Mega-City Regions are nodes in the network of information flows and therefore important locations of the knowledge based economy (KBE). This new spatial scale is recognized by planners and politicians as being crucial to develop competitive national economies. In this paper we want to examine the spatial patterns and firm connectivities of the KBE in the Mega-City Region of Munich. We test the hypothesis whether (1) High-Tech-Branches and Advanced-Producer Services (APS) have different location strategies and (2) whether the firm connectivities and the role of the surrounding functional urban areas are different from those of the core city of Munich. In order to deal with both hypotheses we combine a quantitative value-chain approach with the method of the Global and World City Study Group (GaWC) to analyse inter-firm as well as intra-firm networks. We hypothesise that APS branches follow a different location strategy to ensure proximity with their customers then high-tech branches. The latter are more capital-intensive and their location patterns and strategies are in general more path-dependent. Our study shows indications for a division of labour among functional urban areas within the Mega-City Region of Munich. It seems that Munich plays the role of the international knowledge hub whereas the other functional urban areas are contributing in various ways to the distinctive character of the Mega-City Region of Munich.
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