| Abstract: | This paper re-theorizes the notion of the distributed city not as the spatial alternative to nucleated centrality, but as an inevitable outcome of global information technology infrastructures. Rather than effecting the formal dispersal of significant elements, electronic distribution generates the intangible non-place of the telepresent, a development which was anticipated by modernists, but seems to be fundamentally negated by certain prominent urban thinkers today. This paper challenges and reformulates their views, showing how Jameson, Auge, Mulgan and Sorkin acknowledge the need to rethink our relationship to real and virtual environments, while Jacobs, Sennett, Davis and Baudrillard lament the destruction of urban spaces which cater for a proper public life, often attributing this to an increase in computer-mediated communication. Countering their position, this paper argues for complimentarity between real and virtual experiences and an acceptance of uncertainty as a defining characteristic of both city and cyberspace. City life as voluntary proximity instead of an urban culture of congestion necessarily arises from an engagement with new technology. This transformation requires designers, planners and architects to expand their conception of environmental design, and to grasp critically the creative possibilities which electronic communication opens up. |
