Cities can benefit from complex supply chains

Nazlı B Doğan; Alfonso Mejia; Michael Gomez

doi:10.1038/s42949-023-00100-5

Cities can benefit from complex supply chains

NPJ Urban Sustain. 2023;3(1):20. doi: 10.1038/s42949-023-00100-5. Epub 2023 Mar 29.

Authors

Nazlı B Doğan¹, Alfonso Mejia¹, Michael Gomez¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA USA.

Abstract

Supply chain complexity is perceived to exacerbate the supply disruptions or shocks experienced by a city. Here, we calculate two network measures of supply chain complexity based on the relative number-horizontal complexity-and relative strength-vertical complexity-of a city's suppliers. Using a large dataset of more than 1 million annual supply flows to 69 major cities in the United States for 2012-2015, we show that a trade-off pattern between horizontal and vertical complexity tends to characterize the architecture of urban supply networks. This architecture shapes the resistance of cities to supply chain shocks. We find that a city experiences less intense shocks, on average, as supplier relative diversity (horizontal complexity) increases for more technologically sophisticated products, which may serve as a mechanism for buffering cities against supply chain shocks. These results could help cities anticipate and manage their supply chain risks.

Keywords: Civil engineering; Complex networks; Economics; Sustainability.