Vulnerable Connectivity Caused by Local Communities in Spatial Networks

TL;DR

This paper investigates how local communities in spatial networks affect their robustness, revealing that strong local communities weaken connectivity, but long-distance links can mitigate this vulnerability.

Contribution

It provides a modeling approach to analyze the impact of local communities on network robustness and highlights the role of long-distance links in improving resilience.

Findings

Strong local communities weaken network robustness.

Long-distance links can mitigate the negative effects of local communities.

Modeling planar infrastructure reveals the impact of community structure.

Abstract

Local communities by concentration of nodes connected with short links are widely observed in spatial networks. However, how such structure affects robustness of connectivity against malicious attacks remains unclear. This study investigates the impact of local communities on the robustness by modeling planar infrastructure reveals that the robustness is weakened by strong local communities in spatial networks. These results highlight the potential of long-distance links in mitigating the negative effects of local community on the robustness.