--- Begin Forwarded Message ---
>Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 21:58:41 -0800
>From: human being <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Fwd: International Workshop on Cities and Telecommunications
i am forwarding this post with respect to the section:
"1. Mapping Cities in the Information Age", on the
assumption that some on the list may find it of interest.
brian carroll
http://www.sirius.com/~schizo/
________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 11:29:01 +0000
From: [log in to unmask] (Stephen Graham)
Subject: International Workshop on Cities and Telecommunications
Announcing a Major International Workshop on Cities and
Telecommunications
Cities in the Global Information Society: An International Perspective
A Workshop Sponsored by BT and the Economic and Social Research
Council (ESRC)
Organized by the Centre for Urban Technology (CUT) and the Centre
for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS) University of
Newcastle, U.K.
22nd - 24th November 1999, Durham, U.K.
First Announcement and Request for Abstracts
Context
As we are about to enter the new millennium cities continue
to dominate the global information society. The world is both
urbanising rapidly and becoming more and more reliant on advanced
telecommunications, media and computer communications technologies.
In both advanced industrial nations and, even more so, in the
so-called 'developing' world, many urban regions are continuing to
grow at a rapid pace. Despite many predictions over the past twenty
years that advances in communications will lead us to some 'post urban
age', cities continue to dominate the economic, cultural and social
dynamics of contemporary societies.
Yet cities are becoming more interconnected economically, culturally,
and infrastructurally through the parallel development of global
telecommunication and transportation networks. Much of the massive
investment in new telecommunications and IT networks either takes
place in dense urban regions or else interconnects cities together
into global networks. As we shift from national telecommunications
monopolies to an integrated, liberalised and global telecommunications
marketplace, the dominance of cities as sites which articulate
electronic networks seems to be growing further.
Urban regions, particularly 'global' cities, drive innovation in
all leading-edge applications of new media and telecommunications
technologies. The electronic contact potential that urban areas
offer, both within the city and to far-off spaces, is being subtly
combined with the traditional supports that cities offer for
face-to-face contact and physical transportation. We can see this at
the level of buildings (with 'intelligent' offices and 'smart' homes),
districts (with new media clusters, teleport zones and heavily-wired
financial services cores), and with cities as a whole (with city-wide
Metropolitan optic fibre networks and the widespread labelling of
cities as 'cyber' or 'silicon' places for marketing purposes).
Clearly, telecommunications do not simply substitute for face-to-face
contact or dissolve the need for meeting in close proximity within
cities. Complex synergies between electronically-mediated connection
and physical connection are emerging. Electronic connections can
substitute for some physical connections (telebanking), generate
others (Internet place marketing), make physical congestion more
bearable (mobile phones), and allow more and more physical movement
to be squeezed onto congested transport networks (electronic route
guidance, air traffic control).
Paradoxically, then, new communications infrastructures simultaneously
facilitate the intense concentration of people and movement within
extending urban regions, whilst allowing cities to control global
business and service networks across international distances.
On the one hand, by connecting the 'bits' of cities together, new
communications technologies support urban regions of unrivalled
size and complexity, allowing them to function dynamically. On the
other, telecommunications can also collapse the barriers between the
'local' and the 'global', allowing some spaces within cities to be
more globally connected than locally tied in to their urban milieu
(e.g. fortressed communities and postmodern 'bunker' office buildings).
Thus, electronic infrastructures and services are everywhere
implicated in the growing social divisions that seem to be evident
in all types of cities, as global connections are combined with local
disconnections in complex ways.
Conference Themes
It is now clear that the interplay between cities and
telecommunications is extremely complex ; relations are often subtle
and counter-intuitive. Many of the early myths, hopes and aspirations
that advances in telecommunications might lead us towards a more
decentralised and utopian information age have been abandoned as
simplistic, naive, and technologically determinist. Yet we still do
not have a rich or full understanding of how telecommunications are
involved in the development of contemporary cities around the world.
Much of the existing research and policy development remains
focused on a very small number of IT applications within the cities
of North America and Europe. But the subtle and multiple reworking
of urban space through new IT infrastructures and services, across
the full range of urban experiences, remains poorly understood.
Urban literatures tend to remain almost besotted with iconic 'global'
cities, or parts of cities, such as the interconnected financial cores
of New York, London, and Tokyo. How IT is being used to reconfigure
and rework the development of the full gamut of urban activities
and development processes in more 'ordinary' city spaces remains
very poorly explored.
>>> What is happening, for example, in the old industrial regions of
>>>the North, or the 'mega cities' of the South, in new industrial
>>>spaces, newly industrialising and globally peripheral cities ?
>>>As a result of such neglect, we lack an integrated and holistic
>>>understanding of how telecommunications are involved in the
>>>development of cities in much of the post-socialist, newly
>>>industrialising, developing and developed worlds.
This unique conference aims to address this deficit. Drawing upon
the urban studies and urban policy-making communities from around the
globe, the conference will address three themes:
1. Mapping Cities in the Information Age
The first theme of the Conference will examine the role of cities in
the development of new IT, media and telecommunication networks. We
need to develop an understanding of how telecommunication providers
construct the notion of cities as places to serve and invest
in, within globalising contexts of regulation and infrastructure
development. What type of cities are most valued and which are
being by-passed by internationalising telecommunications investment
strategies? How are decisions made about the roll-out of networks
within and between cities? Where is most investment in urban
telecommunications networks directed? How can we simultaneously
understand the emerging geographies of IT and telecommunications
use and investment within cities, and the emerging infrastructural
linkages that tie cities into urban networks and hierarchies at
increasingly international and even global scales ?
2. Understanding Telecommunications-City Relations
The second theme will examine how new telecommunications networks
are involved in the changing economic, social, cultural, physical
and environmental development of cities. How do electronic connections
co-evolve with traditional face-to-face ones based on physical
movement ? How are the economic, social and cultural assets of cities
being combined with electronic potential to link and relate with
far-off places ? In what ways are the urban landscapes and development
processes of contemporary cities being reconfigured by burgeoning
telecommunications-based interactions, near and far ? How are patterns
and processes of social division reflected and sustained by uneven
access to electronic networks ? How can we understand the relations
between intra and inter-urban electronically-mediated relationships ?
How do experiences of IT-mediated urban change vary across different
types of cities in different parts of the world? And can we build a
comparative understanding of such diversity ?
3. Integrating telecommunications into urban policy and planning
strategies
The final theme of the Conference will examine the capacity for urban
governance and policy agencies to creatively shape the development of
their telecommunications assets, to help achieve positive developmental
solutions for their cities. What regulatory and informal structures
do urban governance agencies have for shaping investment priorities
of telecommunications providers? How can they work with media, IT
and telecommunications providers ? How can the creative potential of
IT-based innovation in cities best be harnessed to social, cultural
and economic development and planning agendas ? Can urban policy
makers position their cities' telecommunications assets to help
capture comparative advantage in a globalising world? How are cities
being marketed as 'cyber', 'smart' or 'tele'-rich places ? And how
can policy makers integrate telecommunications within their landuse
planning, economic development and environmental strategies and plans?
A Typology of Broad City Types
In order to stimulate the maximum spread of coverage of this wide
research agenda, we are seeking abstracts from researchers and policy
makers who are actively researching or developing initiatives in
cities from the following typology of eight broad types of cities:
1. Old-Industrial Cities (e.g. Newcastle, Pittsburg, Essen) :
How are the old industrialised cities of North America and Europe using
telecommunications in adjusting to a service-driven economic future?
Can such cities use telecommunications to overcome their relative
geographical peripherality, developing new economic dynamics based
on distributing services across distance? How might urban governments
shape the roll-out of their new telecommunications infrastructure?
What implications do telecommunications have for the economically
marginalised and social equity in such cities?
2. 'Global' Cities (e.g. London, New York, Tokyo, Singapore
etc.): How are the dominant, core cities of the global economy
underpinned by advances in telecommunications and media infrastructures
and services ? How is global liberalisation affecting the media and
communications infrastructures of such global 'hot spots' ? How might
telecommunications be used to cope with economic and environmental
consequences of congestion and the heavy demands placed on urban
services? What roles do telecommunications play in the social and
spatial dualisation of the global cities ? How are telecommunications
incorporated within the physical planning of city?
3. '2nd Tier' Regional and National Capitals (Amsterdam, Dublin,
Milan, Taipei, Toronto, Sydney etc.): How do advances in media and
telecommunications relate to the economic positions of 2nd tier
national capitals within internationalising economies. Can such cities
find economic niches without the higher order advantages of global
cities ?
4. Newly-Industrialising Cities (Pearl River Delta etc.): How
does the booming urbanisation and industrialisation of such places
relate to advances in telecommunications and media infrastructure and
services ? How are telecommunication and communications infrastructure
used to capture new investment? Do the new networks have an internal
or external orientation? What are the consequences for social and
domestic users?
5. Former Communist Cities (eg. Moscow, Warsaw, Budapest etc.):
How are the former communist cities of eastern Europe retrofitting new
telecommunications infrastructure? What are the investment priorities
of new telecommunications infrastructure? How are new services used to
position these cities within global divisions of labour?
6. Globally Marginalised Cities (e.g. Soweto, Sub-Saharan African
cities): Are cities like those in Sub-Saharan Africa effectively media
and telecommunications "black holes" in the urban system by-passed by
even most basic telephony services? What potential is there for the
roll-out of new mobile services? How are new technologies linked with
wider social and economic development strategies?
7. Information-Processing Cities (e.g. Sunderland, Bangalore,
Kingston, Jamaica): What are the social and economic consequences
of using telecommunications to capture routine back office functions?
How significant are these initiatives in the economic development
strategies of their countries? What linkages are made between
highly-serviced enclaves and the remaining city?
8. Resort and Tourism Cities (Palma, Orlando etc.): Can
telecommunications help tourist-dominated cities to position
themselves and their cultural assets as sites for periodic work by
information professionals, so diversifying their local economies into
higher value-added domains ? How can IT be used to sustain and boost
the cultural economies of tourist cities ?
9. Logistics Cities (e.g. Kingston, North Carolina, Rotterdam): How
can IT and telecommunications be used to configure urban spaces as
global logistics and freight movement centres ? (air hubs, Just In
Time distribution centres, 'smart' freight ports, 'global transparks'
etc.).
10. New Planned Cities and Urban Spaces: How can advanced media and
telecommunications be integrated into planned new communities ? Can
new technologies and the 'new urbanism' be planned in a synergistic
and fully integrated way ? Can ambitious urban corridors and projects
like Malaysia's Multimedia Super Corridor and Japan's technopoles
succeed in implanting globally innovative and sustainable IT-based
industries ? What are the implications for such strategies for urban
planning, social divisions, and local-global relations?
Conference Organisation
The conference is co-sponsored by BT, one of the leading global
players in the telecommunications sector, and the Economic and Social
Research Council (ESRC), the UK government's social science research
body, through their 'Cities and Competitiveness' Programme.
The local organisers are the Centre for Urban Technology and the
Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies at the University of
Newcastle. Both centres have undertaken research and published widely
on the relations between telecommunications and contemporary cities.
The conference will take place in Durham in November 1999. The
workshop format is designed to allow plenty of discussion and
participation between speakers. Because of this, there will be places
for only 25-30 participants. In some cases the organisers may be able
to help pay towards the costs of speakers' travel expenses.
Submission of Abstracts
The organisers would welcome the submission of abstracts along the
themes and issues above. We would particularly welcome papers based
on empirical research within any of the different types of cities
outlined above. We would particularly encourage abstract from teams
of researchers and/or policy makers within the same city. It is our
intention to gain the best spread of cities so emphasis will be placed
on cities not usually represented in conventional literature. The
papers will be circulated to speakers before the workshop. Discussions
are taking place with publishers to publish the papers in a book
format after the conference.
TIMESCALE
The Deadline for Submission of abstracts is December 31st 1998
Please send a 200 word abstract to:
Elizabeth Storey
Centre for Urban Technology
Department of Town and Country Plaanning
Newcastle University
Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
E-mail [log in to unmask]
This conference brief is also available on the CUT web site
http://www.ncl.ac.uk:80/~ncut/
Notification of Acceptance of papers will be by January 31st 1999
Submission of full papers will be required by October 31st 1999.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Stephen Graham Telephone (UK) 0191 2226808
Centre for Urban Technology Telephone (non UK) +44 191 2226808
Department of Town and Country Planning Fax As above and 2228811
University of Newcastle NE1 7RU, U.K. E-mail [log in to unmask]
For articles, links, information: CUT on the Web
http://www.ncl.ac.uk:80/~ncut/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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