Due to the rise of communication technologies and economic globalization, modern large cities are becoming more and more interconnected and this phenomenon leads to an increasing synchronization in activities and communication patterns. In our work, we explore the communication synchronization between 76 Italian cities of different sizes by using mobile phone data. Our results show that both the spatial distance and the size of the city influence the synchronization: larger cities are more similar to larger cities in communication rhythms than medium cities are to medium cities, and medium cities are more similar to medium cities than smaller cities are to smaller cities. Furthermore, for all the cities’ sizes we observe a drift in similarity due to spatial distance. Interestingly, the drift due to distance over similarity is less strong in large cities, that act as gateway nodes for the Italian economical system, hence having an emerging strongly connected and synchronized network, than for medium and small cities, that are more bounded to local industries. Finally, our results also show that highly synchronized cities are richer and more attractive for foreign-born population.

中文翻译：

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羽毛城市蜂拥而至：意大利城市之间的交流同步研究

由于通信技术的兴起和经济全球化，现代大城市之间的联系越来越紧密，这种现象导致活动和通信方式的同步性越来越高。在我们的工作中，我们使用手机数据探索了76个不同规模的意大利城市之间的通信同步。我们的结果表明，城市的空间距离和规模都会影响同步性：大城市在沟通节奏上与大城市更相似，而不是中城市到中城市，中城市比中城市更类似于中城市。到较小的城市。此外，对于所有城市的规模，我们都观察到由于空间距离而导致的相似度漂移。有趣的是，与意大利相比，由于距离超过相似性而导致的漂移在大城市中不那么强烈，而大城市是意大利经济体系的门户节点，因此与新兴的中小城市相比，新兴城市的联系和同步网络更加牢固且同步，而中小城市则更多地受当地产业的束缚。最后，我们的结果还表明，高度同步的城市对于外国出生的人口来说更富裕，也更具吸引力。