Internet and Cities

The Internet is an infrastructural communications network linking computers around the world. Along with other relatively new information and communications technologies (ICTs), such as cable television and cell phones, it is part of a “digital revolution” creating a new “information society.” The proliferation of these technologies coincides with the increasing urbanization of the world. This raises important questions about the reciprocal relationships between ICTs, such as the Internet, and cities. Early hyperbolic analyses speculated that the Internet and increasing digital flows of information would eliminate the need for spatially organized urban settings and make geographical distance irrelevant, thus leading to the death of cities. Newer, more nuanced and empirically based analyses have pointed to more complex relationships between the Internet and cities, in which the growth of online networks would lead to changes in the nature of cities, but would heighten their importance in some ways. Stephen Graham, one of the leading scholars in the new subdiscipline of urban ICT studies, suggested in 2004 that the concept of cybercities conveys the nature of the closely entwined relationships between the Internet and urban areas.

The ubiquity of online networks makes it easy to forget their relative newness. For understanding the relationships between the Internet and cities, it is useful to understand the history of such digital networks. From its original manifestation as ARPANET in the late 1960s, when it linked four computers, the Internet has grown into a global network. In 1969, the Department of Defense tasked its Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) with developing a communication network that would withstand the effects of a nuclear war. Initially, engineers and scientists were the primary users of ARPANET, which became NSFNET, and then the Internet. This online network grew exponentially in terms of the number of computers and users linked and also in terms of its popularity. The availability of the Internet as an infrastructural backbone of linked computers encouraged the development of other online facilities, such as the World Wide Web (WWW), which ride on the Internet. Tim Berners-Lee created the WWW, which has probably contributed the most to the explosive growth of the Internet and enabling people around the world to access and exchange information freely. Berners-Lee views the Web as a social invention, and this emphasizes the importance of understanding the relationships between ICTs and cities in a social rather than strictly technological context.

Early studies and prognostications tended to discuss the “impact” of the Internet on cities, as if this technology on its own would directly change cities and possibly lead to their disappearance. A more multidimensional view recognizes that all new technologies have had important effects on social life generally and urban life specifically. Although the Internet plays a role in shaping cities and urban life, it does so within the context of the effects of earlier technologies, including existing infrastructural networks such as [Page 387]highway systems and power grids, and in conjunction with other ICTs, including cell phones and cable television. The relationship between any technology, such as the Internet, and cities also reflects social, economic, and political decisions and relationships. Therefore, the ultimate consequences of the Internet will be due to its interplay with other networks, other new ICTs, and the social contexts within which all of these are deployed.

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