The recent rapid growth of the Internet has avoided scrutiny from urban planners as little information is available from which to assess its impacts on cities and regions. As a result, explanations of the relationship between telecommunications and urban growth are overly simplistic, forecasting either the centralization of decision-making in so-called ‘global’ cities or wholesale urban dissolution. Based on two measurements of Internet geography—domain name registrations and backbone networks—this study finds that access to advanced communications technologies have broadly diffused across a wide group of medium-sized and large-sized metropolitan areas. Finally, the implications of these findings suggest a need to rethink global cities and a practical need to address the growing divide between network cities and the rest of the urban world.
References
1.
AblerR, 1977, “The telephone and the evolution of the American metropolitan system” in The Social Impact of the Telephone Ed. de Sola PoolIthiel (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA) pp 318–341
2.
Abu-LughodJ L, 1999New York, Chicago, Los Angeles: America's Global Cities (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN)
3.
BaranP, 1964, “On distributed communications: I. Introduction to distributed communications networks”, memorandum RM-3420-PR, Rand, 1700 Main Street, Santa Monica, CA 90407–2138
4.
Boardwatch Magazine1997, Internet service providers' quarterly directory, fall issue; available at www.boardwatch.com/mag/index.html
5.
Boardwatch Magazine1999, Internet service providers' quarterly directory, winter/spring issue; available at www.boardwatch.com/mag/index.html
6.
CairncrossF, 1997The Death of Distance (Harvard Business School Press, Cambridge, MA)
7.
CampanellaT J, 1998, “Antiurbanism and the image of the city in new media culture”, paper presented at Imaging the City, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; available at http://web.mit.edu/imagingthecity/www/abstracts.html
8.
CastellsM, 1996The Rise of the Network Society, Volume I (Blackwell, Cambridge, MA)
9.
ErnstD, 1997, “From partial to systematic globalization: international production networks in the electronics industry”, WP-98, Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy (BRIE), Berkeley, CA; available at http://brie.berkeley.edu/∼briewww/pubs/wp/wp98.html
10.
FreidmannJWolffG, 1982, “World city formation: An agenda for research and action”International Journal of Urban and Regional Research6309–344
11.
GilderG, 1995Forbes ASAP February 27, page 56
12.
GlaeserE LCasparJ, 1996, “Information technology and the future of cities”, DP-1756, Harvard Institute of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA
13.
GormanS, 1998, “The death of distance but not the end of geography: the internet as a network”, paper presented to Regional Science Association, Santa Fe, NM; available at http://web.geog.ufl.edu/grad_students/seanspaper.pdf
14.
GrahamSMarvinS, 1996Telecommunications and the City (Routledge, New York)
15.
HallP, 1966The World Cities (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London)
16.
HallP, 1997, “Modelling the post-industrial city”Futures29311–322
17.
JoS, 1992World City within the World City System Context: Concept, Method and the Case of Seoul doctoral dissertation, School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy, University of Delaware, Newark, DE
18.
MossM L, 1986, “Telecommunications and the future of cities”Land Development Studies (3) 33–44
19.
MossM LTownsendA M, 1997a, “Manhattan leads the 'net nation”, research report, Taub Urban Research Center, New York University, New York: available at http://urban.nyu.edu/research/domains/
20.
MossM LTownsendA M, 1997b, “Tracking the 'net: Using domain names to measure the growth of the Internet in US cities”Journal of Urban Technology4(3) 47–60
21.
MossM LTownsendA M, 1998, “Spatial analysis of the Internet in US cities and states”, paper presented at Urban Futures–Technological Futures Conference, Durham, England; available at http://urban.nyu.edu/research/newcastle/
22.
MossM LTownsendA M, 2000, “The Internet backbone and the American metropolis”The Information Society Journal16(1) 35–47
23.
NegroponteN, 1995Being Digital (Knopf, New York)
24.
PredA R, 1973Urban Growth and the Circulation of Information (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA)
25.
SassenS, 1995, “On concentration and centrality in the global city”, in World Cities in a World System Eds KnoxP LTaylorP J (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) pp 63–78
26.
SaxenianA, 1994Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA)
27.
ThriftN, 1996, “New urban eras and old technological fears: Reconfiguring the goodwill of electronic things”Urban Studies331463–1493
28.
TofflerA, 1980The Third Wave (Bantam Books, New York)
29.
TownsendA M, 2001, “Networked cities and the global structure of the Internet”American Behavioral Scientist forthcoming
30.
WebberM, 1964, “The urban place and the nonplace urban realm”, in Explorations into Urban Structure Ed. WebberM (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA) pp 79–153
31.
WinstonB, 1998Media, Technology, and Society (Routledge, New York)
ZookM, 2000, “The web of production: The economic geography of commercial Internet content production in the United States”Environment and Planning A32411–426
