerge, linking urban transformation strategies to specific city experiences. Although much research focuses on the production of model cities—how they gain prominence and status—less attention has been given to the peer cities that reference them. The authors examine how model cities rise by analyzing “referential styles”: the ways cities express interest in one another. Drawing on urban sociology, cultural theory, and network analysis, the authors propose two propositions to explain the forces that influence referencing styles: the cultural domination proposition, which suggests that the characteristics of referenced cities shape how they are discussed, and the networks from culture proposition, which suggests that referencing cities’ attributes drive their interpretations. Using public art policy documents (1959–2020) from 26 major anglophone cities and computational techniques, the authors investigate the referential styles cities use to discuss one another. The authors find support for both propositions: although dominant cities determine where to look, it is often the attributes of referencing cities that determine how to look that shape the referencing style. These results suggest orienting policy-mobility research more toward the peer-network ecologies that actively construct urban meaning.