City-regions have become a core unit of analysis for spatial economy, providing an explicit link between bounded administrative units and more networked spaces of production. Too often, however, such analysis is focused on the core of the city-region, applying presumptions of gravity-based agglomeration. This paper examines these networked spaces of production from the city-region periphery, using a firm-based approach as critical determinants of spatial economy via their key interactions. Focused on the Greater Birmingham city-region, UK, the paper explores the integration of city-regional geography with firm-based networked economy. In doing so, it applies a set of networks of practice, focused on firms’ factored, transactional, and transitional dependencies. Using these networks of practice, it critically analyses the spaces of production formed through firm-based interactions, and their concomitance with city-regional designations. It makes two key contributions. First, it enhances the call for greater understanding of the relationship between core and periphery in the context of city-regions. Second, it argues that network-based approaches, which form spatial economy around firm interactions over administrative configurations, offer useful insight into understanding firm–place relationships which more conventional place-based approaches cannot.

城市区域已成为空间经济分析的核心单元，在有限的行政单位与更多的网络生产空间之间建立了明确的联系。但是，这种分析常常以重力为基础的集聚假设为中心，集中在城市区域的核心。本文考察了城市区域外围的这些网络化生产空间，并采用了基于企业的方法，通过它们之间的关键相互作用，作为空间经济的关键决定因素。本文以英国大伯明翰市区为重点，探讨了将市区地理与基于公司的网络经济相结合的问题。在此过程中，它应用了一组实践网络，重点关注公司的因素，交易和过渡依赖性。利用这些实践网络，它批判性地分析了通过基于企业的互动形成的生产空间，以及它们与城市区域名称的相似性。它做出了两个关键贡献。首先，它增强了人们对城市区域背景下核心与外围之间关系的理解的要求。其次，它认为基于网络的方法围绕公司在管理配置上的交互作用形成空间经济，它为了解公司与地方之间的关系提供了有用的见识，而传统的基于地方的方法则无法做到这一点。