Presented at Shouts from the Street
Conference, Manchester Metropolitan University
15:30, 8 September 1995
Version 1.2
Email: d.p.hill@mmu.ac.uk
Digital information and communication technologies (ICTs) are entering the domain of popular
culture. ICTs are consequently the subject of much 'hype' both as a potential democratising force in
politics and cultural production and consumption, and now as a cornerstone of attempts at the social,
cultural, and economic regeneration of several post-industrial cities. The perceived potential for ICTs
to capitalise on the forthcoming 'information society' is being grasped by cities worldwide. It seems
that the likely success of these attempts at regenerating cities via ICTs may depend on the
interpretation of the critical concept of universal public access to ICTs. Current readings of universal
access focus on the simple notions of numbers of computers per head, training, and cheap access
rates to the 'infobahn'. A fuller definition of the term is required when addressing the use of ICTs in
city spaces, particularly public access sites such as cybercafés, electronic village halls, and public
information terminals.
Public access sites are often the visible face of social development ICT projects in cities. A perceived
benefit of these public access sites is the extension of the currently-limiting ICT culture from
'information-haves' to 'information have-nots'. However, there is a real danger that the desire to
exploit the 'hype' for short-term profit may result in the implementation of an incomplete model of
universal access. This may in turn result in a privatisation of public space being realised in
cyberspace. This paper will therefore attempt to focus on less tangible aspects and issues frequently
absent from current interpretations of universal access. These include the importance of the design of
the interface between public space and cyberspace, stimulating the demand for information services,
enabling a creative milieu in which to interact with ICT culture, effecting a cultural shift in the image
of personal computers as they permeate public space, and ensuring that ICT culture is truly interactive
and representative of potential users' desires and aspirations.
The paper will contain references to general terms and phrases such as 'cyberspace', 'the information
society', 'the city' and so on. This paper cannot address their origin or implications, and it is hoped
that readers are at least vaguely aware of the notions behind these terms. For more on 'cyberspace',
see Benedikt (1992) and Jones (1995). For more on the Ôinformation societyÕ, see Webster (1995). For
more on cities and information technology, see Mitchell (1995) and Castells (1989, 1994).
A key theme of the paper is access. Therefore this paper is written to be accessible to a wide
audience, including cultural policymakers, practitioners, and academics.
What is the reality of the hype behind the hyperreality of the information revolution? It is clear that
there is a substantial amount of hype in this area, which can make research frustrating on occasion.
Most people now have an opinion about cyberspace, often wildly swinging between blind euphoria,
dark mutterings about the end of physical interaction, or mocking sarcasm. In a sense, it's easy to see
why people evolve these extreme opinions, when presented with the news of, say, Netscape
Communications Corp's recent stock market flotation. Netscape's share prices rose from an original
evaluation of $14 a share to $71 a share immediately. The Guardian reported that "In a trice it
suddenly became worth more than the combined economies of Nicaragua, Guyana, Dominica and
Samoa."[1] This was a company that made a loss of
$4.3 million on the year and who's chief product - the Netscape Navigator world wide web browser software - is effectively free. This vast investment
based purely on the expectation of future performance.
Similarly, many city governments are equally convinced that their future success lies in cyberspace.
Fin-de-millennium hype, and perhaps insecurity, can be traced in the evocations of a new age
dawning. For example, publicity material for Norwich City Council's telematics projects which leads
with the stern statement:
So, the level of hype is considerable, which is interesting in
itself. As good postmodernists, the study of hype can be useful.
But, analysing beyond the hype, it seems clear that there is a
broad level of agreement that there are some fundamental cultural
shifts sweeping through sections of our society, the effects of
some of which we can see around us, in the changing shape of
organisations, in industry, in politics, in new media, such as the
World Wide Web, and in the traditional mass media, in academia, and
in cities. Webster (1995) analyses these 'theories of the
information society' perhaps more thoroughly than most, and is
broadly sceptical about the notion of 'a new age dawning'. However,
even if we are witnessing the informatisation of existing social
and cultural relationships, as opposed to the creation of
newly-evolved information society, this still seems an important
development in contemporary culture.
Castells (1995), for instance,
defines the fundamental industrial and cultural shift thus:
Like Castells, the
architect Richard Rogers sees cities as expressing the character of
the age, this transformation towards a post-industrial,
information-based society. In his recent Reith Lectures on cities
he proclaims:
My method for doing this is to develop two possible futures for cities. I am aware that these could be
seen as simplistic versions of utopia and dystopia (or thesis and antithesis), and am very conscious
that policy shouldn't be couched in such terms, in order to avoid falling into the trap of
simplification, overhyping or moral panic. However, it seems reasonable to imagine a little, in order
to aim for the benefits, uncovering the traps, as long as we are aware that the reality is likely to be
complex, unpredictable and somewhere between these polar opposites.
"Norwich and Norfolk prospered when they were at the heart of trade routes. They
were bypassed by the the industrial revolution. The new trade routes are electronic. We
must not be bypassed again."[2]
The mass media's love:hate relationship with the subject was demonstrated perfectly in the weeks
surrounding the launch of Microsoft's "Windows 95" operating system on August 24th. These
ranged from being offered the Daily Telegraph free to it's readers (courtesy of Bill Gates) and the
New Statesman and Society's euphoric comparisons to Roland Barthes' eulogy about the Citroên DS
as contemporary cathedral[3], to disparaging
diatribes in The Guardian.[4]
"Because knowledge generation and information processing are at the
roots of the new productivity, the ability of a society to
accumulate knowledge and manipulate symbols translates into
economic productivity and political-military might, anchoring the
sources of wealth and power in the informational capacity of each
society"[5]
For Castells and others (Daniel Bell, David Lyon, various
postmodernists), this may be the essence of a new 'information
society'. A new basis for economic and cultural production and
consumption - a new framework for 'society' and 'culture' to be
expressed within. Castells' work is based principally on the
construct of the informational city. He sees the city as not only
surviving these shifts, but as the primary social and cultural unit
expressing these changes. He further argues that European cities in
particular are well-placed to breach the gap caused by the
withering nation-states, essentially by building international
networks of cities, recapturing their history as semi-autonomous
bodies through strong city governments.
"The industrial age is giving way, at least in the
developed countries, to the post-industrial: telecommunications,
cheap computer power, the information superhighway ... All this is
transforming our cities ...The raw material of this new economy is
citizens and their knowledge, creativity and initiative. Art and
science will be the lifeblood of these knowledge-based cities, and
the key to further wealth."[6]
This paper will discuss the issues for
deindustrialised cities as they move into this essentially
postindustrial culture (whether information society or informatised
society), particularly how their city space will react to the new
dimension of cyberspace. In William Mitchell's (1995) study
City of Bits, he describes how a virtual representation of the city's
information order is changing the physical space of the city, and
how interfaces between the physical space of the city and the
city's representation in cyberspace are becoming increasingly
important. Mitchell's examples will be considered within the
context of contemporary cultural and urban theory. The paper aims
to begin to indicate how the flexibility of information and
communications technologies may enable some of these cities to ride
these changes, and perhaps find a new postindustrial raison
d'être.
1. Pitfalls for city centre cultures
A possible negative consequence of this 'information revolution' is alluded to in the title of this paper: "the privatisation of public (cyber)space". This refers to privatisation in two senses: the privatisation of cyberspace itself into representing the information-rich and marginalising an information underclass, and the privatisation of public life and public space that might occur if cyberspace causes a retreat from physical interaction within physical public space. What particular pitfalls are presented to postindustrial cities by the effects of an information society? What specific problems may occur as a result of denying widespread access to the city's information infrastructure?
1.1 Retreat from Physical Public Space
The industrial and economic shifts underpinning the 20th century meant that certain cities grew
rapidly in size and importance during the industrial, modern era. For David Lyon (1995), "... the
city came to be seen as the crucible of modernity." So, one of the principal functions of these cities
was to locate a large working population in a centre of industrial capital at salient locations for trade
connectivity. In the postindustrial era, the older industrial cities of Northern Europe declined rapidly
both in terms of population and in 'stature' as de-industrialisation faded essential functions of the
city (Landry & Bianchini 1995; Lovatt & O'Connor 1995). Added to this loss of function, a key
feature of advanced information and communications technology is that it can enable a fragmentation
of centralised organisation into networked micro-organisations, and effect a radical dislocation of
space and time. This features are both expressed in teleworking. Although there is no official
definition of teleworking, a teleworker can essentially be defined as using information technology to
remain in contact with their employer, when working away from the office or remotely of an
employer for at least half their working time (Shearman 1994).
Teleworking presents a number of positive and negative implications. In a marginalised information
culture, it could lead to a privatisation of public space, as public services are replaced by teleservices.
William Mitchell (1995) writes of how teleworking could help 'problem neighbourhoods' (he
describes the South Side of Chicago, but here in Manchester the equivalent would, perhaps, be
Hulme, Moss Side or Cheetham Hill). He describes how telemedicine could enable a family
practitioner to conduct virtual surgeries where people can consult a doctor via video-conferencing
technology. He also mentions other support workers/services resorting to virtually 'visiting' people
and locations via cyberspace. For instance, social workers overseeing their 'customers' via telecomms
links, and dislocated police monitoring via closed-circuit television and electronic tagging of
offenders. Whilst these may be more cost-effective methods of teleworking, they may essentially
mean the end of house-calls and the much-vaunted 'bobby on the beat'. This could result in reducing
the number of people on the streets in a real physical sense. The sense of physical community and
safety is not enforced by actually having a critical mass of people on the streets, but by the panoptic
glare of surveillance video, tracking 'suspicious' activity. We must avoid the situation where the only
"shouts from the street" are cries for help falling on deaf electronic ears. Mitchell's unblinking, and
perhaps unthinking, descriptions of teleworking applications could inexorably lead to the dystopia
of William Gibson's Virtual Light, or Mike Davis' (1990, 1995) evocation of fortress mentality in
Los Angeles. Here cyberspace represents a retreat from the 'real' world, to sweep reality under the
carpet. A rejection of the physical world in favour of the virtual. Teleshopping is likely to further a
trend already established by TV shopping channels. Here Mitchell realises the one of the important functions of actually physically going to the shops:
"Traditionally, it suggested a trip to the market - contact with the historic urban center, a
a chance to mingle with fellow citizens. Market squares and market days were important
spatial and temporal markers."[7]
Lovatt and O'Connor (1995) have written about the similar nature of city centres at nighttime - about
how one of the functions of city-centres concerns mixing with others, particularly others you
wouldn't normally encounter, about belonging to a pluralistic local culture, about how the city centre
can become a liminal zone for transgression and experimentation. By denying this crucial function of
city centres - by denying physical interaction with 'the other' - and instead choosing to inhabit a
hyperreal digital simulation of a city centre that never existed, and is 'safe' in the worst sense of the
word, we lose one of the key experiences of urban living, and one of the reasons for a city's
existence - facilitating interaction with a critical mass of varied local culture.
"Cities should not aim to replicate the sanitised spaces of corporate consumption; their
fluidity and inverted parameters resist such prescription. City centres demand a level of
civility in the interaction of different groups and people. But it must also be about mixing
with people you would not mix with normally and seeing things and people you would
not normally approve of. These skills may need to be re-learnt but should be seen as an
opportunity, not a threat. This is the civic space of the late 20th century ... Social justice
and local democracy are crucial ... but so too is the culture of cities that is found in a
vibrant and interactive public space."[8]
Public space is unlikely to be "vibrant and interactive" when there is little physical presence. Its
abstraction into cyberspace may be inhabited by disembodied telepresences, meaning that we have
what Lovatt and O'Connor call "the withdrawal of people into
privatised leisure"[9]. How can the
physical city survive this? The residents retreat from city centres that we are witnessing in London,
Paris, Tokyo and New York may be nothing compared to this retreat from the public world into
privatised cyberspace.
1.2 Unbalanced City Economy
In an economy based on the production, distribution and
consumption of digital information, a deindustrialised city without a skilled workforce suited to this industrial change is likely to become
based entirely on consumption of digital information. The production is likely to be done elsewhere,
and piped-in to the city. Therefore, the digital equivalent of that city's balance of payments will
reflect an information-importer, leading to the city becoming an economically-marginalised sink for
information. Bearing in mind Castells' position that the informational capacity of a city will be the
key to its wealth and power, it is clear that this is an unbalanced city economy. These city economies
will have difficulty maneuvering into positions of power in a world where nation-states are
perceived as becoming less relevant. Moving beyond economics, theorists note that many
postindustrial cities centres are now fixed around consumption rather than production (Featherstone
1991, Lovatt and O'Connor 1995). This has a number of cultural effects, such as the loss of collective
and individual identity which was originally 'fixed' by the manufacturing industries of the initial
industrial era, and in particular the loss of a local identity due to the global nature of the consumer
economy. There may be little point in trying to recapture these long-lost industries, however there
should be an alternative to becoming an idle consumer.
1.3 Decentring of the City
So, the lack of an information culture in the city centre is likely to leave the spatial distribution of a
city's information infrastructure unbalanced, as the information-rich telework from suburban and
exurban areas. This model will leave the city centre largely bereft of production, accelerating
residential shifts out of the city centre, leaving it without a focus, and perhaps without a reason to
exist. As much of the cultural action moves into cyberspace, the centre may become a disused
postmodern wasteland. Unless these cultural shifts are widely understood, the effects of this
technology could radically disrupt the spatial balance of a city.
1.4 Marginalised Information Underclass
Those left behind in an unproductive city centre may reside in information-poor ghettoes
marginalised due to lack of access to empowering information, left without the tools for cultural
production and only basic tools for cultural consumption. It has been suggested that there is a latent
potential in cyberspace for social division, which could
enable the realisation of a 'dual city' (Castells 1989, 1994). Claire Shearman (1995) argues that the unthinking application of information culture
into cities may lead to further marginalisation of an increasing number of citizens.
"Yet the very nature of the vision of the 'informational city' being promoted by many
urban policymakers militates against the development or sustenance of such social
cohesion. Certain elites within cities are experiencing the cosmopolitanism (real and
virtual) of informational society life. Meanwhile, the majority of those belonging to
disadvantaged groups find themselves ever more socially, economically, electronically
and technologically disenfranchised."[10]
Among the most terrifying evocations of possible futures for the postmodern city are those by Mike
Davis, who analyses Los Angeles in City of Quartz (Davis
1990) and Beyond Blade Runner: Urban Control The Ecology Of
Fear
(Davis 1995; which is available via the Mediamatic[11] website out of Holland). It seems fatuous to subscribe to simplifications like "what America does today, Britain does tomorrow", and it would be wrong to merely apply conclusions based on Los Angeles, to a city like
Manchester (indeed would probably give a paranoid establishment another moral panic scenario to
work with). However, it is important to consider the cultural influence America can exert over
Britain. This is not a 'special relationship' so coveted by obsequious cabinet ministers, but in this case
an appropriation of social and cultural models by both policy-makers (e.g. neighbourhood watch
schemes, surveillance cameras) and cultural consumers (privatised isolated leisure). Davis has
extended his dystopian descriptions of Los Angeles, beginning to allude to the negative potential of
cyberspace for socially marginalised city spaces and cultures.
"... urban cyberspace - as the simulation of the city's
information order - will be experienced as even more segregated, and devoid of true public space, than the
traditional built city. Southcentral LA, for instance, is a data and media black hole,
without cable programming or links to major data systems. Just as it became a
housing/jobs ghetto in the early twentieth century industrial city, it is now evolving into
an electronic ghetto within the emerging information
city."
1.5 Gentrification of Cyberspace
Without an accessible and pluralistic information culture, cyberspace could become gentrified - it may
reflect the tastes and desires of a privileged section of the population - those with the knowledge
and tools to enjoy meaningful interaction with digital media, resulting in a vicious circle of
undemocratic and privatised cultural production. Again, gentrified city-cyberspace will reflect the
characteristics of the unrepresentative suburban space it
evolves from, rather than the eroding ruins of the voiceless city centre's datatypes.
1.6 Consumption of the Global Popular
A digital popular culture based purely on consumption will essentially mean consumption of what
Douglas Kellner (1995) has called the global popular, which
will mean American culture. This may exacerbate the lack of local identity initiated by the loss of a production economy. It may also deny
the heterogeneity and plurality of city-centre cultures in favour of homogenous and unrepresentative
culture alien to particulars of local people, traditions, and ideologies.
These are some of the challenges for cities presented by the development of advanced information
and communication technologies. This vision is perhaps a little
bleak[12], and there may be a viable
escape route facilitated by new technology. This quote from Mitchell
(1995) reveals a possible strategy:
"Perhaps it is not too romantic to imagine that unique natural environments, culturally
resonant urban settings, and local communities that hold special social meaning will
increasingly assert their power. Perhaps we will find compelling advantages to putting
together spaces - like living spaces and work space - that were once thought to belong in
different buildings located in different zones of the city."
This may be the key to a city's success - the reworking of city space around cyberspace to enable
mixed-use planning - to revitalise public space so that the city centre is based on production in the
cultural industries, creative cultural consumption, and city centre living. To lay the foundations for
what Landry and Bianchini (1995) call a "subtle supportive city
milieu"[13] - to enable the city-centre as
a series of networked communities each incorporating overlapping spaces for work, rest and play.
The 'soft' infrastructure enabling this entails an effective implementation of public access to
cyberspace. We will return to the details of access later, however let us examine some of the potential
benefits of this more utopian model of a city centre.
[1] "Bubbles in the Cyber Sea", The Guardian
leader column, 12 August 1995.
[2] NORWICH CITY COUNCIL (1995) Telematics: Creating
Jobs for the Next Millennium
[3] "Windows on the World", Peter Jukes, New Statesman
and Society , 18 August 1995.
[4] "Windows a pane in farce of 95", Mark Tran, The
Guardian , 29 August 1995.
[5] CASTELLS (1995), op cit., p.20.
[6] "Building cities to move the spirit", Richard Rogers,
The Independent , 13 March 1995.
[7] MITCHELL (1995), op cit., p.88.
[8] LOVATT and O'CONNOR (1995), op cit., p.133.
[9] Ibid., p.132.
[10] Mediamatic is at http://www.mediamatic.nl/
[11] "Beyond Blade Runner", Mike Davis, downloaded from
the Mediamatic website at
http://www.mediamatic.nl/ on 20.07.1995
[12] Julian Stallabrass (1995) writing in the New
Left Review, makes an interesting point about the construction of
cyberspace: that the only real 'new' models we have for those working
to construct cyberspace are the dystopian worlds found in cyberpunk
fiction. That people out there are actually coding virtual buildings
and public space based on the blueprints for a dystopia.
[13] LANDRY and BIANCHINI (1995), op cit., p.4.
Send email to: d.p.hill@mmu.ac.uk