Building The Virtual City Large

DECLARATION
No portion of the work referred to in this thesis has been submitted in support of an
application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or another
institute of learning.
(1) Copyright in text of this thesis rests with the Author. Copies (by any process) either in
full, or of extracts, may be made only in accordance with instructions given by the Author
and lodged in the Robinson Library of the University of Newcastle. Details may be
obtained from the Librarian. This page must form part of any such copies made. Further
copies (by any process) of copies made in accordance with such instructions may not be
made without the permission (in writing) of the Author.
(2) The ownership of any intellectual property rights which may be described in this
thesis is vested in the University of Newcastle, subject to any prior agreement to the
contrary, and may not be made available for use by third parties without the written
permission of the University, which will prescribe the terms and conditions of any such
agreement.
Further information on the conditions under which disclosures and exploitation may take
place is available from the Head of Department of the School of Architecture, Planning
and Landscape.
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BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
(1) Long quotations from personal interviews and questionnaires are distinguished from
printed sources by inverted commas. This is more often the case in Chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8.
(2) Citations follow the standard form suggested by the MHRA (Modern Humanities
Research Association) Style Guide for the ‘author-date system’: (Name, Year).
Interviews follow the same system. The only exceptions are citations of Kevin Brown and
Karen Brown: the former is cited as (Brown, K.) and the latter as (Brown, K. A.).
(3) In the case studies (Chapters 6, 7 and 8), reference to interviewees’ functions is
considered relevant, and is thus included in references to allow readers to contextualise
quotations.
To avoid redundancy, job titles are referred to only the first time interviewees are cited in
each chapter, by adding them to the ‘author-date system’: (Name, Year, Job Title).
Further background information to the interviews is listed in the bibliographical
references at the end of the thesis, on p.343.
(4) For the exploratory study on TeleCities, in Chapter 5, respondents are referred to only
by the cities they represent, followed by the country’s name: (City, Country).
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis completes another part of my personal trajectory as a scholar of urban and
technological developments. Along this path, many important direct and indirect
contributions were made from colleagues, friends and family. I am grateful to the CAPES
foundation, of the Ministry of Education in Brazil, for fully supporting and funding this
project.
Among individuals, it would not be practical to list everyone who has inspired and
supported this work.
I do however owe a life-long debt with some people who deserve particular mention:
Professor Stephen Graham was always available, and showed indefatigable patience and
competence during this 4-year supervision. Dr Alessandro Aurigi, as co-supervisor,
contributed further insights that have enriched this thesis, and the whole PhD process,
immeasurably. I am deeply grateful to both of them.
Dr Simon Tibbs and Dr John Blakeley, contributed by to the final look of the thesis.
I am grateful to TeleCities for allowing its members to be contacted and studied.
Research into the two case studies would not have been the same without the valuable
help of: Mr Bruno Peeters, former Alderman of Antwerp and Chairman of Telepolis; Mr
Paul Van der Cruysen, Public Relations Officer and European Projects Coordinator for
Telepolis; and Mr Geoff Walker, ICTs Development Officer for the City Council in
Newcastle.
I would not have been able to finish this project without the constant support of my
parents and brother, and of my wife’s family in Brazil. They were always with me, as so
many old and new friends from Brazil and from all over the world. They have become my
family too.
Finally, I would never have been even started this project without the full support of
someone who has given up four years of her own career to help me fulfil my dreams. This
will never be forgotten and I will always be grateful to my beloved wife, Alessandra.
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ABSTRACT
The last decade or so has been one of intense activity as city-makers and local authorities
have struggled to evolve policies to keep pace with the technological development of
cities around the world. These policies have been characterised by initiatives
predominantly related to the use of Information and Communication Technologies
(ICTs).
Supplemented by other influences such as infrastructure, physical spaces for accessing
new technologies, the structure of virtual spaces (Internet, Intranets, etc.), public and
private interests, these policies form the basis for the socio-technical construction of what
is being called the virtual city. It is this complex of forces that forms the subject of this
thesis.
Virtual cities, in turn, represent the current historical phase of urban development. They
are part of a process of interaction between the new elements of the networked society
and elements from other periods of urban history, all interwoven in the same city.
The development of virtual cities depends on a series of economic, political, social,
cultural and spatial aspects influenced by specific local conditions.
This thesis aims to identify some of the dilemmas observed in technological development
strategies in two contrasting European settings: Antwerp in Belgium and Newcastle upon
Tyne in the UK.
The methodology compares these two cases by focusing on their distinct ways of
integrating traditional urban and ICTs policy-making. The thesis itself is based on a three-
fold theoretical framework involving the theory of the Social Construction of
Technologies (SCOT), a comprehensive typology for virtual cities, and the concept of
recombinant architecture.
The findings of these two case studies point to complex endogenous and exogenous
barriers to urban-technological strategies, as well as a certain blurring of relations
between cities and ICTs as the most influential dilemmas confronted by local authorities
as they seek to integrate urban and ICTs policy-making. The phenomenon of
‘interpretative flexibility’ (one of the concepts related to SCOT) was found to be
particularly relevant to this process.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Declaration ...........................................................................................................................................................i
Bibliographical Notes ........................................................................................................................................ ii
Acknowledgements........................................................................................................................................... iii
Abstract ............................................................................................................................................................. iv
Table of Contents................................................................................................................................................v
List of Figures and Tables ................................................................................................................................ xi
CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION: TRACING THE CONNECTION BETWEEN ICTs AND CITIES

1.1 CITIES AND THE RAPIDLY-CHANGING WORLD OF ICTs...............................................................2
1.2 THE AIMS AND STRUCTURE OF THIS STUDY ..................................................................................6
CHAPTER 2 - THE BLURRINESS OF ICTs DEVELOPMENT: CHALLENGING TRADITIONAL

PARADIGMS
2.1 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................................11
2.2 PARADIGM CHALLENGES: UNDERSTANDING ICTs AND SPACE ..............................................13
2.2.1 The ‘slipperiness’ of ICTs..............................................................................................................14
2.2.1.1 Invisibility and intangibility ...............................................................................................15
2.2.1.2 Conflicts between traditional and new infrastructures and services................................17
2.2.2 Conceptual complexity and vagueness about ICTs and cities.......................................................19
2.2.2.1 Space, time and cities.........................................................................................................20
2.2.2.2 Approaching and understanding ICTs within urban studies ............................................23
2.2.3 Challenging urban planning and governance.................................................................................30
2.2.3.1 From the industrial city to the networked city...................................................................30
2.2.3.2 The ‘distant’ worlds of ICTs and planning........................................................................31
2.3 SIGNALS OF AN UNBALANCED DEVELOPMENT...........................................................................34
2.3.1 The danger of delaying...................................................................................................................34
2.3.1.1 Unevenness, polarisation and public spaces.....................................................................35
2.3.2 Local politics and ICTs: governance, planning and regulatory changes ......................................38
2.3.2.1 Limited power and the ‘privatised government’ ...............................................................39
2.3.3 The symbolism of ICTs: competitive advantages .........................................................................40
2.4 WAYS FORWARD: BREAKING OLD PARADIGMS ..........................................................................42
2.4.1 A theoretical perspective for understanding the blurriness of ICTs and cities .............................43
2.4.1.1 Interpretative flexibility......................................................................................................45
2.4.2 Coining new notions of space, time and cities...............................................................................48
2.4.2.1 Space and society: an indissociable existence ..................................................................48
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2.4.2.2 From machines to bodies ...................................................................................................50
2.4.2.3 Beyond the bounded space, and the idea of an infinite urbanisation ...............................52
2.4.3 The search for new planning and governance practices ................................................................55
2.5 CONCLUSIONS ........................................................................................................................................57
CHAPTER 3 - VIRTUAL CITIES OR SYMBIOTIC URBANISATION? DEFINING CRUCIAL

CONCEPTS
3.1 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................................60
3.2 IMAGINARY FRAGMENT OR COMPLEX URBAN SPACE? ............................................................62
3.2.1 Connecting virtual cities, symbiotic urbanisation and the evolution of space..............................63
3.2.1.1 What makes the ‘actual’ city?............................................................................................64
3.2.2 Understanding urban cybernetics and symbiosis...........................................................................66
3.2.2.1 Towards a cybernetic space...............................................................................................67
3.2.2.2 Redefining attitudes............................................................................................................70
3.2.3 Recombinant architecture, design and planning ............................................................................71
3.2.3.1 Liquid and volatile spaces..................................................................................................74
3.2.3.2 Bricks and mortar, bits and bytes: recombining elements of the space............................76
3.2.3.3 Grounding recombinant ideas of architecture, design and planning ...............................78
3.3 WHAT IS THE VIRTUAL CITY FOR THIS STUDY? ..........................................................................81
3.3.1 Who is involved? ............................................................................................................................83
3.3.2 Immateriality/virtuality ..................................................................................................................87
3.3.3 Materiality/physicality....................................................................................................................91
3.3.3.1 Recombinant unplugged spaces: what virtual cities phenomenon? .................................93
3.3.3.2 Recombinant adaptive spaces: unblended designs............................................................94
3.3.3.3 Recombinant transformative spaces: seamless combinations ..........................................97
3.4 CONCLUSIONS ......................................................................................................................................101
CHAPTER 4 - METHODOLOGY: DESIGNING AN EXPLORATORY RESEARCH

4.1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................104
4.2 DEFINING THE BOUNDARIES OF THE STUDIES: THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND
PROPOSITIONS .....................................................................................................................................107
4.2.1 Research propositions: focusing the research questions..............................................................109
4.3 RESEARCH STRATEGY: A TWO-FOLD LINK BETWEEN THEORY AND EVIDENCE ............114
4.3.1 Issues in exploratory cross-national research ..............................................................................115
4.4 A STRATEGY FOR THE EXPLORATORY TYPOLOGICAL STUDY .............................................118
4.4.1 Sampling from European cities: the TeleCities network.............................................................118
4.4.2 The design of the Study................................................................................................................120
4.5 THE CASE STUDY STRATEGY...........................................................................................................127
4.5.1 The choice of a case study strategy..............................................................................................127
4.5.2 Designing and developing the case study strategy ......................................................................128
4.5.3 The role of research propositions, case study questions and the sources of evidence................131
vi
4.5.4 Constructing the case study narrative and comparative analysis ................................................135
4.6 CONCLUSIONS ......................................................................................................................................139
CHAPTER 5 - RECOMBINANT EXPERIENCES IN EUROPE: TOWARDS AN EXPLORATORY

TYPOLOGY
5.1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................141
5.2 VIRTUAL CITIES AND PHYSICAL SPACE: DISCUSSING QUALITATIVE RESULTS ..............143
5.2.1 General characteristics of virtual city initiatives .........................................................................143
5.2.1.1 Aims and targeted public of the (desired) virtual city initiatives....................................144
5.2.1.2 Enablers for ICT initiatives..............................................................................................145
5.2.1.3 Virtual representations.....................................................................................................145
5.2.1.4 Physical manifestations....................................................................................................147
5.2.1.5 General perception of ICTs and cities.............................................................................148
5.2.1.6 Converging the five parameters: towards a typology .....................................................149
5.2.2 Building a typology for the interplay between virtual representations and physical
manifestations .............................................................................................................................149
5.2.2.1 Type zero – no links between physical spaces and the virtual initiatives: Huelva
(Spain) .............................................................................................................................154
5.2.2.2 Type 1 – first attempts towards integration: Amaroussion (Greece) .............................156
5.2.2.3 Type 2 – low levels of information and a few projects in terms of physical
space: Metz (France) ......................................................................................................158
5.2.2.4 Type 4 – information and low levels of communication; many related physical
projects and a few changes in terms of architecture and urban design:
Birkirkara (Malta)...........................................................................................................160
5.2.2.5 Type 5 – high levels of information and communication; many related physical
Lewisham (UK) ...............................................................................................................162
5.3 RESEARCH ADAPTABILITY: LEARNING FROM THE EXPERIENCE OF TURNING A
SURVEY INTO AN EXPLORATORY TYPOLOGICAL STUDY .....................................................166
5.3.1 Using participant observation to understand TeleCities..............................................................167
5.3.1.1 Boosterism ........................................................................................................................169
5.4 CONCLUSIONS ......................................................................................................................................173
CHAPTER 6 - IDENTIFYING URBAN-TECHNOLOGICAL STRATEGIES I: NEWCASTLE, A

FRAGMENTED APPROACH TO ICTs
6.1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................176
6.2 NEWCASTLE AS A VIRTUAL CITY: ELEMENTS OF A FRAGMENTED APPROACH..............178
6.2.1 The historical conditions and general aspects of local government’s interest in ICTs...............178
6.2.1.1 Re-imaging the city...........................................................................................................179
6.2.1.2 Regenerating the city........................................................................................................181
6.2.1.3 A fragmented structure.....................................................................................................184
6.2.1.4 General motivations and limitations for ICT initiatives .................................................186
6.2.2 Newcastle virtual city: interests; actors; virtual and physical manifestations ............................188
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6.2.2.1 Actors and interests: influencing the attempts for a local urban-technological
strategy ............................................................................................................................188
6.2.2.2 Virtual and immaterial representations of Newcastle as a virtual city ..........................189
6.2.2.3 Physical and material manifestations of Newcastle as a virtual city .............................193
6.3 BARRIERS TO BUILDING AN URBAN-TECHNOLOGICAL STRATEGY....................................197
6.3.1 A multitude of visions: interpretative flexibility and ICTs in Newcastle ...................................198
6.3.1.1 Divergent perceptions of a fragmented approach: interpreting Newcastle’s
urban-technological approach .......................................................................................200
6.3.1.2 Interpretative flexibility: identifying the dominant aspects within actors’
discourses ........................................................................................................................205
6.3.2 Endogenous influences.................................................................................................................216
6.3.2.1 Internal administrative and political disputes within local government ........................216
6.3.2.2 Integration, coordination and control over the implementation of ICT projects
and initiatives ..................................................................................................................217
6.3.2.3 Private sector influence on public administration ..........................................................221
6.3.3 Exogenous influences...................................................................................................................224
6.3.3.1 Political and administrative conflicts with upper level governmental stances ..............224
6.3.3.2 The increase of regional competitiveness within the European Union ..........................227
6.3.3.3 The entrepreneurial imperative (the city as an enterprise).............................................228
6.4 CONCLUSIONS ......................................................................................................................................230
CHAPTER 7 - IDENTIFYING URBAN-TECHNOLOGICAL STRATEGIES II: ANTWERP, AN

INTEGRATED STRATEGY
7.1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................234
7.2 ANTWERP AS A VIRTUAL CITY: THE ELEMENTS OF AN INTEGRATED AND
CENTRALISED STRATEGY ................................................................................................................236
7.2.1 The historical conditions and general aspects of local government’s interest on ICTs..............236
7.2.1.1 Political and administrative decentralisation .................................................................237
7.2.1.2 Centralising ICTs development........................................................................................238
7.2.1.3 Other elements of early development...............................................................................240
7.2.1.4 Building a strategy ...........................................................................................................241
7.2.2 Antwerp virtual city: actors; interests; virtual and physical manifestations ...............................244
7.2.2.1 Actors and interests: motivation and catalysers of the local urban-technological
strategy ............................................................................................................................244
7.2.2.2 Virtual and immaterial representations of Antwerp as a virtual city .............................247
7.2.2.3 Physical and material manifestations of Antwerp as a virtual city ................................251
7.3.1 A multitude of visions: interpretative flexibility and ICTs in Antwerp......................................256
7.3.1.1 Divergent perceptions of an integrated strategy: interpreting Antwerp virtual
city ...................................................................................................................................259
7.3.1.2 Deconstructing interpretative flexibility: identifying the dominant aspects
within actor’s discourses ................................................................................................262
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and initiatives ..................................................................................................................272
7.4 CONCLUSIONS ......................................................................................................................................281
CHAPTER 8 - PREPARING THE FIELD FOR RECOMBINANT PLANNING: NEWCASTLE

AND ANTWERP, A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
8.1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................284
8.2 TOWARDS AN EXPLANATION-BUILDING PERSPECTIVE..........................................................287
8.2.1 The importance of interpretative flexibility.................................................................................287
8.2.2 Intra and extra-local elements as additional dilemmas................................................................289
8.2.3 The virtual city as a ‘parallel’ city ...............................................................................................295
8.2.4 Recombinant ideas breaking down paradigm barriers ................................................................297
8.2.5 Public places and the interaction between virtual and physical spaces.......................................298
8.2.6 The possibility of improving public participation .......................................................................301
8.2.7 Urban-technological strategies as a secondary element ..............................................................303
8.3 SIDE BY SIDE: COMPARING INITIATIVES, STRUCTURE AND CONDITIONS IN
NEWCASTLE AND ANTWERP ...........................................................................................................304
8.3.1 Initial circumstances.....................................................................................................................304
8.3.2 Contrasting structures...................................................................................................................305
8.3.3 Developing similar projects .........................................................................................................306
8.3.4 The power of a particular context ................................................................................................308
8.3.5 Similar initiatives, different approaches ......................................................................................309
8.4 BEYOND THE STRATEGIES: INTERPRETATIVE FLEXIBILITY AND ICTs
DEVELOPMENT ....................................................................................................................................311
8.4.1 Analysing similarities...................................................................................................................311
8.4.1.1 Relating planning to urban-technological issues ............................................................312
8.4.2 Interpretative flexibility and urban-technological strategies.......................................................314
8.5 CONCLUSIONS ......................................................................................................................................317
CHAPTER 9 - CONCLUSIONS
9.1 CONTRIBUTING TO THE FIELD OF URBAN TECHNOLOGY ......................................................320
9.1.1 The blurriness of ICTs and cities .................................................................................................321
9.1.2 Space, time and technology..........................................................................................................322
9.1.3 The integrated model for the virtual city .....................................................................................323
9.1.4 Understanding the dilemmas of urban-technological strategies..................................................324
9.2 POINTS OF CONSIDERATION FROM TWO CONTRASTING APPROACHES.............................326
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9.2.1 Comparing strengths and weaknesses..........................................................................................326
9.2.1.1 Advantages and disadvantages of integrated and coordinated approaches ..................327
9.2.1.2 Advantages and disadvantages of fragmented and uncoordinated approaches ............329
9.2.2 Developing recombinant and symbiotic spaces...........................................................................330
9.2.3 Issues of urban governance ..........................................................................................................333
9.2.4 Policy recommendations: towards an integrative strategy ..........................................................335
9.3 LIMITATIONS OF THIS STUDY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH................337
9.3.1 Cities and urban-technological development as socio-technical artefacts..................................337
9.3.2 ICTs, cities and recombinant spaces ............................................................................................338
9.3.3 Urban-technological strategies and the pervasiveness of ICTs...................................................340
9.3.4 Updating and expanding the findings of this study .....................................................................341
BIBLIOGRAPHY.........................................................................................................................................343
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LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
FIGURES
Figure 2.1 - Diversity of visions....................................................................................................................... 47
Figure 3.1 - Virtual cities as part of contemporary cities ................................................................................ 65
Figure 3.2 - D-Tower project in Doetinchem................................................................................................... 75
Figure 3.3 - H2O Expo under construction ...................................................................................................... 75
Figure 3.4 - H2O Expo, ‘fresh water’ .............................................................................................................. 75
Figure 3.5 - A comprehensive typology for virtual cities................................................................................ 82
Figure 3.6 - High-speed optical network in a planned gated community in Las Vegas (USA) ..................... 86
Figure 3.7 - Attracting passive consumers ....................................................................................................... 86
Figure 3.8 - Information ghettoes: Xalapa (Mexico) ....................................................................................... 87
Figure 3.9 - Cybertown, a classic example of a non-grounded virtual city..................................................... 89
Figure 3.10 - Iperbole Bologna as an authentic grounded virtual city ............................................................ 90
Figure 3.11 - Recombinant adaptive design for libraries................................................................................. 95
Figure 3.12 - Booths as an isolating architecture element ............................................................................... 96
Figure 3.13 - Shelves and networks as integrated activities ............................................................................ 96
Figure 3.14 - Street level public gateways ....................................................................................................... 98
Figure 3.15 - Vectorial elevation...................................................................................................................... 99
Figure 3.16 - The continuum of digital places ................................................................................................. 99
Figure 4.1 - Posters to increase visibility during TeleCities Conference ...................................................... 125
Figure 5.1 - The degree of interplay between physical and virtual spaces: types 0 and 1............................ 150
Figure 5.4 - The degree of interplay between physical and virtual spaces: type 6 ....................................... 153
Figure 5.5 – Huelva’s local development website ......................................................................................... 155
Figure 5.6 - Amaroussion website: basis for the virtual city ......................................................................... 157
Figure 5.7 - Metz attractive and basic website............................................................................................... 159
Figure 5.8 - Birkirkara web-based initiative .................................................................................................. 161
Figure 5.9 - Lewisham Virtual City: information and communication......................................................... 163
Figure 6.1 - The management structure of the council ..................................................................................184
Figure 6.2 - The ‘silo’ system of ICTs development in Newcastle ...............................................................185
Figure 6.3 - Competitive Newcastle, the city’s economic development web-site ........................................191
Figure 6.4 - Information and communications provided through a more friendly interface ........................192
Figure 6.5 - One of the city’s sub-regions and its Use IT@Centres..............................................................195
Figure 6.6 - Standard design for the i-plus kiosks .........................................................................................196
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Figure 6.7 - Origins of the ITRS: e-gov and customer services Metro map .................................................220
Figure 7.1 - Telepolis and the city of Antwerp ..............................................................................................242
Figure 7.2 - The centralised ICTs development in Antwerp .........................................................................243
Figure 7.3 - Telepolis: telematics supplier .....................................................................................................246
Figure 7.4 - The ‘standard’ Antwerp web-site ...............................................................................................247
Figure 7.5 - VILA, training for civil servants ................................................................................................249
Figure 7.6 - Forum: public consultation on planning initiatives ...................................................................250
Figure 7.7 - The street kioks as transformative spaces ..................................................................................253
Figure 7.8 - Antwerpen.be Centre: making ICTs more accessible................................................................254
Figure 7.9 - Institutional structure of federal Belgium ..................................................................................277
TABLES
Table 2.1 - Central Places v. Network Systems ............................................................................................... 53
Table 3.1 - Possibilities of interaction.............................................................................................................. 68
Table 3.2 - Intelligent spaces............................................................................................................................ 69
Table 4.1 - Connecting propositions, questions and theory...........................................................................113
Table 5.1 - Technical configuration for Virtual Cities................................................................................... 146
Table 8.1 - Newcastle and Antwerp: general comparisons............................................................................286
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CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION: TRACING THE CONNECTION BETWEEN
ICTs AND CITIES
1.1 CITIES AND THE RAPIDLY-CHANGING WORLD OF ICTs...............................................................2

1.2 THE AIMS AND STRUCTURE OF THIS STUDY ..................................................................................6
Rodrigo J. Firmino Chapter 1 - Introduction
1.1 CITIES AND THE RAPIDLY-CHANGING WORLD OF ICTs
The idea that Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been
dramatically changing many aspects of contemporary society is no longer new. The
influence of such technologies on our daily activities, and on the ways we perceive and
use space, has attracted the interest of a wide variety of researchers from different
backgrounds, and this has also in turn increased the inter- and multi-disciplinarity of
studies about space.
Particularly within urban studies, concepts, ideas, predictions, models and metaphors
have been mushrooming, as researchers have tried to re-conceptualise the city under the
information revolution (Lojkine, 1995). The ‘networked city’ (Batten, 1995; Drewe,
1998; Townsend, 2003), the ‘galactic metropolis’ (Lewis, 1983), the ‘informational city’
(Castells, 1989), the ‘post-Fordist city’ (Lipietz, 1997), the ‘aterritorial city’ (Painter,
2001), and the so-called ‘post-industrial city’ and ‘post-modern city’, are just a few
names that have been given to this urban phenomenon. Recent references to the city
predominantly relate the constant and rapid development of ICTs to the re-definition of
notions of space, time, distance, territory, landscape, mediation, presence, and immersion
– virtual, physical and real.
According to Moss and Townsend (2000: 31), ‘information systems are permitting new
combinations of people, equipment, and places; as a result, there is a dramatic change in
the spatial organization of activities within cities and large metropolitan regions’.
These changes affecting spatial paradigms could be said to have started with the advent of
the telegraph and been accelerated later with the development of the telephone. Following
on from the development of more efficient transportation links (railways, the automobile,
highways and aeroplanes, etc.), the telephone was a major advance in overcoming the
frictional effects of distance. More recently, ICTs are enabling us to experience even
faster connections between places.
In terms of the regulation and control of such systems, as described by Graham and
Marvin (1996), the Keynesian and Welfare State organised general policies for the
development of the telephone and its infrastructure. The aim was to offer good standards
for the whole population through the homogenisation of services controlled by single
2
national monopolies. This was done under what is called Postal, Telegraph and Telephone
Administration (PTT) in standard systems named Public Switched Telephone Network
(PSTN).
During the 1980s, liberalisation and increasing global competition led to changes in the
regulatory systems. At the same time, profound technological transformations were taking
place, with the convergence of media, informatics and telecommunications into the
phenomenon now known as ICTs or telematics.
The three technological transformations noted by Graham and Marvin (1996) are:
changes in switching; changes in transmission; and changes in the terminal equipment
used for telecommunications. The political-economic element concerns shifts in the
regulations and policies of telecommunications.
For competitive or purely economic reasons, governments around the world have found
themselves in an unsustainable situation where old PSTNs could not resist the rapid
evolution of the market, and pressures for modernisation and privatisation. As a result,
many western countries have already handed over their standard public national systems
to the private sector, sometimes to more than one company:
It is increasingly difficult, if not impossible, for nation states to

monopolise control over these proliferating telematics networks in the
name of a single national public interest – as they did with the basic
POTS/PSTN [POTS – Plain Old Telephone Service] service […] The
United States, Britain and Japan were the first nations to shift towards
competition in the early 1980s; increasingly, all western nations are
finding it impossible not to do so because of the risk of business
disinvestment and poor competitiveness in this key sector. (Graham and
Marvin, 1996: 30)
From the sociological point of view, these economic and political changes have meant a
crucial shift in the way that public interests are dealt with. The combination of new
regulatory systems and technological advances has splintered the telecommunication
provision system that national states had taken years to establish. A minimal level of
control in terms of patterns and maintenance has been replaced by very fragmented and
biased systems, with, for instance, high-tech control systems allowing the private sector
to ‘cherry-pick’ the best customers and locations for their services (Graham, 2001).
3
The ubiquitousness of ICTs and the parallel development of transportation links

constitute technological changes that have served to minimise the frictional effects of
distance and physical dislocation. ICTs and improved transport also enabled a virtual or a
parallel urbanisation where physical location and contiguity were no longer the only
important factors for interaction between places (Firmino, 2003a and 2003b).
This possibility of a virtual urbanisation, reinforced by physical links, serves to emphasise

the paradoxical relationship between decentralising and centralising forces in the
contemporary city.
As a result, manufacturing activities are now completely decentralised. Splintered across

different locations, they require sophisticated logistics (Graham and Marvin, 2001), and
this in turn can lead to spatial processes such as that described by Geyer (2002):
♦ Deindustrialisation of important regional centres of the modernist industrial era.

This process is sometimes followed by economic decline.
♦ Specialisation of urban functions in regional and global scales, like cities which
are economically specialised in tourism, production of specific goods, distribution,
consumption, knowledge, technologies etc.
♦ Increased growth of urbanised areas, forming complex and fragmented

metropolises with different and scattered ‘centres’ and different horizontal and
vertical relations with other areas and cities.
A significant question cuts across all of these recent developments, namely: If the
contemporary city is something different from the industrial city, are modernist notions of
space and time satisfactory to deal with virtual urbanisation?
In addressing this question, my thesis will analyse some of the ways in which ICTs are
producing complex conflicts between traditional and new paradigms of space, time and
technology, and creating some conceptual dilemmas for an integrative development of
technologies and cities.
The approach I have taken is supported by the Theory of Social Construction of

Technologies (SCOT), a paradigm that sets out to explain the most intimate political and
social relations involved in the introduction, acceptance and absorption of technological
artefacts within a social context. I believe that this approach offers an invaluable tool for
4
understanding some of the dilemmas presented to local authorities by the socio-technical

process of building the virtual city.
5
1.2 THE AIMS AND STRUCTURE OF THIS STUDY
Parallel to these conceptual redefinitions has been the public appropriation of ICTs by
local authorities and governments, responding to the rapidly increasing need of the
market. A clear example of this is the use of websites on the Internet for the provision of
information and online services, a phenomenon widely referred to as virtual or digital
cities (Aurigi, 2003).
The major purpose of this study is to understand the processes involved in the social
construction of public initiatives related to the interface between ICTs and urban issues.
The crucial questions that form the core of this general problematic can be stated as
follows:
♦ How can the virtual city be defined within this context of public appropriation of
ICTs (or, more simply, what is the virtual city for the purposes of this study)?
♦ How are local authorities and governments mobilising themselves to plan and
implement ICT-related initiatives?
♦ Is there any over-arching strategy for implementing these projects, or are they
simply the fruit of separate and uncoordinated actions?
♦ What are the factors influencing the development of policies which concern the
implementation of ICT-related projects?
♦ And finally, what dilemmas confront local authorities as they seek to integrate the
addressing of traditional urban issues with ICT policy-making?
These questions relate to three specific aims of this research. First, there is a need for
broader definition of what the phenomenon of virtual cities means for this study. Both
terms in the expression ‘virtual city’ have an almost infinite range of meanings,
depending on the interests and interpretations given to them. My aim is therefore to
contextualise the virtual city in terms of the relationship between cities and ICTs, from
the point-of-view of policy-making. In other words, can the notions of a ‘hybrid’ or
‘recombinant’ city explain the interplay between physicalities and virtualities in the urban
milieu?
6
Secondly, I aim to gain an insight into planning and implementation of ICT-related

initiatives by public bodies. With this in mind, I have sought to discover a generic modus
operandi derived from specific local authorities and governments engaged in trying to
combine urban and ICT policy-making. The major question underpinning this part of the
project concerns the existence of deliberate strategies to integrate urban and ICT policy-
making: although there has been a frenzy of public ICT-related initiatives, there is little
evidence that local authorities are consciously building integrative strategies.
The third specific aim of this study concerns the personal networks generated by public
ICT-related projects, whether or not they are the outcome of coordinated strategies. I want
to learn how the implementation of ICT projects is generated within the socio-political
organisation of local authorities. In other words, how is a coalition formed to
problematise and sell a specific conception of ICT projects within the administration of a
public body? How does this coalition deal with different actors’ divergent interpretations
of the projects? What are the dilemmas of developing an integrative strategy for urban-
technology policy-making? How can these circumstances best be theoretically explained
and empirically observed?
In order to respond to these three specific aims, the theoretical framework of this study is
presented in three sections, which precede the empirical data. In a broader sense, the
academic intention of this study is to join forces with others to try and establish a
response to what Moss and Townsend (2000: 33) describe as the ‘need for a new
conceptual framework to understand the character of activities in cities and metropolitan
regions’.
In the first part, Chapter 2 establishes one of the major theoretical foundations of this
PhD, addressing the blurred boundaries between ICTs and cities, and explaining areas
both of complexity and vagueness in the development of ICTs. The social construction of
technologies in general, and the concept of interpretative flexibility in particular, are
explored as a way to understand the complexity involved with such phenomena, as they
explain how social groups problematise, interpret, accept and implement technological
artefacts.
Chapter 2 concludes with a comprehensive literature review which introduces some

alternative reconceptualisations of the notions of space and time, along with their possible
7
consequences for planning and governance. In general, this chapter sets out to challenges
the technological determinism that dominates the discussions about urban futures.
Chapter 3 conceptualises the idea of the virtual city for this study. Rather than restrict the
terms of the discussion to interventions on the Internet and the World Wide Web, this
chapter presents a complex and multi-dimensional typology of the virtual city.
At the same time, the chapter explores the ideas of a ‘hybrid’ and ‘recombinant’ space
leading to a ‘symbiotic city’, which could result from the interplay between the traditional
and the virtual city. This interpretation is based on the idea of a symbiosis between
traditional and electronic spaces, in which the two elements are seen complementary
rather than as competitive in the sense of the one seeking to replace the other.
Chapter 4 describes the methods used to observe and test the theoretical framework on
real cases. It explains the choice of the two case studies of Newcastle and Antwerp, and
the typological study with European cities. The chapter also states the main research
questions and research propositions (hypotheses), to be tested later with the analyses of
the case studies.
Chapter 5 is concerned with the exploratory study on TeleCities (a European consortium

of local authorities dealing with ICTs). Because of the particular outcomes of this
research, the chapter is divided in two parts. The first part draws on the actual data
collected, and its analysis, for the construction of a typology of exemplary mini-case
studies of members of TeleCities, focussing on the way they address local issues of
urban-technological development. The second part reports the participant observation
carried out at one of TeleCities conferences as an attempt to understand the institution’s
internal politics.
Chapters 6 and 7 respectively correspond to the narratives of the case studies of

Newcastle and Antwerp. Both chapters follow the same, or a very similar structure, in
that both cases are built according to their specific urban-technological strategy.
Newcastle is presented as an example of a fragmented and dispersed approach to ICTs,
while Antwerp follows an integrated and centralised strategy.
8
Interestingly, the main part of these chapters concentrates on the dilemmas of developing
an urban-technological strategy where actors’ discourses were deconstructed and analysed
according to possible aspects representing interpretative flexibility.
Chapter 8 compares the cases analytically, examining their respective strategies and
dilemmas in relation to the original hypotheses of the study, the structure of the strategies,
and the patterns found in actors’ discourses.
Finally, in Chapter 9, the Conclusion, the two parts (theoretical and empirical) are
combined in order to elucidate some theoretical and research implications and put
forward some policy recommendations. The chapter concludes by pinpointing some
implications of this research for further work that may be done in the field in future.
9
CHAPTER 2 - THE BLURRINESS OF ICTs DEVELOPMENT: CHALLENGING
TRADITIONAL PARADIGMS
2.1 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................................11

2.2 PARADIGM CHALLENGES: UNDERSTANDING ICTs AND SPACE ..............................................13
2.2.1 The ‘slipperiness’ of ICTs..............................................................................................................14
2.2.1.1 Invisibility and intangibility ...............................................................................................15
2.2.1.2 Conflicts between traditional and new infrastructures and services................................17
2.2.2 Conceptual complexity and vagueness about ICTs and cities.......................................................19
2.2.2.1 Space, time and cities.........................................................................................................20
2.2.2.2 Approaching and understanding ICTs within urban studies ............................................23
2.2.3 Challenging urban planning and governance.................................................................................30
2.2.3.1 From the industrial city to the networked city...................................................................30
2.2.3.2 The ‘distant’ worlds of ICTs and planning........................................................................31
2.3 SIGNALS OF AN UNBALANCED DEVELOPMENT...........................................................................34
2.3.1 The danger of delaying...................................................................................................................34
2.3.1.1 Unevenness, polarisation and public spaces.....................................................................35
2.3.2 Local politics and ICTs: governance, planning and regulatory changes ......................................38
2.3.2.1 Limited power and the ‘privatised government’ ...............................................................39
2.3.3 The symbolism of ICTs: competitive advantages .........................................................................40
2.4 WAYS FORWARD: BREAKING OLD PARADIGMS ..........................................................................42
2.4.1 A theoretical perspective for understanding the blurriness of ICTs and cities .............................43
2.4.1.1 Interpretative flexibility......................................................................................................45
2.4.2 Coining new notions of space, time and cities...............................................................................48
2.4.2.1 Space and society: an indissociable existence ..................................................................48
2.4.2.2 From machines to bodies ...................................................................................................50
2.4.2.3 Beyond the bounded space, and the idea of an infinite urbanisation ...............................52
2.4.3 The search for new planning and governance practices ................................................................55
2.5 CONCLUSIONS ........................................................................................................................................57
Rodrigo J. Firmino Chapter 2 - The blurriness of ICTs development
2.1 INTRODUCTION
The massive diffusion of new information and communication technologies – especially

the more recent development of mobile and wireless technologies – has necessitated a
through re-conceptualising of the relations between space, time and technologies. City-
makers and urban scholars currently face an enormous challenge, as new notions of space
and time increasingly call into question old paradigms. This process in turn affects the
way ICTs are dealt with as part of government, planning and policy agendas.
This ‘paradigm challenge’ affects the whole range of issues related to the analysis and
management of spatial, economic, political, social and cultural aspects of contemporary
urban life, and constitutes perhaps the main task in thinking through relations between
cities and ICTs.
In their pioneering work Telecommunications and the City, Graham and Marvin (1996)
introduced an element of order to the chaos of ideas and assumptions about
telecommunications. They organised its impacts on crucial sectors such as the economy,
social and cultural life, urban environments, infrastructure, urban physical form, and
planning and governance. A whole chapter was dedicated to the conflict between old and
new paradigms. Importantly, the challenges are grouped into three categories, namely the
‘challenge of invisibility’ (the non-physical aspect of ICTs), the ‘conceptual challenge’
(especially concerned with ideas of space, time and cities), and the ‘challenge to urban
planning’ (the conflicts between the modernist city and the post-modern networked city).
Based on this and other contributions, the purpose of this chapter is to attempt a
demarcation of the conceptual challenges posed by the clash of ICTs and cities. More
specifically, the aim of this chapter is to establish the theoretical foundations for the
understanding of this complex relationship.
The aim of the chapter is therefore to help us to comprehend and interpret the dilemmas
presented to city-makers and urban scholars by this paradigm challenge. Under
consideration will be such questions as: How are ICTs affecting physical and virtual
notions of space and their connections with time and cities? How complex are these
changing notions of space, time and technology? What are the challenges posed to urban
planning and governance? How can these processes be explained theoretically?
11
By addressing these questions, it is hoped that the discussion in this chapter will
complement the two real case studies presented in Chapters 6 and 7. This will also allow
us to discuss and analyse the interpretations generated by actors themselves (mainly
inside local government), as well as addressing policy and strategic implications.
In terms of structure, the chapter draws on three different and complementary themes.
The first is driven by the complex range of challenges to traditional paradigms of space,
time and cities. These include the challenge of invisibility; the conceptual complexity
and/or vagueness of ICTs; and the challenge to urban planning and governance.
The second part concentrates on the unbalanced development of public and private ICT
initiatives, taking into account the danger of delay as regards the addressing of ICT
issues, their local politics, and their symbolic aspect.
The third part considers possible ways forward, and analyses some difficulties described
by the previous two themes. The sociological approach of Social Construction of
Technologies (SCOT) is used to explain the complexity of the socio-technical processes
involved in the interplay between ICTs, cities, planning and governance.
This complex theoretical analysis will be supplemented by Chapter 3, which presents a

perspective of two new interpretations for the phenomenon of urban technology. These
alternative concepts stem from the last part of the present chapter, and draw on the major
ideas of recombinant spaces and a typology for virtual cities.
12
2.2 PARADIGM CHALLENGES: UNDERSTANDING ICTs AND SPACE
To comprehend the very concept of space, there is a need to first understand what the
space is made of. According to Santos (1997) in A Natureza do Espaço (the nature of the
space), space is an indissociable, but also contradictory, conjunct of ‘systems of objects’
and ‘systems of actions’. In other words, this is what makes the space a multiple and
heterogeneous entity: objects and actions, fixes and flows. The space is thus neither only
physical nor only social, but the two always together:
Systems of objects and systems of actions interplay with each other. On

one side, systems of objects drive the way in which actions are done
and, on the other side, systems of actions lead to the creation of new
objects or affect pre-existent ones. That is the way the space finds its
dynamism and changes itself. (Santos, 1997: 52)1
ICTs were added to the conglomeration of systems of actions and objects which together
are considered to make space a couple of decades ago. Information and communication
technologies are increasingly considered part of the sum of actions and objects that make
up our daily lives. At home they are in the living room, the study and the kitchen. They
are at work, on our desks, on our laps, and on our way to work. They entertain us. We
even wear them. So, to understand space, we need to understand ICTs and their influence
on urban lives.
ICTs and their effects are extremely difficult to pinpoint, partly due to their invisibility.
Unlike transportation and other traditional types of infrastructure, ICTs rely on
underground or covered networks of fibres optics, radio signals, microwaves and
satellites.
In addition, the effects of such technologies are more intangible than those of other
systems, as they happen in the space known as cyberspace, where many believe there are
no physical elements. The notion of cyberspace was first introduced by the American
novelist William Gibson in his Neuromancer (Gibson, 1984). In this book, Gibson depicts
what is called a ‘non-space’ world, where people can interact in artificial reality without
being physically present. Ever since, cyberspace has been widely used as a reference to
the apparent non-physical relations empowered by ICTs such as interactions, simulations
and transactions on the World Wide Web.
13
The distinction between virtual and physical is not however as simple as saying that one
world is material while the other is immaterial. In fact, virtuality seems to depend on
certain levels of physicality to exist at all. There is a vast number of works on the
definition of ‘virtual’ or ‘virtual reality’ (see for instance Levy, 1998; Rheingold, 1991).
Virtual reality if often historically associated with cave paintings and the development of
artistic perspective (such as the work of the eighteenth century Italian painter Piranesi),
relating the desire to imagine, represent and control space. There is a constant tension
between materiality and immateriality in everything related to virtual worlds. As
mentioned above however, both material and immaterial existences presuppose a real
existence. In this case, ‘virtual’ does not deny ‘real’ but rather means a potential existence
(Levy, 1998).
These particularities mean that everything associated with the relation between ICTs and
cities tends to be conceptually complex and vague. Historical neglect towards the study of
these relations and changes in the way space is perceived, provoke a paradoxical
complexity/vagueness. This, in turn, generates and disseminates extremely disparate
interpretations of and theoretical approaches to the subject of telecommunications and
cities.
In addition, and partly as a consequence, there is currently a significant challenge to urban

planning and governance (Bonnett, 1999), as these areas experience an arduous transition
from the modernist industrial city, with its rules and methods of control, to the post-
modern networked city and its mobile, fast and invisible elements.
The following sections explore some of these factors, with a view to composing a frame
for understanding both the complexity and vagueness of this ongoing process of socio-
technical development in the urban milieu.
2.2.1 The ‘slipperiness’ of ICTs
The difficulty pinpointing ICTs’ effects and infrastructure make their relation to cities a
very ‘slippery’ phenomenon from a theoretical and empirical point-of-view.
1
Translated by the author from the original text in Portuguese.
14
Urban scholars and, especially, city-makers find it enormously problematic to specify the
precise characteristics of the new networked city. This is, in part, due to the lack of
physical and visible elements in ICTs, and because of the new possibilities for services
and infrastructure in the local context. In sum, this slipperiness stems from the
invisibility/intangibility of ICT developments, and the advent of new systems of
infrastructure and services.
Pragmatically, this sometimes results in local authorities and planners experiencing

problems raising the proper resources or support for more proactive initiatives. This is
because, when trying to justify high investment on ICTs, they cannot always show
improvements statistically. The demonstration of a cost/benefits relation is not very
straightforward to demonstrate in the case of investments in telematics developments.
According to Graham and Dominy (1991: 234-5), in a survey carried out on British cities,
‘shortage of resources’ was pointed out as one of the biggest barriers against decisions for
the implementation of ICT initiatives. It was cited by 71% of the respondents, followed
by other reasons like ‘lack of regulatory power’ over telecommunications (47%), ‘lack of
interest’ on the part of private sector organisations (35%) and telecommunications
companies (26%) for joint initiatives, and ‘opposition’ from council politicians (26%) and
council officers (21%).
Interesting questions to be raised here are: how different is the picture now from the one
shown by this survey? Do the barriers described by the respondents remain the same?
While not providing answers to these questions yet, the following sub-sections are
intended to investigate some of the complexities which surround the interactions between
urban and ICT issues. As far as the specific questions are concerned, I hope they will be
answered, at least partially, by the end of this thesis.
2.2.1.1 Invisibility and intangibility
Since a great deal of work on urban studies traditionally relies on ‘physicalities’ – visible
and tangible things like the physical space and traditional infrastructures –, invisibility
seems to be a very common embedded challenge to the paradigms that underpin the
contemporary organisation of urban space:
15
Urban studies and policy tend to be dominated by a concern with the

visible, tangible and perceivable aspects of urban life […] Given this
visual preoccupation, it is easy to diagnose the virtual invisibility of
telecommunications in cities as a key reason for the curious neglect of
telecommunications issues in cities. (Graham and Marvin, 1996: 50)
ICTs tend to be invisible as regards both their infrastructure and their application. In
terms of infrastructure, we hardly have the opportunity to see and perceive systems like
fibre optics, cables, radio signals, microwaves, satellites, and mobile facilities. The same
applies for applications of ICTs which are usually taken for granted such as the
development of communications systems, the augmentation of methods of interaction,
and the improvements in information and services delivery through electronic means:
In contrast to motorization that completely altered the urban scene, IT

has quietly merged into the existing urban structure, causing little
change in appearance. (Shiode, 2000: 105)
Thus, if it is hard for scholars and researchers to ‘touch’ and ‘see’ ICT applications and
infrastructure, it is even harder for planners and local authorities to overcome this
paradigm of invisibility and intangibility. For those who deal daily with traditional urban
problems – like traffic congestion and the maintenance of transportation links, problems
with water or electricity supply, or urban violence – it may be too difficult to understand
the complexity and virtuality of electronic networks carrying no more than invisible
signals from one computer to another. It may be even more difficult for them to predict
the real economic, political, social, cultural or spatial consequences of the introduction of
such new technologies to the functioning of cities.
Positive or negative aspects of a new park, bridge, road, or council house development
could easily be noticed by planners, local authorities and by the population. The amount
of money invested or spent on these types of urban development can be very clearly
calculated. It may also be easy to determine the most direct environmental, social and
economic impacts of some of these initiatives.
In contrast, developments regarding telecommunications are perceived only if they

involve physical changes like digging up roads for cable installation, or putting up new
street-equipment or buildings especially designed for the use of ICTs, etc. Sophisticated
infrastructures (like satellites, radars, wave-generators, etc.) and the flows produced by
ICTs (such as microwaves, electromagnetic signals, and above all information) are
16
usually silent and unnoticed by those who run and use the cities, accustomed as they are
to the visible and ‘noisy’ stuff of the industrial city.
Due to this invisibility, networked ICT infrastructures are usually taken for granted. In
addition, changes in the standards of national telecommunications monopolies in the past
have made it difficult for local authorities to intervene directly on this issue. Perhaps as a
consequence of this, some commentators have noted a tendency for planners and policy-
makers to overlook ICT matters.
These challenges directly contribute to city-makers’ lack of awareness about virtually

every aspect of ICTs. The fact that connections are rarely made between ICTs, land use
and transformations of urban form means that city-makers are often unfamiliar with many
aspects of urban technological development. Consequently, city-makers are as unable to
see telematics applications and infrastructure as they are to take action about them.
2.2.1.2 Conflicts between traditional and new infrastructures and services
Another important aspect which is very clear and common in times of the paradigm crisis
outlined above, is the conflict between traditional and new systems of infrastructure and
public services (in this case, the traditional industrial system and a new one based on the
post-modern networked society).
The industrial and modernist way of understanding and controlling urban space, so
painstakingly established mostly over the twentieth century is, according to Drewe (1998)
and Spectre (2002a and 2002b), exhausted and outdated as a means for analysing and
managing contemporary cities. The relations between space and time have been
dramatically challenged by the recent technological innovations, especially in terms of
territorial organisation and the current relative independence from the frictional effects of
distance.
Such changes imply new systems of physical infrastructure and, consequently, new ways
of delivering services to the population. These powerful new infrastructures are being
used to transcend physical spatial constraints, and represent a significant transformation
compared to the previous systems of roads, highways, bridges, copper-cables, and water
and sewer pipes.
17
As seen in the previous section above, the new infrastructure is mostly hidden from non-
specialised professionals, and this fact is in itself a barrier to the transition from one
system to another.2
Many city planners and managers do not even know what

telecommunications infrastructure is in their cities; very few have the
power, influence, or conceptual tools to reshape it to have desired
impacts. (Graham and Marvin, 1996: 51)
To aggravate this complex situation, despite this new system being added to more
traditional forms of infrastructure, there is also an organisational and managerial
uncertainty. The neo-liberal economic model under which the technological and
regulatory changes happened led to the superimposition of different private-owned
systems of the same or similar kinds in a given city or region. This reflects well the chaos
that cities and regions have become as new infrastructures have been superimposed on
traditional ones, and where control and management are far from the hands of local
authorities.
In addition, planners and local authorities are now facing a new challenge where, together
with commercial interests, new possibilities for offering services and access to telematics
are available, although without any established procedure.
A range of new ‘electronic’ opportunities, from unconventional ways of delivering

services and information to augmented forms of service itself, have been come into use
almost unnoticed by city-makers, who cannot realise how important such improvements
are because of an unconscious commitment to the previous systems.
A sort of ‘benchmarking’ seems to be a common strategy for public administrations keen

to design or improve their own projects based on new technologies. Such administrations
generally take private or commercial initiatives as their model, with the result that public
examples of ICTs development tend to be based on private initiatives.
This lack of a more comprehensive notion of ICT infrastructure and applications suggests
that commercial-driven initiatives are proactively taking advantage of these new tools to
draw inventive models in directions quite distinct from the public interest. Meanwhile,
2
Transition here is used more to represent a new bigger arrangement considering the addition of a
complementary infrastructure rather than a simple replacement of the old ones.
18
ICT initiatives are ‘slipping through the fingers’ of planners and local authorities. This
seems to corroborate to Graham and Dominy’s (1991: 193) argument that
‘telecommunications appear to be very much a secondary area of policy for many local
authorities, being considered largely in relation to other policy initiatives’.
2.2.2 Conceptual complexity and vagueness about ICTs and cities
The transformations imposed by new telematics technologies have been threatening all
concepts about space, time and cities, and this in turn affects notions about region, nation
state, place, boundary, distance, concentration, decentralisation, physicality, virtuality,
and territoriality, just to name a few.
Different concepts that underpinned urban society and urban studies in the past are called
into question by new spatial relations directly influenced by new technological,
economic, political, social and cultural paradigms. These paradigms are however
dominated by a simultaneous complexity and vagueness.
According to Michael Batty, the uncertainty about the relation between ICTs and cities ‘is
increasing at a faster rate than our ability to adapt research methods to these new
circumstances’ (Batty, 1990: 130).
With no stable reference-point to facilitate understanding of the new conditions of space

and time, metaphors are often used rather arbitrarily to fill the conceptual gaps left by a
lack of consistent and grounded studies of ICTs and cities.
Expressions like tele-port, cyber-space, cyber-café, super-highway, web-sites, to name

but a few, are common labels for what is thought to be a new dimension of space. The
indiscriminate use of metaphors only makes things more complicated, and may even
block the development of more comprehensive theories and concepts. In other words, as
Graham argues:
Too often […] the pervasive reliance on spatial and technological

metaphors actually serves to obfuscate the complex relations between
new communications and information technologies and space, place and
society. In the simple, binary allegations that new technologies help us
to access a new ‘electronic space’ or ‘place’, which somehow parallels
the lived material spaces of human territoriality, little conscious thought
is put to thinking conceptually about how new information technologies
19
actually relate to the spaces and places bound up with human territorial
life. (Graham, 1998: 167)
This conceptual complexity and vagueness can be better explained by two main aspects
of the massive waves of transformations brought about with the recent technological
developments. One aspect concerns the relations between space and time which seems to
receive new contours with the advent of faster non-physical interactions. Secondly, the
approach to the theme of ICTs and cities is characterised by a historical neglect within
empirical urban studies and planning. This aspect has resulted in urban studies being
flooded with a range of different theoretical approaches.
2.2.2.1 Space, time and cities
The possibility of communicating with virtually anywhere in the world within seconds or
even fractions of seconds – overcoming the friction of distance for economic transactions
and human interactions – poses a powerful challenge to the comprehension of space and
its relation with time. According to Skeates (1997), paradigms of the organisation of
space and territory are ‘under threat’. Yet according to him, many of the terms which
refer to space are being misused.
We are beginning to understand that there has been a shift, a break with
the past that means that we can no longer use the term ‘city’ in the way
that it has been used to describe an entity which, however big and
bloated, is still recognisable as a limited and bounded structure which
occupies a specific space. (Skeates, 1997: 6)
Many of the previous theories of urban studies rely on notions of space and time strongly
dependent on physical distances. There are still references to distance as a strict space and
time condition when it is said, for instance, that Newcastle is at five hours’ drive from
London. Yet catching a train from Newcastle to London would entail a different way of
referring to the ‘distance’.
However, what if there is no need to travel from one place to another - for actually ‘being
there’? What if it is possible to do those things in London in a matter of minutes or
seconds without physically leaving Newcastle? This is what, according to some
commentators, is happening with distance (see for example Skeates, 1997; Crang, 2000;
Ezechieli, 1998; May, 1998; Sikiaridi and Vogelaar, 2000; and Baker, 1999). Harvey
(1989) calls this phenomenon ‘space-time compression’, where distance is said to be
20
increasingly shrinking by the development of more efficient technologies of

communication. This immediately affects perceptions and concepts of space and time, as
the two start to converge into one single entity:
Traditionally architecture was place-bound, linked to a condition of

experience. Today, mediated environments challenge the givens of
classical time, the time of experience […] Architecture can no longer be
bound by the static conditions of space and place, here and there. (Peter
Eisenman, 1991 quoted by Crang, 2000: 303)
The organisation of urban space is directly affected by the changes in distances.

Decentralisation and centralisation are the most obvious effects, and they usually happen
at the same time. This is commonly interpreted as a sign that the shifts provoked by the
development of ICTs do not replace but rather complement physical urban life.
The hype from the early days of the development of telematics broadly assumed that
cities would disappear due to a large decentralisation process by industries, companies,
offices, and housing complexes.
It is however very unlikely that this will be the future of cities, as both decentralisation
and centralisation are essential for transactions and human interactions. As May (1998)
puts it:
Paradoxically, it [information technology] appears to centralise as well

as decentralise. It is the instant communication that is now available
through information technology that has assisted the growth of global
markets and global companies. (May, 1998: 894)
Face-to-face is still one of the most important and efficient ways of communication, and
is still trusted for the most important negotiations and interactions. Meanwhile,
companies and offices as well as communities tend to move from the congestion of city
centres to suburban areas and, in the case of big companies, to other cities, regions or
even countries.
These tendencies in the organisation of space, and its perception in relation to time and
distance, also contribute to the complexity and vagueness of the new paradigms. Scholars
are now starting to understand this new reality and to formulate more comprehensive
theories, while, to date, just a few people would be able to follow these ideas in the
planning and governance fields.
21
Decentralisation, centralisation, and the relations between space, time and society also
show new patterns of occupation. For Ezechieli (1998), there are strong signs of new
territorial paradigms where:
The establishment of large urban enclaves, whose evident purpose is

protecting a specific territorial circle, reveals the rise of the new
paradigms of occupation and control of the ‘network society’.
(Ezechieli, 1998: 7)
Traditional concepts can no longer fully explain the current interplay of space and time.
Euclidean theories of space based so much on linear and logical arrangements of the
territory according to modernist industrial ideas seem to be exhausted within urbanism
and geography.
Hierarchical space concepts like region and national state are also seriously challenged by
the new patterns of territorial organisation. Theories like Christaller’s central place or
Webber’s industrial location – very much centred on rational behaviours of people,
institutions and places – seem unable to cope with current complexities of relations
between different actors and interactions.
‘Network’ is a key concept here (Drewe, 2000). From the physical infrastructure of ICTs
to economic, social and spatial organisations, we live more and more in networked cities
and networks of cities (not necessarily physically adjacent to each other), rather than
contiguous hierarchical cities and regions.
Cities can be ‘linked’ by the so-called ‘tunnel effects’ which interconnect places or
locations without considering physical distance. Telecommunications are directly
responsible for these tunnel effects, enabling São Paulo, for example, to have more
connections with London or New York than it has with cities nearby. This is one of the
characteristics of the new space-time concepts that makes it impossible to explain the
reality of contemporary urban spaces using Christaller’s theory of one-centred,
hierarchically organised cities.
Traditional ideas of discrete cities in hierarchies, with insides and

outsides, are under strain as intra-urban ties can no longer be opposed to
extra-urban links, as telecommunications and economic ties link some
areas of different cities with more immediacy than physically congruous
areas of the same cities. (Crang, 2000: 304)
22
The simultaneous complexity and vagueness of ICTs often generate confusion about their
use, application and comprehension; especially regarding the future of built urban space.
And if we do not understand space and the elements that constitute it, how can we plan
and manage it?
Many of the above-mentioned tendencies of spatial organisation and spatial paradigms

will be later discussed in Chapter 3.
2.2.2.2 Approaching and understanding ICTs within urban studies
The incredible speed with which new technologies provoke transformations in different
aspects of society seems to act as a handicap on urban research and planning dealing with
the fields of interaction between cities and ICTs. The inability to track these shifts usually
results in the resort to metaphors, as discussed above, and in over-speculation by planners
and urban researchers, which increases the risks for them of assuming deterministic
positions.
This conceptual gap tends to create more unfounded hype than serious and
comprehensive studies based on empirical work. According to Graham and Marvin
(1996: 5), ‘they have generated much more heat than light’. Obviously and unfortunately,
speculation and technological determinism contribute more to the scripts of scientific-
fiction movies than to the search for a mature comprehension of the subject.
However, as far as research is concerned, this picture has been changing recently, and
increasing number of quality works have contributed to an emerging vision more engaged
with social and cultural aspects of urban and technological development.
Practically, planners and city-makers are also beginning to get involved with the
development of telematics in their cities, as well as the deployment of advanced
applications within local public administration.
Although there have been improvements, certain questions are yet to be answered. How
much involvement and commitment from planners and local authorities has been
dedicated to urban technology? How close is urban research to the fast developments of
ICTs on the ground? How seriously has the role of ICTs been taken into account within
23
planning activities? What interests are shaping this interplay between urban and
technological policy-making?
Finally, our survey attempted to elucidate local perceptions on future

impacts of telecommunications and ICTs patterns of urban employment.
Few solid predictions are made here; the dominant impression is one of
profound uncertainty – one respondent thought that a ‘crystal ball might
help’. (Graham and Dominy, 1991: 209)
Due to these uncertainties, the theoretical approaches to the field of ICTs and cities could
not appear more heterogeneous.
Most accounts tend to follow or fit into one of the three main groups proposed by Graham
after developing his first ideas with Marvin. In The End of Geography or the Explosion of
Place?, Graham (1998) points to a separation of telecommunications-cities research and
theories into three groups. These are:
a. The perspective of substitution and transcendence.
b. The perspective of co-evolution.
c. The theoretical perspective of recombination.
a. Technological determinism: good or evil?
Townsend (2003: 56) also refers to this as the urban dissolution theory (the death of
distance). The first type of discourse to dominate the subject of telecommunications and
cities depicts new technologies as playing a huge role as single agents of transformation.
Good or evil, technology is assumed within technological determinism to be a central and
independent agent affecting every aspect of society without being affected by it.
Speculative predictions tend to dominate the discourse in this area, with little or no
empirical verification. In fact, the lack of empirical work and real observation of facts
gives rise to one of the most serious objections to technological determinism. Science-
fiction scenarios like Blade Runner are common attempts to describe the impacts of
developments in ICTs on cities.
The technological-determinist discourse forms an attractively simple way to establish the

effects of telecommunications technologies on urban lives. However, in reality, it offers
24
only a poor theoretical and conceptual framework for trying to understand such effects for
urban studies and urban policy-making.
Two broader hypotheses govern technological determinism. On one side is a discourse

dominated by utopianism as, very optimistically, cyberspace and virtual interactions are
said to make life easier. Most importantly, new technologies are related to the promotion
of a renascence of the sense of public space in cities. Sophisticated virtual environments
are assumed to replace physical spaces in a sense of substitution.
The solution of urban problems through the means of digital urbanisation is always a
common utopian claim. As Graham and Marvin (1996: 87) describe, ‘telematics
networking has even been called the ‘alternative fuel’’. Telecommuting, for instance, is
frequently pointed out as one of the solutions for environmental pollution:
Environmentally, telecommuting is also claimed to offer benefits by

reducing travel and, consequently, oil consumption and pollution. Even
if only 20% of the currently commuting work force were able to
telecommute on average for 2.5 days per week, work trips would be
reduced by 10%. (May, 1998: 890)
On the other hand, there are also pessimistic commentators who maintain that the advance
of telematics technologies can contribute to the disappearance of cities as concentrated
areas for human interaction. Basically, this argument suggests that broadband and mobile
infrastructures will mean that location is no longer important, and that people, institutions
and companies will, independently of other aspects, move somewhere else:
Cyberspace is the ultimate anti-city: the city without streets, without

crowds, without polluted air, without history and without particularised
geography (Skeates, 1997: 15)
Consciously justifying his ideas of substitution and transcendence, May (1998) argues
that the criticism about unfounded predictions is important, and that empirical research is
necessary for a better understanding of ICTs and cities. However, he maintains that
society demands ‘advanced’ predictions and forecasts in order to position itself in more
proactive ways. Yet, according to him, ‘the only ‘useful knowledge’ we have relates to
the future, because the future is the only period of time about which we can do
something’ (May, 1998: 894).
25
The fact is that any sort of determinism is of very little help for science in general.
Technological determinism is useful only for illustration, for movies, cartoons, and
scientific-fiction novels where no scientific truth is needed.
b. The co-evolution perspective
In this group of approaches, theories about the relationship between ICTs and cities start
to assume a more committed configuration with complex aspects of urban society like, for
example, social and cultural aspects (virtually neutral within technological determinism).
Seen more as a sociological discourse, the co-evolution perspective is something that can
be put in between the extreme dystopian and utopian theories.
The name co-evolution comes from the idea of a combined development between the
social production of knowledge, networks and electronic spaces, and the traditional
production of physical goods, spaces and places. This results in a more sophisticated and
comprehensive analysis of the impacts of ICTs, which are contextualised in terms of their
dependence on complex social aspects.
According to Graham (1998), the co-evolution perspective is found in three different sorts
of analyses: about the articulations between place-based and telemediated relationships;
addressing the linkages between telecommunications and the city; and about the broader
roles that ICTs play in supporting the production of new types of spatial arrangements
(adapted or created).
Above all, these perspectives produce a consistent body of critique directed against
technological determinism. The first of the three analyses, for example, is expressed in
thorough studies about the complex relations between virtual and physical spaces. It
considers an articulated interaction involving social, cultural and economic aspects of
both traditional physical spaces, and the virtual electronic ‘placeless’ world of
cyberspace.
The second type of analysis emphasises the complexity of these articulations to assume
that there is an intricate, simultaneous process of development responsible for a synergy
between virtual and physical spaces (worlds?). The phenomenon of virtual cities as a
parallel city is the most powerful example, where it helps:
26
To ground and integrate the web activities within a particular

metropolitan area. This adds coherence and legibility to the otherwise
chaotic interplay between the Internet and urban space, allowing
electronic spaces to be articulated to feed back positively on to the
development dynamics of particular cities (see Graham and Aurigi,
1997). (Graham, 1998: 173)
Following these ideas, the impression is that of symbiosis, a term from biological
sciences denoting an interaction between two dissimilar organisms living in close
physical association and benefiting from each other. The virtual and physical worlds can
either benefit or harm each other, depending on the way ICTs are deployed economically,
socially, culturally and politically. The original idea is the one of co-existence in complex
interactions.
William Mitchell’s (1995 and 2000) ideas of recombinant architecture apply here.
According to these concepts, architecture and ICT elements tend more and more to be
produced and conceived together in a dialectic and symbiotic way. Mike Crang also
caught the idea of co-evolution by describing the contemporary city as ‘a dynamic site of
flows, movements and mingling of people, information and things’ (Crang, 2000: 304).
Finally, the third type of co-evolutionary analyses takes into account the important aspect
of political economy perspectives to assume the complex heterogeneity of the urban
space, (re)combined with the cyberspace and electronic infrastructures. The materiality
and immateriality of the contemporary city is analysed from a political and economic
point of view, explaining the differences between localities on their development of ICTs.
With the use of consistent empirical research, this third perspective weakens the
deterministic idea of a homogeneous and aseptic world, showing that virtual spaces can
(re)combine with physical spaces in many different ways, depending on local, regional
and international context, but always co-existing and co-evolving. Local, regional and
global economies are, then, said to have a heavy impact on the final shape of ICT
developments.
Crucially, then, the political economic perspective underlines that the

development of new telecommunications infrastructures is not some
value-neutral, technologically pure process, but an asymmetric social
struggle to gain and maintain social power, the power control space and
social processes over distance. (Graham, 1998: 176)
27
c. The perspective of recombination
For the theories of recombination, the complexity of interactions between the different
aspects and actors of virtual and physical urban worlds are extremely relevant. Here, two
important theories come together to assume the power of social interactions within the
contemporary studies of space and time influenced by new technologies. These are
respectively the actor-network theories of Michel Callon (1986) and Bruno Latour (1993),
and relational perspectives based on the ideas of Donna Haraway (1991) about cybernetic
organisms.
These theories come from an even broader framework of social construction of

technologies which takes into account the intricate process of a technological
development within a certain social context. This broader theoretical framework is
detailed later in this chapter as a perspective to explain the particular complexity of
urban-technological developments.
Recombination seems to be a suitable expression to describe this line of theories, due to a

high level of synergy considered between all the social elements in cities – although this
very terminology is also coherently used to explain Mitchell (1995 and 2000) and
Horan’s (2000) symbiotic notions of space. Infinite levels and layers of networks are
assumed to compose both virtual and physical cities in a very dependent and
interrelational way.
This would explain the difference, heterogeneity and complexity of cities, especially in
their relations with ICTs, due to the almost infinite number of possible (re)combinations
between actors considering economic, political, social, cultural, and spatial aspects.
Graham (1998) evaluates the advantages of the recombination perspective on using actor-
network and relational theories as follows:
The merit of the actor-network perspective is the way it articulates

human-technological recombinations and relationships through a rich,
contextual, mapping which avoids essentializing sociotechnical
relations. As an analytic perspective it helps to capture the complex and
multiple relational worlds supported by information technologies […]
Thus the production of new material spaces, and the social practices that
occur in them, is neither some technological cause-and-effect, nor some
simple political-economic machination. Rather, it is ‘the hybrid
outcome of multiple processes of social configuration processes which
28
are specific to particular differentially-extensive actor-networks (made

up of people and things holding each other together) and generate their
own space and own times, which will sometimes not, be coincident’
(Thrift, 1996a: 1485). (Graham, 1998: 180)
In The Aterritorial City, Painter (2001) offers a radical vision of cities, regions, places
and spaces from the theoretical perspective of ‘recombination’. The concept of
‘aterritoriality’ is coined to apply the ideas of relational theory to the city. Painter argues
that the city is not a bounded territory, but a place where there is an accumulation of
different relational networks that are not necessarily interlaying between each other. It is
also an attempt to break the links between the ‘pure’ concept of space and the ones tied to
political divisions.
d. So, which way?
This completes the description of the three most common approaches to the relations
between recent technological developments and the organisation of space and cities. Such
approaches are ultimately related to the complexity of understanding the invisible and
intangible interplay between virtual and physical spaces.
The recombination perspective seems to better suit to the infinite variables involved with
this process of actualisation of the urban space.
However, Mitchell and Horan’s term ‘recombinant spaces’ has already been adopted to
explain the symbiosis between ICTs and traditional urban elements. Therefore, the
theoretical perspective used throughout this research is generally referred to as social
construction of technologies which, as mentioned above, broadly incorporates actor-
network and relational theories. Although SCOT is adopted as a general approach, the
specific concept of ‘interpretative flexibility’ is of more relevance for this study (both will
be described into more detail later in this chapter).
Actor-network and relational theories will not be specifically used. The reason for this
stems from the scope of the case studies. The use of actor-network and relational theories
would require a more detailed study of a reduced scope of relevant groups and their
relationships. As the core of this project is based on the overall shape of local urban-
technological strategies and thus relies on more general relationships between the actors,
SCOT and interpretative flexibility are considered the most appropriate approach.
29
2.2.3 Challenging urban planning and governance
As ICTs affect the way space, economy and life style are understood, they also influence
the way cities and municipalities are managed and governed. City-makers have played an
important role in shaping and controlling cities since late nineteenth century when
urbanism established its roots, both as a science, and as a vital practice for urban life
generally.
However, the practice of planning has been too much attached to industrial ideas of space
and cities from the mid-20th century. The bases for urban planning have a strong
relationship to modernism and the industrial city. As new notions of space and time have
influenced every aspect of contemporary society, perhaps they should likewise influence
the way urban space is governed and planned.
Places may nowadays be functioning in different ways within and between cities, but
planners are still using concepts, methods and policy instruments developed during and
for the modernist period of industrial cities.
The challenge for urban planning as well as local governance is mainly based on two
broader aspects: the transition from the industrial to the networked city; and the
fragmentation and disconnection of ICTs and planning.
2.2.3.1 From the industrial city to the networked city
Perhaps the biggest and most important dilemma for planners and planning departments is
a transition from traditional practices in urbanism and planning (strongly centred on
technical and design sciences) to a broader model increasingly committed to social
sciences and qualitative research and instruments. It is exactly the same transition that
cities and concepts of space and time are now experiencing, but in a more specific
perspective.
The challenge here is to understand that the subject of urban planning is being
transformed, to find the best way to comprehend and analyse it, and to re-think the
methods and instruments for intervening in it.
This is a hard task, without doubt, especially considering the current levels of co-
involvement between planning practices and notions of linear Euclidean space. Planners
30
still seem to refer to cities as aseptic external containers for urban life. The idea of space
as a social entity is not taken into account in the majority of the cases. Graham and
Marvin (1996) attest:
The conceptual and policy-making frameworks built-up since the

nineteenth century to deal with the physical, geographical, social and
environmental aspects of the industrial city still tend to underpin – at
least implicitly – a large proportion of urban analysis and policy-
making. (Graham and Marvin, 1996: 48)
ICTs are seen as no more complex than any other technical element, with no account
taken of the implications they might have upon the complex chains of political and social
relations in the city. In general, planners seem to have been reluctant to recognise that
new technologies have profound relations with the spatial organisation of our cities.
Planning is very rarely involved in more strategic urban actions with regards to the
implementation of ICTs. Is this because planners are not interested in combining
strategies of urban technology? Or is it because people and other departments responsible
for such strategies do not see planners as key players?
Phenomena like decentralisation, centralisation, and urban enclaves (Ezechieli, 1998) are
faced as normal spatial behaviours and treated with methods and instruments such as
zoning strategies, transportation efficiency, development projects, and so on. Drewe
(2000: 26) prefers to call planning into question by asking: ‘how can the urbanism of
networks be changed into a sustainable network urbanism?’
Therefore, the transition from the modernist to the post-modern city is a crucial and
necessary step forward for planning towards the networked city, where planners, as I will
argue, have a fundamental role to play.
2.2.3.2 The ‘distant’ worlds of ICTs and planning
Planners and planning departments are increasingly loosing their importance within
contemporary public administration, as exaggerated reliance on technical and design
practices continues to fragment the public treatment of space.
This process is being affected in such a way that only urban design, transportation and
infrastructure issues are entrusted to planning departments, with little or no consideration
of social and cultural implications. Koolhaas and Mau (1995) argue that planners and, in
31
fact, urbanism are outdated, and that both failed to keep pace with the rapid
modernisation of urban space. Ultimately, they argue, planners simply cannot cope with
the complexity of the contemporary city:
The transition from a former position of power [during the industrial

and the modernist era] to a reduced station of relative humility is hard to
perform. Dissatisfaction with the contemporary city has not led to the
development of a credible alternative; it has, on the contrary, inspired
only more refined ways of articulating dissatisfaction. A profession
persists in its fantasies, its ideology, its pretension, its illusions of
involvement and control, and is therefore incapable of conceiving new
modernities, partial interventions, strategic realignments, compromised
positions that might influence, redirect, succeed in limited terms,
regroup, begin from scratch even, but will never re-establish control.
(Koolhaas and Mau, 1995: 965)
This seems very contradictory when compared with the important role that planners
should be playing. In fact, the point is that, while hardly working on their daily activities,
planners have been acting more as technicians than as social scientists because of limited
resources, restricted conditions and a general unawareness of the concepts and
consequences linked to the development of ICTs in cities.
‘Proactive’ planning initiatives related to ICTs, tend to appeal to the ill-grounded

utopianism of technological deterministic approaches. This, in turn, tends to create more
distrust and scepticism from other municipal departments and civil servants about the
involvement of planning in urban-technological strategies.
Distinct departments in the city have, obviously, different notions about ICTs and their
influence on urban affairs, which leads to a weakened planning department that forms a
smaller part of an administrative structure that may itself be fragmented.
So perhaps planning and planners are not to blame; alternatively, no-one may be to
blame. Can organisational fragmentation in fact be traced to the variety of visions and
interpretations? Can such variety be the cause of the fragmentation of the very notions of
space, time, technology and governance themselves, reflecting on the process of policy-
making?
The consequences of such a fragmentation may be on the one hand a failure to understand
the city in the light of the transformations brought about by the development of ICTs,
32
and, on the other, neglect of the complex economic, political, and social and cultural
relations present in the urban space on the part of planners.
The contemporary city has new elements that need to be considered in the arrangement of
urban space. Planners and planning officers are still trying to catch this momentum.
Commentators like Koolhaas and Mau (1995) maintain that new methods, instruments,
organisation, and indeed a new urbanism have to emerge to cope with the complexity,
flexibility, and new concepts inherent in contemporary urban space:
If there is to be a ‘new urbanism’ it will not be based on the twin

fantasies of order and omnipotence; it will be the staging of uncertainty;
it will no longer be concerned with the arrangement of more or less
permanent objects but with the irrigation of territories with potential; it
will no longer aim for stable configurations but for the creation of
enabling fields that accommodate process that refuse to be crystallized
into definitive form; it will no longer be about meticulous definition, the
imposition of limits, but about expanding notions, denying boundaries,
not about separating and identifying entities, but about discovering
unnameable hybrids; it will no longer be obsessed with the city but with
the manipulation of infrastructure for endless intensifications and
diversifications, shortcuts and redistributions – the reinvention of
psychological space. (Koolhaas and Mau, 1995: 969)
33
2.3 SIGNALS OF AN UNBALANCED DEVELOPMENT
In many ways, ICTs seem to have been unevenly developed as regards public and private
initiatives. The private sector appears to be one step ahead on many aspects of the
development of ICT infrastructure and applications. There seems to be a clash between
two ways of developing new telematics technologies: as a public right, and as
merchandise. Not surprisingly, in a world dominated by market forces, ICTs as a
commodity tend to evolve faster and better for those who can afford to have them.
These unbalanced circumstances expose the necessity for proactive rather than defensive
approaches to ICTs by the public sector. Instead of reacting to emerging problems,
planners and local authorities should be able to anticipate them. For instance, as far as
planning is concerned, Shiode (2000), highlights the need for a restructured planning
practice:
Given the interdependence of IT and urban planning and given the way
notions of space and information have been modified by digitalization
and the deployment of computer networks, it is necessary for planners
to adapt to these developments and to try to anticipate others. (Shiode,
2000: 117)
In other words, there is a ‘need of an integrated planning of land use and urban
technology networks, in particular transport and ICT’ (Drewe, 2000: 28).
In this section, I expose the major aspects related to the unbalanced development of
public and private ICT initiatives and strategies. This is done exploring three main
themes: the danger of delaying, the local politics of ICTs, and the symbolism of ICTs.
2.3.1 The danger of delaying
During the POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) and PSTN (Public Switched
Telecommunications Networks) era telecommunication technologies were under national
and public monopolies, being also isolated both from the influence and control of local
authorities and planners and private initiative.
Under the rapid and overwhelming process of privatisation through neo-liberal politics all
over the world, this national monopoly becomes splintered into hidden, obscure and
34
sometimes unknown forms of control and management, from public local authorities to
partnerships and absolute private initiatives:
The application of telecommunications technologies in the management

of networks is developing in tandem with shifts towards the
liberalisation and privatisation of infrastructure networks. Privatisation
has transformed service provision from monopolistic, universally
available, standardised systems into complex new patterns of service
provision. (Graham and Marvin, 1996: 40)
This fact has served to camouflage a dangerous process of competition regarding the
development of ICTs and their benefits for the public interest. This is not a competition
between companies for best prices or services. Rather, policy-making is a process where
complex political and social networks compete for a vision (which occasionally becomes
a policy). Embedded in different visions, there are different interests. Among these,
commercial interests can also play a role on shaping ICTs development.
Pragmatically, in the field of service delivery, this could mean competition between a
dated and bureaucratic public sector and an efficient and flexible private sector.
Ultimately, the imbalance between public and private responses to urban-technological
developments can also be linked to the increase in social inequalities and geographical
polarisation in cities (Graham, 2001).
Private and public interests are completely different as regards attitude to services and
spaces. While the former tends to follow better performances in terms of profit, the latter
is assumed to seek better quality services. According to Roberts et al. (1999: 11), both
‘national and local governments have lost influence over urban affairs to global corporate
interests’.
Deprivation of public spaces and public services is one of the many possible outcome
scenarios for this political game of interests.
2.3.1.1 Unevenness, polarisation and public spaces
Many commentators argue, and it does not seem to be an exaggeration, that ICTs realise
the potential effects of industrial capitalism to an even greater extent than the traditional
industrial cities, as regards social exclusion and polarisation. In the way ICTs are being
regulated, controlled and used, this is not a surprise. The technological development of
35
recent years is nothing but the result of an intensification of the processes of capitalist
production, and vice-versa:
It is as a result of these technologies that the global capitalism that

[William] Gibson describes, and that we are starting more and more to
experience, is able to function. (Skeates, 1997: 10)
The way new technologies are socially constructed, or the way they are appropriated by
social groups is what determines what exactly technologies will favour or not. Castells
(1989) argues that there is nothing wrong with technologies themselves, and that, ‘their
use currently is determined by the process of socio-economic restructuring of capitalism,
and they constitute the indispensable material basis for the fulfillment of this process’
(Castells: 349).
Thus, a less (publicly) ‘controlled’ urban-technological development appears to mean a

more uneven one, due to the rapid commercial interests and initiatives driven by market
forces which are, in the end, seeking more profitable profiles. Ezechieli (1998) argues that
this type of development is leading us to a society based on urban enclaves that are
controlled extremely ‘privately’ with a view to maintaining the security and comfort of
marketing operations, for those able to pay for such profile.
In his paper Shifting Boundaries, Ezechieli classifies these enclaves as private and
partially private initiatives related to all aspects of the urban life such as education,
culture, entertainment, retailing, housing etc. Among the examples of urban enclaves,
there are wealthy and technologically sophisticated gated communities, shopping malls,
universities, hospitals, and in some cases entire redeveloped city-centres. The city,
according to him, would be a limitless space with no external boundaries and filled with
well-protected citadels. In this case, local relations are practically annihilated for the
privilege of global links between the isolated citadels:
New sets of boundaries arrive to establish new territorial circles. These

precincts feature a low level of integration with the rest of the city […]
The new citadels tend to follow their own rules and to reproduce, within
bounded environments, the same characteristics of the traditional public
venues, introducing relevant consequences on the urban environment.
(Ezechieli, 1998: 21)
36
Despite the dark scenario established by this vision of a city of citadels, some lessons can
be learned from such an exclusionary model.
First, there is indeed an unevenness in the actual deployment of ICTs which could, in
some senses, lead us to the development of types of citadels on a much larger scale. The
very well known cases of gated communities and shopping malls point in this direction.
Secondly, social polarisation is an increasing reality, especially in the big cities and
metropolises of developing countries. It is good and bad payers (or ‘haves’ and ‘have
nots’) who provide the market with its reference points for the standard of service
provision. Graham (2001) refers this commercial ‘choice’ situation as ‘premium status’.
Service restructuring or technological innovations that enrol some

people and places to premium status […] often simultaneously work to
systematically marginalize and exclude others access to even basic
services (Swyngedouw, 1993). (Graham, 2001: 348)
The section of the population which has no or little power of consumption has very few
options and choices for bargaining. Their only option, facing the actuality of extremely
flexible and variable geometry in the space of flows – the space of global capitalism,
according to this vision – is to be defensive and protective in a way that increases their
isolation still further, ultimately giving them the status of modern global urban tribes
(Castells, 1989).
The aggravation of levels of social and geographical polarisation and inequality exposes,
according to Castells, the urgency for proactive initiatives from planners and local
authorities towards a more democratic construction not only of cyberspace but of the
whole urban space:
These trends are not ineluctable. They can be reversed, and should be
reversed, by a series of political, economic, and technological strategies
that could contribute to the reconstruction of social meaning in the new
historical reality characterized by the formation of the space of flows as
the space of power and functional organization. (Castells, 1989: 350)
37
2.3.2 Local politics and ICTs: governance, planning and regulatory changes
Within the sphere of public administration there is, obviously, a diversity of opinions and
visions as to what ICTs and virtual cities might be. The picture of the development of
ICTs is not a unitary one, either in government or in planning.3
However, interestingly, some visions have been more common than others. Economic
models that emphasise the entrepreneurial and commercial sides of public initiatives seem
to be a very common driver. Infrastructure and ‘visible’ elements of ICTs, then, gain
more relevance than those elements and infrastructure which cannot be seen. Invisibility,
as discussed before, plays its part on the way ICTs are generally interpreted by planners
and local authorities.
Perceptions and interpretations as to what ICTs and the virtual city are, are therefore
usually vague, fragmented, and embedded in standard technological deterministic
discourses. Infrastructure is thus often the first step towards planning, governance and
regulatory shifts, immediately followed by administrative improvements. Local
authorities clearly perceive the potential of cables and fibre optics to facilitate the delivery
of services by both providing internal communications and facilitating communications
between themselves and its residents:
Cable is perceived as potentially playing a valuable role in both

community and economic development. However, there are real fears
that the commercial imperatives driving the development of cable will
mean that this potential will not be exploited. (Graham and Dominy,
1991: 201)
Back-office reformulations through a massive introduction of telematics equipment,

networks, and new practices tend to lead most of the public initiatives. Businesses and
city departments are reformulated to improve communications between them and access
to common databases. At the same time, spaces are created for ‘public customer services’
with the help of the Internet for delivering the same or part of the services and
information. In sum, Intranets and websites/portals on the Internet along with (mainly)
cable infrastructures constitute the state-of-the-art developments in the public sphere.
3
The variety of interpretations to a socio-technical process is known as interpretative flexibility and will be
discussed later in this chapter.
38
Other tools are also part of the package, such as CCTV coverage and Geographical
Information Systems (GIS). These initiatives are normally considered as public top-line
actions ‘towards the 21st century’. In reality, this all seems very fragile compared with
what the private sector is doing at the same time.
Governments everywhere tend to adopt the discourse of building a new relationship

between citizens and authorities, between governments themselves and common residents
through better ways of communication and improved systems and services. This type of
initiative looks like the right choice, but the speed of changes and the passivity of local
authorities when compared with the aggressivity of the private sector show how public
initiative tends to be handicapped in the attempt to construct a more democratic virtual
city:
While these technologies are seemingly attractive given their inherent

power to deliver existing services more efficiently as well as provide
new services, they also represent a potential for creating a fundamental
change in the nature of government as well as change in the relationship
between the government and the governed. These changes may not
always be what we expect and may not always be for the betterment of
our society. (Baker, 1999: 11)
Part of this handicap comes from an extremely limited power to deal with regulatory
issues, as well as certain commercial, industrial and business aspects of cities. One can
even say that to some extents, local authorities have been privatised, which for Monbiot
(2001: 5), is a ‘corporate control of the means of government, as well as its
implementation’.
2.3.2.1 Limited power and the ‘privatised government’
The fragmentation between urban issues and telematics technologies appears to come – at
least from the point of view of control and management – from the POTS/PSTN era,
when local authorities had very limited or no power over telecommunications networks.
As stated earlier, urban planners and policy-makers could not take part in the
telecommunications decision-making process at this time, as it was nationally or
regionally standardised.
The shift from public PTTs (Postal Telegraph and Telephone) to private operators of
telecommunications was also the first signal for local authorities, urban planners and
39
urban researchers to pay more attention to ICT issues. The regulation of

telecommunications now tends to follow market forces rather than collective interests.
Furthermore, knowledge levels between the public sector and ICT operators as regards
the specific technologies and systems involved tends to be asymmetric. Faced with a new
competitive scenario, and without a proper understanding of the telecommunications
impacts, the question is how planners and local authorities can have any sort of public
control over it, or know what it is used for and by whom.
According to Castells (1989), this current manifestation of global technological

development as an intensification of capitalist forces leaves little margin of manoeuvre
for local governments and democracies:
In the end, even democracies become powerless confronted with the

ability of capital to circulate globally, of information to be transferred
secretly, of markets to be penetrated or neglected, of planetary strategies
of political-military power to be decided without the knowledge of
nations, and of cultural messages to be marketed, packaged, recorded,
and beamed in and out of people’s minds. (Castells, 1989: 349)
Mixed initiatives such as partnerships are a common way found by local authorities to
conciliate both public and private interests in the attempt to amplify their power of
intervention. Obscure contracts and deals without close public inspection may open, at
least, strange possibilities for the private sector to gain control of what was supposed to
be exclusively public:
The overwhelming importance of the economic imperative in cities

means that the increasing emphasis of urban governance is on public-
private partnerships oriented towards an explicit economic development
agenda rather than the social, redistributional one that characterised the
post-war period (Healey et al., 1995) […] the talk is now to reinvent
government more along business lines and to use telematics innovations
as the new mechanism for delivering services with minimum costs and
maximum flexibility (Graham and Marvin, 1996: 42-3).
2.3.3 The symbolism of ICTs: competitive advantages
The invisibility of ICTs causes planners to be especially anxious to produce physical

results. They normally need to translate to politicians and local authorities what is
invisible and virtual into something visible and tangible.
40
Invisibility along with technological power, high-standard private innovations and market
representativeness make ICTs a powerful symbol of inventive and proactive management,
control and commitment to the future. This is, at least, the way politicians seem to look at
new information and communication technologies.
The very term ICT is full of meanings due to a number of possible interpretations one
could have for what ‘information and communication technologies’ may represent. At the
same time, it is also a key term for current governance and planning practices. The
symbolic meaning is so powerful that even ‘fake’ projects are built to exhibit a high-level
use of ICTs in the attempt to attract companies, business people, funds, or simply
attention. Graham and Marvin (1996) prefer to call it a ‘cosmetic reason’:
In fact efforts often have to be made to increase the visual and physical
impact of telecommunications in cities, as when prominent satellite
dishes are developed to boost the image of high-tech office
development and teleports. In one case, for example, such a dish has
been proposed purely for cosmetic reasons, even though no satellite
facilities were actually technically required. (Graham, 1996: 51)
This happens when ICTs become a commodity and their economic status is externalised
as globalised, ‘super-capitalist’ instruments. The hidden competition between local
authorities and the private sector, and between cities themselves to attract inward
investment clearly exposes this economic connotation of being proactive with regard to
urban-technological policy-making. In the end, every initiative related to new
technologies ‘allegedly’ seeking more democratic ways of governance is threatened by
the purely economic and commercial imperative of ICTs. Thus, in many public
administrations, ICTs are symbolically dealt with as a sophisticated commodity.
Graham and Dominy (1991) verify that most British cities and, especially what were at
that time assumed to be the advanced cases of Edinburgh, Manchester and Sheffield, were
motivated to deal with telecommunications issues mainly by economic reasons, chiefly to
enhance the access to the Single European Market.4
4
As we shall see later, the use ICTs to re-build the image of the city is one of the most influential
imperatives to urban development in Newcastle.
41
2.4 WAYS FORWARD: BREAKING OLD PARADIGMS
After discussing a very confusing and complex scenario where ICTs are affecting our
notions of the trinomial space, time and technology, many questions could be raised, from
the point of view of the ‘ways forward’ from this paradigm challenge. For instance, how
can this complexity and vagueness in ICTs be explained theoretically? How can the
relation between ICTs and society be explained in a way that would facilitate
understanding of the ‘variables’ involved in this process? How are the ‘virtual’ and the
‘physical’ aspects of space combined to form new spatial paradigms? What is being
developed in terms of architecture, design and urbanism in order to understand the ‘post-
modern space’? How can governance and planning be reorganised to proactively deal
with such changes?
This section concentrates on providing some points for discussion as preliminaries to

possible answers to these questions.
Three major ‘starting point’ for my search for these elements are explored in the
following sub-sections. First of all, there is a need for a theoretical framework capable of
explaining the complex processes involved in the introduction, acceptance, use and
development of ICTs jointly with traditional urban policy-making. In this sense, the
theory of the social construction of technologies, mentioned above, would seem to
provide the basis for understanding the conceptual gap between the traditional and the
virtual city, that is, to explain the dilemmas posed to local authorities engaged in trying to
develop urban-technological strategies.
Secondly, there is a need for new and innovative ways of interpreting the space, its
interplay with time, and consequently, the organisation of the territory and cities. Thus,
new concepts of space, time and cities are required if urban researchers are to be equipped
with more comprehensive theories for interpreting contemporary urban reality.
The third point to be addressed concerns the need to understand how planners and local
authorities might cope with these characteristics of ICTs and the consequent changes in
the conceptualisation of space and time. How can they address both infrastructure and the
impacts of new technologies on all aspects of urban society?
42
It seems that, from new administrative methods to improvements in information and

service delivery, and the conception of different regulatory policies, planning and
governance practices, city-makers would need to understand the importance of a
democratic construction of the virtual city to avoid the aggravation of problems like
social exclusion and polarisation:
Given the opportunity presented by a new communication media and

channel for delivery of services, surprisingly few governments have
actually taken advantage of the potential offered by networked
technologies and the Internet, beyond static ‘homepages’ […] While the
interactive nature of these systems presents tremendous possibilities in
terms of true citizen policymaking, significant institutional and political
barriers exist. (Baker, 1999: 5-6)
2.4.1 A theoretical perspective for understanding the blurriness of ICTs and cities
One of the most important facts about the dilemmas of developing urban-technological
strategies is the acknowledgement of the simultaneous complexity and vagueness
involved with the introduction and application of ICTs to deal with urban issues. The
blurriness related to the interplay between ICTs and cities could explain many of the
dilemmas posed to local authorities about integrated urban-technological development.
The comprehension of such contradictory coexistence of complexity and vagueness is a

key stage in the process of overcoming the historical neglect of ICTs by the public sector.
So how could this be explained theoretically? The concepts embraced by Social
Construction of Technologies (SCOT) theory are seen as crucial and, therefore, used
throughout this research, especially to support the deconstruction of actors’ discourses in
the case studies of Newcastle and Antwerp which follows in Chapters 6 and 7.
First, and above all, this theory is important because it demystifies the idea of aseptic
technologies, of technical elements without more important and intrinsic roles in society.
The idea is that of technologies or a set of technologies (or ‘artefacts’ as they are called
by Bijker, 1987; see also Bijker, Hughes and Pinch, 1989) with a range of complex social,
economic, political and cultural roles, that is to say, a socially constructed development of
a certain technology.
43
Our technologies mirror our societies. They reproduce and embody the
complex interplay of professional, technical, economic, and political
factors. (Bijker and Law, 1997: 3)
In other words, introducing new technologies to be absorbed by society implies

considering all sorts of interactions and manoeuvres by what Bijker (1987) calls ‘relevant
social groups’, so that these technologies would occupy their space in time (in terms of
practical use). In socio-technical terms, this process is regarded as the stabilisation of a
certain artefact, where society has come to a consensus about the meaning of this artefact
and has, thus, incorporated it in a series of social activities.
Yet, considering the relevant groups and their respective moves during the development
of a certain set of technologies, Dutton and Guthrie (1991) defend the idea of an ‘ecology
of games’ between the different actors, involving distinct objectives and motivations.
According to this idea, there is no one single movement towards the stabilisation of an
artefact but, rather, a range of parallel negotiations and/or disputes and conflicts
motivated by different reasons, which together are responsible for the obduracy of a
specific technological system:
One approach to research on the political construction of technology is

to view technology as ‘the result of a series of games participated in by
the various organizational actors’ (Crozier and Frieberg, 1980: p.57), or
what Long (1958) referred to as the outcome of an ‘ecology of games’.
(Dutton and Guthrie, 1991: 281)
For instance, in terms of urban technology, the introduction of a new initiative or project
– in terms of regulatory policy and effective implementation – by local authorities would
necessarily involve a number of disputes, political and social interactions, along with the
technical development. These ‘games’, according to SCOT, happen all the time and
everywhere related to the artefact to be introduced. Thus, this new initiative would
involve disputes inside and outside the local authority’s sphere: among politicians to
launch the idea, for example; among officers and civil servants; between all of the groups,
and among the general public and third parties involved.
When Bijker and Law (1997) talk about the stabilisation of technologies, or of a certain
set of technological arrangements, they do so by distinguishing between different
strategies of obduracy. A key concept is strategy. According to them, the strength of a
strategy is directly related to the dominant group’s ability to define and control who or
44
what is inside or outside this strategy (basically, who corroborates and who obstructs, or
even who is in favour and who is against):
The pattern is that the protagonists – entrepreneurs, industrial or

commercial organizations, government bureaucracies, customers or
consumers, designers, inventors, or professional practitioners – seek to
establish or maintain a particular technology or set of technological
arrangements, and with this a set of social, scientific, economic, and
organizational relations. (Bijker and Law, 1997: 9)
Another concept borrowed from SCOT which can be very useful here is that of
‘interpretative flexibility’ (Pinch and Bijker, 1989). This concept offers an explanation for
why so many ‘languages’ are spoken by actors within the events of a socio-technical
process, generating complexity and vagueness.
2.4.1.1 Interpretative flexibility
Interpretative flexibility deals with the variety of visions and interpretations given to a
certain artefact within a given social context. In the example mentioned above, thus,
politicians, officers, civil servants, and the population would have their own idea of what
the initiative being implemented might mean in terms of shape, characteristics, functions,
use, consequences etc. Even within each of these groups, there might be another range of
interpretations. According to Pinch and Bijker (1989), each interpretation of an artefact
depends on how a ‘problem’ and respective ‘solutions’ are realised by different actors.
If the development of urban-technological strategies (such as building the virtual city)

was considered, being socially constructed, as an artefact, the ways in which social actors
understood and acted upon this development would become extremely relevant to its
acceptance and power of endurance.
Possible questions about the interpretative flexibility of such a strategy would be: What
does this strategy mean for the different social actors involved? What does it mean for
officers and their departments, for politicians, citizens, and third parties etc.? What are the
problems and solutions to be dealt with by the different actors? How can the dominant
social group cope with such a variety of visions for delivering a single strategy? In the
end, is the strategy satisfactory to all sectors involved? Does it fulfil the variety of
interpretations?
45
The confusion, complexity and vagueness of the concepts related to ICTs and their
impacts on the notion of space seem to be directly connected to the enormous amount of
interpretations of ICT initiatives by different actors. As long as they do not understand
what ICTs are, they will also have a different vision of what ICTs can be used for.
Accordingly, Pinch and Bijker (1989: 41) argue that ‘different social groups have
radically different interpretations of one technological artefact’.
Understandably, the number of interpretations also has to do with the aspirations and
backgrounds of each social group and, consequently, what type of problems and solutions
they are particularly linked to (Figure 2.1 shows the universe of visions for a single
artefact). Aurigi (2003: 37) comments on the interpretations and problematisation of a
certain technology, that:
It is beneficial to look not just at the system itself, but at what generates
the need(s) for it, the problems it is supposed to solve, the solutions it is
supposed to provide, and whom and what visions are promoting a
certain setup, or a set of alternative ones.
As a result of the differing visions and expectations of the different groups, a diverse
range of ‘ideal artefacts’ may be created (mentally and perhaps physically):
Relevant social groups do not simply see different aspects of one

artifact. The meanings given by a relevant social group actually
constitute the artifact. (Bijker, 1987: 77)
In the specific case of virtual cities or urban-technological strategies, this would mean a
diverse range of virtual cities, or a number of alternative strategies; one for each social
group or one for each conjunct of problems and solutions. Finding what these diverse
artefacts and visions are, is what Bijker calls sociological deconstruction of an artefact or,
‘demonstrating the interpretative flexibility of an artifact’ (Bijker, 1987: 76).
Why, then, is the concept of interpretative flexibility relevant to the attempt to explain the
dilemmas of urban-technological developments in this context?
A proper answer to this question must come from the two case studies of Newcastle and
Antwerp (presented and analysed in Chapters 6 and 7). In general terms, however,
interpretative flexibility will help us to map out the variety of major interpretations of the
virtual city and ICT initiatives in these two cities. Social actors and technological
46
entrepreneurs (the people who lead the idea of a certain implementation) can be identified
in order to identify distinct visions and discourses. This shows how a possible dominant
model may or not prevails over other visions to result in a single strategy. So, what would
be the outcome of such dispute of different interpretations?
Figure 2.1 - Diversity of visions (adapted from Pinch and Bijker, 1989: 35-6).
As we shall see in Chapters 6 and 7, different local and social contexts can develop
completely different approaches to urban-technological strategies which can, in turn,
present different levels of interpretative flexibility. In this sense, these interpretations can
be said to affect the final shape of the artefact itself (or, in these cases, the urban-
technological strategy), which in turn affects further visions, and so on. I will thus argue
that the relations between society and technology (including social groups and their
47
variety of visions) are based on a two-way connection. Technology affects society as

much as society affects technology:
As is obvious, technology is ubiquitous. It shapes our conduct at work

and at home. It affects our health, the ways in which we consume, how
we interact, and the methods by which we exercise control over one
another. The study of technology, then, has immediate political and
social relevance. And to be sure, because technology is treated as one of
the major motors of economic growth, it has similar economic and
policy relevance. (Bijker and Law, 1997: 11)
2.4.2 Coining new notions of space, time and cities
Conceptually speaking, there have been few efforts to break the traditional
modernist/industrial paradigms of space and time that govern perceptions of the city,
urban, and region.
In general, these new attempts represent a step towards a more complex understanding of
the contemporary characteristics of space. Most of these attempts tend to overcome the
ideas of an aseptic space functioning as an external container for urban life, treating space
as an intricate and heterogeneous milieu of economic and political, and yet also social and
cultural interactions. In this way, space is contextually self-organised, rebuilding and
reshaping itself according to specific sets of interplay and networks of interactions. But
how is this idea of a ‘new space’ evolving? What are the major arguments for a combined
virtual-physical space? What is the urban space becoming in the light of these new
concepts?
The next chapter will provide solid elements for the discussion of such questions; general
points related to the new notions of space, time and cities are discussed below.
2.4.2.1 Space and society: an indissociable existence
The most noticeable advance in notions of space may be the inclusion of a powerful
social/cultural aspect to the construction and organisation of spaces and places. According
to these new ideas, space cannot be analysed or even understood just as a physical entity,
separated from time and, consequently, separated from social aspects of particular
communities or societies.
48
Many scholars have been working on this type of ‘unitary space’ where there is no
separation between physical, mental and social elements of space (Lefebvre, 1991). As
discussed above (section 2.2.2.1), apart from being socially and territorially-dependent,
the production of space has also been associated with the shrinking of distance, according
to Harvey’s (1989) concept of ‘space-time compression’. In general thus the idea of an
interdependent and dialectic space made of inseparable complex structures of objects and
actions, of territory and society (Santos 1994) has become more and more accepted.5
As we shall see with more detail in Chapter 3, the actual urban milieu seems to function
as a symbiotic space where elements from other periods in urban history intermingle and
interplay with new elements of information and communication technologies in the
process of the actualisation of space (Santos, 1997).
As space is now seen as a complex milieu dialectically interplaying with social contexts,
time is particularly important. It complements the power of ICTs in shrinking distances
and making time relative to spatial relations and networks. These considerations
increasingly raise the idea of space and time as just one thing, like the concepts of space-
time and hyperspace.
Yet another consequence of the powerful influence of ICTs in reshaping concepts of

space and time is the creation of new spatial environments, namely virtual worlds or
cyberspace. The virtual city seen as a parallel city (Chapter 3), intrinsically related to the
physical reality, is a major example of this augmented notion of space.
These new notions of space and time, all go in the same direction. They are all
abnegations of the linear Euclidean idea of space, of pure physical Cartesian concepts.
According to these concepts, space is nothing more than an impartial and aseptic stage for
urban life and human interactions. The old concepts failed to consider that this ‘stage’
interacted with the urban life and with time in similar proportions, in a complex and
dialectical process of construction and reconstruction in different economic, social and
cultural aspects.
5
Although the extensive work of Milton Santos is not widely known in the Anglo-Saxon world, his ideas
about space are used across this thesis because they broadly incorporate and integrate theories from others
scholars such as David Harvey, Henry Lefebvre, Gottfried Leibniz, and others.
49
The association between space and society is a fundamental step if we wish to understand
the relations between space and technology. As we saw in this chapter, technologies are
themselves part of a process of socio-technical construction. What can be learnt from this
association is that the only way to understand the trinomial space, time and technology is
through the comprehension of the political and social relations behind them.
Furthermore, new concepts of space and time directly affect the way to approach and
understand the city and the urban, with important consequences for previously well-
established ideas of region and the national state. Facing the threatening ideas of
aterritorial cities (Painter, 2001), unbounded space, and virtual cities, these concepts seem
to still exist and to be now underpinned only for political reasons and administrative
conventions.
2.4.2.2 From machines to bodies
Telematics technologies have been represented and interpreted as the most pervasive and
ubiquitous set of technologies ever. To name this symbiosis between electronic and
traditional elements Mark Weiser (1991 quoted in Cuff, 2003) coined the term ‘embodied
virtuality’, which also diverges from the well known virtual reality. While the former
attempts to conceptualise the physicality of ubiquitous computing, the latter tries to
explain the virtuality of our physical reality. The difference is a significant one, in that
‘embodied virtuality’ articulates this incredible pervasiveness and power of ICTs of
‘melting into air’ and blending with other things of our daily lives:
There will be profound ideological significance in the architectural

recombinations that follow from electronic dissolution of traditional
building types and of spatial and temporal patterns. (Mitchell, 1995:
102)
According to Cuff (2003) embodied virtuality has four major implications for the way we
perceive and interact with space. First, comparing with Bentham’s panopticon, she argues
that contemporary urban space is now part of an extremely controlled environment that
she calls ‘enacted environment’.
Secondly, Cuff highlights the issue of visibility or, in the case of ICTs, invisibility, where
what ‘was solid and opaque becomes transparent, yet what makes the hidden accessible is
itself invisible’ (Cuff, 2003: 43).
50
The third implication concerns conflict between public and private matters. The argument
is that surveillance and control redefines our perception to what is public, semi-public and
private.
Finally, and directly linked to these issues of public and private space, the fourth
implication relates to notions of civility or public life, which are said to be affected by the
increasing security and surveillance of the urban space.
Cuff goes even further and argues that this new cybernetic pervasive space is the
postmodern space, and that this spatial symbiosis can be called cyburg.
If cyberspace is dematerialized space, cyburg is spatially embodied

computing, or an environment saturated with computing capability
(Cuff, 2003: 44)
Cuff’s idea of cyburg comes from the well known term ‘cyborg’, most famously explored
by Dora Haraway (1991), as mentioned above (section 2.2.2.2). Haraway’s cyborg, in
turn, is a derivation from cybernetics, with its roots in the Greek word kybernete
(‘steersman’). For Haraway, a cyborg is a hybrid of machines and living organisms.
This notion of a cybernetic or symbiotic space that Cuff calls ‘cyburg’ also applies to
what Mitchell (1995) calls ‘recombinant space’. ‘Recombinant’ is used to avoid
considering contemporary urban space as something completely unprecedented. The term
is used to reinforce the idea of an existent space being (conceptually) melted by new
paradigms and recombined with the new elements of information and communication
technologies. The notion of a hybrid, symbiotic, cybernetic urban space is totally
embedded in the term recombinant.
It is however crucial to note that the notion of recombinant space denies the technological
deterministic ideas of replacement and physical substitution as if virtual environments,
spaces, interactions, transactions and remote communication were replacing face-to-face
interactions and physical public places.
Rather than substituting anything, today’s symbiotic or cybernetic city is seen, under the
lens of recombinant space, as a consequence of the coexistence of virtual and physical
spaces, or of traditional and electronic elements of the urban space.
51
The notion of space has already crossed the frontiers of the physical territory by
considering space as a social by-product. Moreover, this notion now has to incorporate
the complexity of virtual, remote and distant interactions along with cyberspace. This is
what concepts such as recombinant space are trying to do.
Regarded as something almost alive, vivid, unstoppable, chaotic, volatile and ephemeral,
contemporary space and cities are constantly compared to natural forms and bodies. It is
interesting to note this metaphorical evolution from modernism to post-modernism, when
space and the city itself evolved from being compared with machines to be compared to
the ever-changing nature of bodies (Schwegmann, 2001).
2.4.2.3 Beyond the bounded space, and the idea of an infinite urbanisation
Scholars, researchers and professionals of space like the architects Marcos Novak and
Lebbeus Woods are quoted by Crang (2000) as formulators of new ideas of cities, or even
new notions of architecture and urbanism. Novak, for example, coined the terms ‘liquid
architecture’ and ‘transarchitecture’ to explain the complex relations between the physical
space and networks of interactions in cyberspace:
The architect Marcos Novak offers one way of thinking through these
issues in his projects to create, first, a liquid architecture of cyberspace,
which he suggests offers an ‘augmented space’, that is thinking through
what worlds of information might be shaped like, and, second, a
‘transarchitecture’ of their intersection with material world […] Novak
suggests that both mean redefining the urban field by challenging three
deeply embedded assumptions of urban studies. First, that space is
three-dimensional and shared between actors. Second, space is either
solid or void. And, third, you can only be in one place at one time.
(Crang, 2000: 306-7)
Woods is referred to by Crang (2000) as someone whose work supports the existence of a
parallel city, or even parallel cities, called ‘centri-cities’. Centri-cities would be made of
complex interactions and differences. As Crang puts it:
From the mid-1980s he [Lebbeus Woods] produced the idea of ‘centri-

cities’, formed of overlapping interference wave patterns expressing life
in a multi-polar urban city. Urban multiplicity stands in opposition to
the classical city – where the acropolis represented the single centre of
authority that worked hierarchically through the polis […] Instead of
utopian monologue producing the hierarchical city (organized around
52
the one principle) he looks for a heterarchical city of dialogue that is

necessarily incomplete and incoherent. (Crang, 2000: 310)
There are other innovative ideas in which cities are challenged by assumptions that
consider urban space to be completely unbounded and aterritorial, stimulating new ways
to interpret and act upon the city.
Some commentators defend the idea of a networked city (Batten, 1995; Drewe, 2000;
Townsend, 2003) as an evolution of the concept of the polycentric city – which is in turn
already an alternative to Christaller’s ‘central place’ theory. According to this idea,
‘dealing with networks as central concepts means dealing with mesh or web, sectoral
topological subdivision, attraction, contact, orientation, territorial dynamic and hierarchy
related to a network’ (Drewe, 2000: 16).
Rather than trying to establish a single name or concept for the contemporary city, it is
important to recognise that new elements play now an important role in the configuration
of urban space. In order to have the proper conditions to act upon such space, we need to
understand the new rules, the new elements, and the nature of the contemporary city,
where telematics technologies play such a significant role. Batten (1995) argues that the
characteristics of the networked city are far more pervasive than the ones of Christaller’s
central place theory (Table 2.1). He argues that although ‘some larger cities possess both
network and central place characteristics, it is the smaller network cities that have
counteracted the central place trend towards primacy and contributed to the size-neutrality
or urban growth’ (Batten, 1995: 320).
Table 2.1 - Central Places v. Network Systems. Source: Batten, 1995.
Central Place System Network System

Centrality Nodality
Size dependency Size neutrality
Tendency towards primacy and Tendency towards flexibility and
subservience complementarity
Homogeneous goods and services Heterogeneous good and services
Vertical accessibility Horizontal accessibility
Mainly one-way flows Two-way flows
Transport costs Information costs
Imperfect competition with price
Perfect competition over space
discrimination
53
Yet in this sense, the urban is described by commentators like Skeates (1997) as
something that vividly consumes or engulfs the classical ‘city’ and ‘country’ altogether –
to which I would also add cyberspace and the virtual city. This makes it impossible to
define frontiers and boundaries in the contemporary city. Skeates abandons the idea of
cities and maintains that we are left with something much more complex, or a ‘devouring
monster’. Quoting Dejan Sudjic’s idea of ‘urban soup’ to describe this devouring
monster, he emphasises the ‘space consuming’ nature of infinite urbanisation.
It is important to notice that, although he abandons the notion of cities as we currently are
used to, Skeates does not suggest the end or death of cities and urban life. On the
contrary, he reinforces such things by creating an extended notion of the urban.
He also defends the idea of an ‘artificialised nature’ as everything and everywhere is

potentially reachable by humans through new technologies. This is very similar to what
Santos (1994) says about the whole space which he calls the ‘technical-scientific-
informational milieu’, where technology, science and information are totally embedded in
space, and spread across the territory, ‘artificialising’ nature.
The so-called postmodern city represents a huge leap away from any
referent that can anchor that meaning outside of itself. All space
succumbs to the logic of the constructed, the artificial and the
mythologised which attempts to deny the possibility of there being any
‘real’ conditions of urban existence underneath the layers of
hyperreality. (Skeates, 1997: 12)
Following these ideas, due to new technologies, everything now is potentially part of a
complex space of social interactions, without boundaries and within the context of
capitalist relations of production, distribution and consumption.
Painter (2001) also draws attention to an aggressive process of physical and virtual
urbanisation that he calls the limitless city, an intricate network of networks and relations
that makes urbanity a complex concept, untied from traditional notions of territory. The
‘aterritorial city’, according to him, is helping to break hierarchical spatial relations like
the ‘tyranny of scale’:
The assumption that social and political life is organized into a nested
hierarchy of spatial scales (‘local’, ‘national’, ‘global’) each of which
involves a relatively self-contained set of social phenomena and
54
governance structures, albeit with important relations between them.

(Painter, 2001: 35)
It is clear that new paradigms of urban space and geographic territorial organisation are
emerging in the same proportion as the new concepts of space and time (the former being
in fact a consequence of the reformulation of the latter). These paradoxical spatial
behaviours of concentration and decentralisation reveal the direction of new patterns of
urban occupation, where all the aspects involved in these interrelated processes are
together replacing the old notions of a linear, rational and bounded space.
2.4.3 The search for new planning and governance practices
There seems to be some potential for ICTs to be used as democratic instruments by

planners and local authorities. Telecommunications advances can be used as much as
technical, social and political resources. They can help to manage other infrastructure
systems such as transportation links, traffic, pipes and cable networks, and at the same
time improve communications within the cities rather than just between cities.
Thus ICTs have the potential to facilitate ‘horizontal’ communications within the city
rather than just ‘vertical’ commercial communications between cities and global nodes.
This means that ICTs have an implicit social potential to improve the democratisation of
information within localities. But this potential has to be analysed and used effectively by
the public administration, following new and ‘more open’ ways of governing. The same
is true of urban planning.
Perhaps, for a more radical way of rethinking this participation and the improvement of
local communications, it would be necessary to consider even deeper reformulations of
the way cities are governed and planned; for instance, to deal with ideas such as Joe
Painter’s aterritorial city. The questions are: how can communication within a city be
improved when its ‘real’ physical limits are unknown? How can it be governed or
planned in better ways? Painter also proposes radical changes in the political structure of
local governance to respect the complex social relations that occur without physical
limits, and to deal with the invisible and untouchable aterritorial city:
Since the various elements of social, economic and political diversity

are not necessarily integrated or connected, the conventional model of
urban democracy epitomised by the elected city mayor or council is
55
likely to have little purchase on many (perhaps most) arenas of urban

life […] Drawing recent ‘relational thinking’ in urban theory, I propose
the concept of the ‘aterritorial city’ to emphasize that the diverse
elements that make up urban life are parts of networks of social
relations that are not confined spatially within the city and to contest the
assumption that cities have any territorial integrity. (Painter, 2001: 11)
There are few cases around the world, especially in Europe and in the USA, where
successful attempts have been made to reinforce the links between citizens and
administration and among citizens alongside improvements in participation and initiatives
for tackling the problem of access to ICTs.
By studying the urban-technological developments in Newcastle and Antwerp, we are

going to look for clues to how local authorities cope with the many questions raised
throughout this chapter, and in particular in this last section. At the end of this thesis, a
few policy and planning recommendations may, I hope, add to the general body of
contributions on alternative ways of interpreting the challenges of planners and local
authorities engaged in dealing with the new spatial paradigms.
Meanwhile, Graham and Dominy (1991) provide some clues to the sort of challenges
planners and local authorities may face as they ‘build a policy paradigm’ on ‘planning for
the information city’:
Our approach is to identify six basic principles of planning for the

information city which, we argue, should inform municipal involvement
in electronic infrastructures.
(1) Viewing the City as an Information System […] how urban areas
can be viewed fundamentally as systems of information, flow, storage,
retrieval, production and consumption […] (2) A Holistic Approach to
the Development of Policy […] (3) A Diffusionist Perspective of ICT
Developments: there are three key dimensions to unequal ICT diffusion:
the urban hierarchy, the social hierarchy, and the firm size hierarchy
[…] (4) An Awareness of the Dangers and Contradictions of ICT Policy
[…] (5) An Intense Dialogue with all Relevant Urban Actors […] (6)
Minimising the Costs Associated with Transactions in Cities (Graham
and Dominy, 1991: 238-9)
56
2.5 CONCLUSIONS
Having now completed the first of two steps (together with the next chapter) to establish
the three-fold theoretical foundation of this study, it may be useful to emphasise some
points raised in this chapter concerning the difficulties, theoretical perspectives and future
ideas for dealing with ICTs development in cities. One of these points was the clear
transition that seems to be ahead of us, from a range of traditional spatial paradigms – tied
to physical notions of space and place –, to innovative ways of thinking through the
integrations of physical and virtual spaces.
The main aim here has always been the establishment of a theoretical framework to help
us understand the difficulties and barriers posed to city-makers – mainly conceptual, but
also social, cultural, economic, political and spatial – on developing urban-technological
strategies. In this sense, this chapter demonstrated that ICTs alone involve levels of
complexity and vagueness which are extended to their relation with traditional activities
of our daily lives. Together with an assumed theoretical chaos, these factors create a
sparse blurriness around the phenomena linked to the relationship between ICTs and
space.
The understanding of a disconnection between public bodies, the private sector and the
population in terms of comprehension, use and action towards ICTs development, is
supported by the theory of SCOT (specifically applied here as the social construction of
ICTs or virtual cities). In this sense, the blurriness of ICTs and cities is explained in the
light of the concept of interpretative flexibility where a varied range of interpretations and
perceptions from different actors makes it more difficult for the stabilisation and social
absorption of a certain set of technologies (in this case, the virtual cities phenomenon).
The contents of the following chapter, draw on the new perspectives to look at the
development of the virtual city in accordance to what has been discussed so far, that is,
pointing to some ways forward, or some new concepts that help us to explain the
complexity of the relations between ICTs and space.
Therefore, with the support of SCOT to understand the blurriness of ICTs development in
cities, I believe that a new symbiotic configuration of space is reigning. In this new notion
57
of space, telematics technologies are ubiquitous as well as intermingled with traditional

elements of other urban eras.
Next, we will address the recombinant concept of space, architecture, design and
planning, and a broader notion of virtual city as a complex social constructed
phenomenon, which will conclude the formation of the theoretical tripod which underpins
the empirical basis of the whole project.
58
CHAPTER 3 - VIRTUAL CITIES OR SYMBIOTIC URBANISATION?
DEFINING CRUCIAL CONCEPTS
3.1 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................................60

3.2 IMAGINARY FRAGMENT OR COMPLEX URBAN SPACE? ............................................................62
3.2.1 Connecting virtual cities, symbiotic urbanisation and the evolution of space..............................63
3.2.1.1 What makes the ‘actual’ city?............................................................................................64
3.2.2 Understanding urban cybernetics and symbiosis...........................................................................66
3.2.2.1 Towards a cybernetic space...............................................................................................67
3.2.2.2 Redefining attitudes............................................................................................................70
3.2.3 Recombinant architecture, design and planning ............................................................................71
3.2.3.1 Liquid and volatile spaces..................................................................................................74
3.2.3.2 Bricks and mortar, bits and bytes: recombining elements of the space............................76
3.2.3.3 Grounding recombinant ideas of architecture, design and planning ...............................78
3.3 WHAT IS THE VIRTUAL CITY FOR THIS STUDY? ..........................................................................81
3.3.1 Who is involved? ............................................................................................................................83
3.3.2 Immateriality/virtuality ..................................................................................................................87
3.3.3 Materiality/physicality....................................................................................................................91
3.3.3.1 Recombinant unplugged spaces: what virtual cities phenomenon? .................................93
3.3.3.2 Recombinant adaptive spaces: unblended designs............................................................94
3.3.3.3 Recombinant transformative spaces: seamless combinations ..........................................97
3.4 CONCLUSIONS ......................................................................................................................................101
Rodrigo J. Firmino Chapter 3 - Virtual Cities or symbiotic urbanisation?
3.1 INTRODUCTION1
It is becoming commonplace for communities, cities and regions to create their own
counterpart in the virtual world. Most of these initiatives have been called ‘virtual’ or
‘digital’ cities due to the fact that they are, in some aspects, virtual representations via
ICTs of ‘real’ physical communities, cities or regions.
However, the whole concept of virtual city is not yet clear. Most of the attempts to
describe this phenomenon are speculative, metaphorical and deal only partially with its
complex impacts, ignoring important aspects. For instance, the overwhelming majority of
research on virtual cities approaches this phenomenon only by looking at design aspects
of city websites on the Internet, while many others are concerned only with VR (virtual
reality) or 3D modelling possibilities for urban simulation. There is no methodological or
theoretical mistake in the generalisation of these particular cases, but the context and
extent of such projects need to be made clear, for example by stating that the concept of
virtual cities is not limited to websites and VR experiments.
As both words in the expression ‘virtual city’ have an almost infinite number of
interpretations, a degree of interpretative flexibility affects the very definition of the
concept. This happens not only in the world of practitioners, but even within urban
studies. In this sense, this research also has to have its own interpretation of what virtual
cities are, one that has to be supported by literature and empirical studies.
Bearing in mind the discussions in the last chapter, especially the ones in the section
called ‘ways forward’, there are a few points that need further consideration before we
move on to the empirical studies. For instance, what kind of places can be considered
under the lens of the recombinant space concept? How are physical and virtual spaces
reacting to what has been called symbiotic (or infinite) urbanisation? How can we define
the city under these cybernetic relations between physicality and virtuality? What is the
virtual city within the scope of this study? What is this city made of? Finally, what is the
relation between virtual cities and symbiotic urbanisation?
1
A previous version of section 3.3 of this chapter was published in Journal of Urban Technology 10 (2),
December 2003: 41-61, under the title: ‘Not just a portal’ – Virtual cities as a complex sociotechnical
phenomenon.
60
By addressing these questions (not necessarily answering them), we intend to launch the
other two theoretical pillars of this research, from a total of three – the first having been
defined in Chapter 2. First we stress the importance of considering the phenomenon of
virtual cities as part of the modernisation/actualisation of urban space. This is supported
by ideas that sustain the existence of a cybernetic or symbiotic process of urbanisation
where physical and electronic spaces are melting together to result in a new space. The
idea of recombinant architecture also plays an important role in conceptualising this
hybrid symbiotic urbanisation.
Secondly, a broader typology is drawn from the elements which constitute the
phenomenon of virtual cities, based on recombinant concepts. This is used to define and
delimit what virtual cities are within the scope of this study.
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3.2 IMAGINARY FRAGMENT OR COMPLEX URBAN SPACE?
The principal structural argument used throughout this chapter assumes that a virtual city
is an important part of contemporary cities. Virtual cities are seen as a new element that is
joined to others (which are being called traditional elements) to form the complex
structure of contemporary urban reality (territory, landscape, space and place). This idea
accords with that of the recombinant or symbiotic city, discussed in the previous chapter.
According to Santos’s (1997) concept of the flecha do tempo (arrow of time), virtual
cities are an element of technological innovations which affects the space and provokes
(social and economic) transformations as the mark of a specific epoch.
Throughout urban history, many have been the factors responsible for the introduction of
new elements that then became part of our cities. Thus, cities are already historically
overlapped by many different elements representative of different ages. This thesis argues
that the virtual city (if seen as a conjunct of aspects triggered by ICTs, as we will
demonstrate) is another of these elements, marking, in this case, the so-called information
age. In short, virtual cities are one of the landmarks of the information age within our
cities.
As seen in the previous chapter, the challenge to the friction of distance is a crucial event
in the re-conceptualisation of space and, consequently, on territorial organisation. This
fact allows changes in the way we distribute ourselves, our buildings and infrastructures
across the territory. As Castells (1996: 376) argues, ‘both space and time are being
transformed under the combined effect of the information technology paradigm, and the
social forms and processes induced by the current process of historical change’.
Bearing in mind that electronic spaces, infrastructure and interactions are an inherent part
of today’s territorial arrangements, to understand them would mean to comprehend an
important part of the contemporary constitution of our cities. Furthermore, if we consider
that the immaterial cities overlap and, in fact, are part of the traditional cities, it is
important to know exactly what, in turn, constitute them.
62
3.2.1 Connecting virtual cities, symbiotic urbanisation and the evolution of space
Cities and today’s world have been flooded with a wave of new, miniaturised
technologies which, without notice, have been changing our lives in the past two or three
decades. These technologies are intermingling with old and traditional elements of urban
space and of our daily lives to form robotic and cybernetic beings, cities, objects, spaces,
and so on.
As traditional elements still dominate both our perspectives and the construction of spaces
and places themselves, most of us take new technologies for granted. In addition, as we
saw in Chapter 2, the technical and physical structures that constitute these technologies
are invisible, too small or too hidden to be perceived as new elements in the space.
What is important about this conception of a hybrid symbiotic space is the integrative and
pervasive way in which technologies in general and telematics specifically are considered
as part of the space as a whole. Rather than the deterministic arguments which refer to
urban space as an empty container and technologies as aseptic instruments, this integrated
vision of the city starts considering technologies as part of the process of a social
construction of the space. Within this framework, cities are thus understood to result from
a dialectic coexistence of and relationship between people, objects, territory, institutions
and flows of distinct eras of urban history. According to Santos (1997), space is
constantly being updated, modernised, and actualised.
From this point of view, telematics technologies are not a new event in terms of the
essence of their impacts, but only because of the nature of their impacts, the extension of
these effects and the way we interpret them. According to Mitchell (1995: 163), ‘at each
stage [in history], new combinations of buildings, transportation systems, and
communication networks have served the needs of the inhabitants’.
Thus, what makes cities even more symbiotic than ever is the profound pervasiveness of
ICTs. Cuff (2003: 43) distinguishes past technological developments from the current one
according to three basic characteristics:
They [pervasive technologies] can be distinguished from past

developments by the fact that this new technology can be both
everywhere and nowhere (unlike the automobile that is mobile but
locatable); that it acts intelligently yet fallibly, and its failure is complex
63
(versus the thermostat, which is responsive but singular and

unintelligent); and that intelligent systems operate spatially, yet they are
invisible (unlike robots).
3.2.1.1 What makes the ‘actual’ city?
Bearing in mind these ideas, it is important to note the similarities between the visions of
a symbiotic or cybernetic urbanisation and the ones which support a constant historical
actualisation of space.
Virtual cities are seen within the scope of this study as a conjunct of virtual (or electronic)
representations, physical manifestations and social interactions directly related to the
development of ICTs in cities. Following this interpretation, there is a phenomenon of
recombination and symbiosis which intermingles the virtual and the physical cities. Yet,
from the point of view of planning and governance, we believe that this process of
intermingling can be deliberately influenced by policies and strategies. This is due to the
potential power of policies and public strategies to shape the way ICTs are regulated and
implemented in the urban milieu.
Figure 3.1 illustrates that if we were able to recognise and comprehend virtual cities in the
same depth as we do many aspects of our (traditional) cities, we will be able to
understand an important element that forms the city of the information age or, Castells’s
(1989) ‘informational city’.
It is important to note that, although the ‘traditional city’ is illustrated in Figure 3.1 as a
solid mono-block of hard space, it is in reality as flexible and multi-faceted as space
itself. Different objects and layers of activities, infrastructure and places overlap in the
traditional city too (Graham and Marvin, 2001). It has been portrayed as a unity to allow a
comparison with the virtual city, which after all is another layer of places, objects and
activities being added to the city as a whole.
In The Rise of the Network Society, Castells (1996) describes a whole range of social and
economic transformations (also implying profound cultural changes), brought about by
the advent of new technologies and their insertion into several aspects of our everyday
lives. He articulates these impacts to argue that, among different spatial effects such as
64
simultaneous locational dispersion and concentration, the ‘information age is ushering in

a new urban form, the informational city’ (Castells, 1996).
What we are arguing here is that the virtual city (the ICTs city, or the imaginary city and
its material support) is a fundamental part of Castells’s informational city – yet together
with his ‘space of flows’ or ‘the material organisation of time-sharing social practices that
work through flows’ (Castells, 1996). So the virtual city acts and interplays with the space
of flows and the traditional structures of the traditional city to finally form the
informational city (a hybrid city).
Figure 3.1 - Virtual cities as part of contemporary cities.
As a collective imaginary urban space enabled and empowered by ICTs, the virtual city is
made of transactions, communication, information, services, feelings, interpretations,
exclusions, expectations, wires, satellites, and ‘bits and bytes’, which constantly interact
with the traditional physical city and its citizens. As formed by such a multitude of
variables (many of which are fragmented, contradictory and divergent), a virtual city is
unlikely to present a single and unified form, being rather a constantly changing and
active space. Any vision or concept of virtual cities needs therefore to take account of
their complexity and multifaceted structure. Such a concept should be linked up to the
essential notion of space itself as a dynamic and complex social structure.
65
Whittaker (2002: 136-7) points to the fact that cyberspace theorists tend increasingly to
‘remove space from being simply the geometricisation of symbolic mathematics and
resituate it within structures or webs of political and economic power’.
In this way, notions of space as a social and dynamic entity help us to also understand
virtual cities as such. As a result of this broader view, we should look at virtual cities as in
essence urban spaces, which have as much complexity, and as many objects and actions
as their traditional counterpart.
To understand the virtual city, therefore, and consequently the informational city, we
need to understand its elements and the ways they interact with the traditional city. As
mentioned above, this interplay happens through what is being called symbiotic or
cybernetic urbanisation, driven by the concept of recombinant architecture. The following
sub-sections address the main characteristics of this phenomenon of urban cybernetics
and symbiosis.
3.2.2 Understanding urban cybernetics and symbiosis
‘Urban life, Jim – but not as we know it’. This is the subtitle of William J. Mitchell’s e-
topia (Mitchell, 2000). Mitchell paraphrases the famous TV show Star Trek2 to introduce
his discussions about a different urban life, but one that is still recognisably urban. Many
commentators (Mitchell included) defend the idea that this new urban life is an
augmented one. The central argument is that technology presents us with new
possibilities to use, interact, experience, conceive and understand contemporary space and
cities.
As we have been pointing out, the element of information and communication

technologies was added to the already dense ‘soup’ of other elements which forms the
contemporary city. This does not turn the city or urban life into new unknown entities, but
rather redefines some of our relations with space, the city and consequently urban life
itself.
This redefinition tends to become blurred due to the invisibility, complexity and
simultaneous vagueness of new telematics technologies. A range of factors define the
2
‘It’s life Jim, but not as we know it’.
66
relations between ICTs and cities: ubiquity, pervasiveness, invisibility, remoteness,

complexity, intrusiveness and integration, to name just a few. In other words, as Page and
Phillips (2003: 9) put it:
The city is a result of many players and forces that operate through
global, regional, and local spheres of influence, utilizing tools and
techniques that are permanent, ephemeral, invisible, and strategic. They
are knitted together through both real and virtual networks of physical
connection, telecommunications, social relationships, and political
positioning.
In order to understand this city, though, we need to un-knit these real and virtual networks
to see what they are made of. This can be done, first, with the perception of what the
cybernetic space can be.
3.2.2.1 Towards a cybernetic space
It is evident that what redefine the city within the ideas of a symbiotic world are the
relations between space, time and technology. As introduced in Chapter 2, this three-axis
relationship is crucial to understanding the virtual city and the enormous influence of
ICTs upon space. According to Campanella (2001: 23), the ‘story of technology is largely
one of abnegating distance – time expressed in terms of space’.
Researchers’ and planners’ difficulties in understanding and dealing with the complexity
of today’s virtual city are directly related to our difficulties in understanding the new
terms of this relationship between space, time and technology. Some key characteristics
of this symbiotic city can be of great value for further judgements.
Historically, and in terms of communication (to overcome the frictional effects of

distance), technological development as a whole, evolved slowly and painstakingly from
asynchronous types of communication to synchronous ones. ICTs very quickly brought
about a joining of these two types of communication in a number of options and
instruments, bringing about a convergence of media with the development of
telecommunications. These two forms of communication became a game, an
entertainment as simple to use, in which switching from one to the other was as
unnoticeable as our blinking. They are so pervasive and ubiquitous that we usually do not
discern whether we are interacting synchronously or asynchronously.
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According to Mitchell (2000), different options and different relations of costs and
benefits can be obtained from local, remote, synchronous and asynchronous forms of
communication (Table 3.1).
In terms of the nature of contemporary urban space, and bearing in mind the principles
which determine the main characteristics of such space, Santos (1994) argues that space,
and particularly urban space, has historically evolved from a natural environment, to a
technical milieu, then later a technical-scientific milieu, to finally what he calls technical-
scientific-informational milieu.
Table 3.1 - Possibilities of interaction. Source: adapted from Mitchell (2000).
Synchronous Asynchronous
Local - Talk face-to-face - Leave note on desk
Requires transportation Requires transportation
Requires coordination Eliminates coordination
Intense, personal Displaces in time
Very high cost Reduces cost
Remote - Talk by telephone - Send email
Eliminates Eliminates transportation
transportation Eliminates coordination
Requires coordination Displaces in time and
Displaces in space space
Reduces cost Very low cost
This expresses the omnipresence of technique, science and information technologies

across space. Wherever we go, and whatever we do or think is directly or indirectly,
noticeably or unnoticeably influenced by the technological developments of our days.
Firmino (2000) describes the outcome of this spatial symbiosis as ‘intelligent spaces’
(Table 3.2), classifying them as spaces of intelligent production and spaces of intelligent
usage (depending on how people and institutions in a certain area make economic,
political, social or cultural use of technological assets).
Bearing in mind the increasingly technical, scientific and informational milieu that urban
spaces have become, commentators may disagree or diverge about the nomenclature, but
are uniformly convinced about the principles that characterise the recombinant space.
This is where we should be paying more attention in order to redefine our attitudes,
methods and actions towards interventions in the public space.
68
Table 3.2 - Intelligent spaces. Source: adapted from Firmino (2000).
Intelligent Spaces
Spaces of Intelligent Usage (SIU) Spaces of Intelligent Production (SIP)
Physical Virtual Physical Virtual
- ATMs - ATMs interfaces - Science parks - University networks
- Information kiosks - Internet home banking - Universities - Private Intranets
- Cultural and leisure - Municipal networks - Research centres - Virtual enterprises
centres
Control is one of these characteristics, and an area of significant unanimity among

researchers of space. Cuff (2003) and Page and Phillips (2003) are in no doubt that we
live in increasingly controllable environments.
Pervasive and invisible technologies have made it possible to turn Bentham’s panopticon
(seeing without being seen) and Orwell’s big brother (controlled society) into potential
reality. The limits between what is public, what is private and where the semi-public
boundary is, have become blurred. Because of the development of these unnoticeable
technologies (ICTs), control ‘once held through straightforward spatial boundaries, has
become more subtle, uncertain, and fragmented’ (Page and Phillips, 2003: 2).
Cuff (2003), however, links control to choice and information as the principles
controlling the construction of today’s public spaces. She believes, on the other hand, that
more information made available to the public by architects, designers and planners could
give more choice and bargaining power to the people. This, in turn, could then enable the
giving back of certain levels of control over the public space.
Additionally, Page and Phillips (2003) are convinced that mobility and context are the
other characteristics to be related to control. We have never been so mobile, they argue;
commuting has become the great routine of our time. New technologies allowed us to
travel more in time and distances, again refusing the hypotheses of physical substitution
and replacement constantly raised by utopians. Consequently, our context – meaning the
social and spatial environment we are personally involved and affected by –has been
expanded and diversified by the increased ability to move more and faster.
There is little evidence pointing to the total consumption of the physical

by the virtual. Thus far, indications point to a hybridized reality where
the physical and virtual compete, complement, and splinter each other
[…] The rapid expansion of time-space as facilitated by our hyper-
69
mobility is clearly warping and displacing our sense of context. Today,

our contexts are highly customized and greatly expanded (Page and
Phillips, 2003: 3)
These characteristics or potential principles of recombinant spaces are influencing or

should influence our ability and capacity as architects, designers and planners to
understand, assess and intervene in the space as we seek to even up the balance between
commercial and civic interests (and also the boundaries between private and public
spaces) of the virtual city.
3.2.2.2 Redefining attitudes
Although it appears that planners and city-makers have lost control of urban space, it is
down to these professionals to understand this moment of spatial redefinition, and to
embody information, mobility, integration and other characteristics of the symbiotic and
recombinant space in strategies for the virtual city. Only this process of increasing
awareness would allow city-makers to consider what Horan (2000: 20) refers to as
recombinant landscape, or ‘a collage of settings which, properly designed, will advance
the symbiotic relations between people and technology’.
As we showed in Chapter 2, planners and city-makers are not specifically close to these
developments in terms of space, time and technology. It seems that there is a certain
incompatibility between the real ways in which space is evolving and being socially
constructed and the ways in which it is being understood and assessed by planners and
local authorities.
The power of ‘real city-makers’ once attributed to planners under the modernist
aspirations of the industrial city, is now shared by other professionals and forces. One
could say that planners have lost both power and interest as regards the factors that are
shaping the physical form of today’s cities. Other specialists, such as IT consultants,
demonstrate greater control of certain elements (e.g. telecommunications) which are
contributing to the reshaping of spaces and places.
The questions are: how much commitment or intimacy can be found between planners
and the technologies which are revolutionising spatial concepts? Are planning and
governance attitudes and methods capable of dealing with today’s ICT developments in
70
cities? How can the notions of a new symbiotic, recombinant and cybernetic space be
incorporated into planning and governances practices?
The neglect of the characteristics that make space a hybrid and cybernetic entity, as well
as its new principles and values such as mobility, control and information, may represent
a threat to what should be the basis for planners and local authorities’ practice: the current
use and shape of urban space. As Page and Phillips (2003: 5) put it:
We believe the city is absolutely being designed, controlled, engineered,

shaped, manipulated by more forces than we can count and in ways we
can barely understand […] We must acknowledge the city of multiple
views.
Possibilities and approaches that are not in any way related to the physical construction of
the space are constantly avoided by planners. The danger is exactly this of applying old
and traditional ways of dealing with a space that may be totally other than the one we
were used to. Why exactly does it matter in the end? Mitchell (1995: 5) has his own
answer:
It matters because the emerging civic structures and spatial

arrangements of the digital era will profoundly affect our access to
economic opportunities and public services, the character and content of
public discourse, the forms of cultural activity, the enaction of power,
and the experiences that give shape and texture to our daily routine.
3.2.3 Recombinant architecture, design and planning
Alternative ways of addressing the symbiotic forms of space are related to Mitchell’s
recombinant architecture. This concept can be restated as the attempt to acknowledge
different forms of interaction as part of the complex set of forces and actors that influence
the social construction of our cities. If understood as part of the same process, virtual and
physical cities can be dealt with according to integrated strategies that do not consider
telematics technologies as a different and separate issue to be delegated to technicians and
IT specialists.
Moreover, new strategies need also to overcome the overwhelming dominance of

economics in strategic planning, where local governments look for nothing but
competitive advantages for their communities in attracting inward investments. This
seems to be part of a powerful imperative where regeneration initiatives are strongly
71
influenced by economic ambitions. Monbiot (2001: 159) quotes an interesting example of

planners’ lack of control when facing economic competitiveness and government
intervention to protect business:
In November 1999 John Prescott [British Deputy Prime Minister]

announced that ‘for the first time the planning system will be required
to promote competition’. The government, the Department of the
Environment has announced, will ‘speed up’ planning process in
response to ‘business need’.
The complexity, invisibility and novelty of the symbiotic city need to be considered from
multiple perspectives. The city has a diverse number of agendas to fulfil, so flexible and
integrated planning strategies could be ‘shifting from the mindset of making space, to the
open process of multiple, strategic, or otherwise ephemeral interventions’ (Page and
Phillips, 2003: 12).
Mitchell’s City of Bits (1995) coined the expression ‘recombinant architecture’, and was
one of the first books to talk about a new architecture for new spaces involving telematics
technologies. Mitchell draws attention to the opportunities and possibilities of working
with symbiotic spaces. Although it is to some extent marked by an element of
technological determinism, Mitchell’s work represents an advance in the way we interpret
the interplay between physical and virtual elements of space.
The opportunities claimed by Mitchell to be within our reach are the ones related to the
design of public places. He talks about the electronic agora. This thesis goes even further,
arguing that, once combined, the forces of virtual and physical interaction and the
significance of public space, can generate powerful possibilities towards the reinvention
of the Greek agora – recombining physical and virtual cities. Mitchell (1995) defines
seven physical/virtual paradoxes as the parameters for the electronic agora, as follows:
1. Spatial/antispatial: virtual interactions are said to be antispatial, which means that

they eliminate geographical references. Although networks have a clearly defined
physical structure to work through, we can send an e-mail wherever we are to
wherever we want without revealing who and where we are. Networks can
reorganise physical elements.
2. Corporeal/incorporeal: just as all virtual relations have spatial/antispatial

contradictions, so with their corporeal/incorporeal characteristics, or even
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embodied/disembodied. The line between these two characteristics is imprecise if

we try, for instance, to identify someone through electronic ‘names’ or
‘addresses’.
3. Focused/fragmented: the fact that we can be personae without bodies when we are
online, deconstructs and fragments our own existence and perceptions of who we
really are physically and virtually: ‘How do we know who or what stands behind
the aliases and masks that present themselves? Can you always tell whether you
are dealing directly with real human beings or with their cleverly programmed
agents?’ (Mitchell, 1995: 14).
4. Synchronous/asynchronous: this contrast is important for helping us distinguish

between physical and virtual activities (especially communication). Accordingly,
these two different relations apply to contemporary urban space and activities. As
Mitchell (1995: 16) puts it, ‘in the familiar, spatial, synchronous style of city,
there is a time and a place for everything […] But now extrapolate to an entire
asynchronous city. Temporal rhythm turns to a white noise’.
5. Narrowband/broadband: bandwidth is a crucial aspect in determining social status

in the networked society. The wider our bandwidth, the easier it is to access any
particular place, and the bigger our benefit. Narrowband/broadband defines then a
hierarchy of connection power, which can be related to technological gaps in
terms of infrastructure between rich/poor and central/suburb of the city.
6. Voyeurism/engagement: this is based on the fact that with wider bandwidths and
more advanced processing and input/output devices, we will become inhabitants
and participants in cyberspace instead of mere spectators. The more engaged we
become, the more difficult it will be to distinguish physical and virtual realms.
7. Contiguous/connected: in cyberspace, two or more ‘people’ can occupy the same

space and share the same information. Contiguity therefore has different values in
virtual and physical space. It is a question of different rules and different
parameters. In terms of connectivity or access control, physical and virtual spaces
have almost the same sort of relationship. Many places in cyberspace are public
and uncontrolled but, as happens with physical places, there is controlled and
restricted access to electronic places too.
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Again, although Mitchell’s physical/virtual paradoxes seem rather confusing and

deterministic, they represent the contradictions inherent in the comparison between
physical and virtual spaces, and give us a hint of how they interplay. This is in fact a clue
to the dependence and complementarity between these two realities, which points us
towards recombinant design, architecture and planning as a proactive way of dealing with
the complexity of the relationship between ICTs and cities. As Page and Phillips (2003:
15) argue, spaces ‘that offer a co-presence of digital information and physical assets will
benefit far more than one-dimensional approaches that privilege one form of experience
explicitly over another’.
The built space will soon become the complex result of the symbiosis between bricks and
mortar and hardware and software components, as will be the interactions between people
and space and among people themselves. The concepts of space and architecture, and the
way we conceive and design these spaces, need to take into account what we have been
discussing throughout this chapter. For example, virtual versions of constructed places
and art could help the exploration and use of physical spaces.
3.2.3.1 Liquid and volatile spaces
Enjoying relative freedom from major material limitations, artists are usually better
equipped than architects, designers and planners for relating physical and virtual
experiences to one another. An interesting work of art and architecture that follows this
pattern is Lars Spuybroek’s intervention for the city of Doetinchem in the Netherlands,
called D-Tower (Figure 3.2), constructed between 1998 and 2003 (Cuff, 2003). During
these five years, a website surveyed participants’ emotions every month to transform their
sensations into an unstable and colourful tower in a public square. In this way, passers-by
would notice what the artist/architect supposed to be the mood of the city. As seen in
Chapter 2, Marcos Novak defines this phenomenon as ‘transarchitecture’ (Crang, 2000).
Another example of transarchitecture is Lars Spuybroek and Kas Oosterhuis’s Water

Pavilion (1993 to 1997), which embraces the idea that architecture, space and body are
becoming very close entities. The result is an environment where light, images, water and
sound are used in a coming together of sensations related to water. The experiences are
indirectly controlled by visitors – whose steps trigger the software that generates the
coordinated use of light, images, water and sound. This intervention was commissioned
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by the Dutch Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management to house an
exhibition about water called H2O Expo (Figures 3.3 and 3.4).
Figure 3.2 - D-Tower project in Doetinchem. Source: Vivid, 2001.
Figure 3.3 - H2O Expo under construction. Source: Archined, 1997.
Figure 3.4 - H2O Expo, ‘fresh water’. Source: Van der Heide, 2002.
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Perhaps more related to traditional architecture, and to technological developments that

have been shaping physical space for years, a further classic example is the evolution of
layouts for banks. ATMs and home banking have dramatically changed the size and
distribution of local branches. Banks are good examples of the architectural symbiosis
between virtual and physical elements of space, and also serve to illustrate new uses for
traditional places as well, as bigger scale impacts of ICTs (in the case of home baking,
affecting the redistribution of local and regional branches of some banks). However, they
are not as good to demonstrate how the concept of space itself can be redefined by this
symbiosis, as Lars Spuybroek’s interventions.
3.2.3.2 Bricks and mortar, bits and bytes: recombining elements of the space
According to Horan (2000), banks can be considered representative of a very particular

type of recombinant space (in fact called ‘types of design’ by Horan). Seen as a transitory
type between traditional and new cybernetic spaces, Horan argues that these are examples
of an ‘adaptive design’ in which traditional elements of construction and architecture are
adapted to accommodate new electronic equipments and activities.
Following the same idea, Lars Spuybroek’s D-Tower is an example of what Horan would
call ‘transformative spaces’, in which the influence of ICTs on the appearance,
construction and use of the space is much more extensive and more visible than in
adaptive designs.
Horan also talks about a third type of recombinant design, in which telematics
technologies do not produce major impacts in terms of appearance and construction.
These he calls ‘unplugged spaces’.
These three types of design for places are, according to Horan, representative of a type of
‘evolutionary line’ in which:
At one end of the digital place continuum are ‘unplugged’ designs that
manifest little or no digital technology in their appearance and
construction. Toward the middle of the continuum are various
‘adaptive’ designs, representing modest attempts to visibly incorporate
electronic features into physical spaces. Occupying the far end of the
spectrum are ‘transformative’ designs: room, buildings, or communities
composed of truly interfaced physical and electronic spaces. (Horan,
2000: 7)
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Horan’s classification of recombinant space (design) steers the discussion in the direction
of differentiation between traditional adapted spaces and completely new spaces where
the symbiosis would already affect the conceiving process, methods, construction and use
of places. In other words, Horan’s classification of spaces as unplugged, adaptive or
transformative, ultimately serves to verify the level of symbiosis between traditional
elements (bricks and mortar) and telematics elements (networks, bits and bytes).
This level of symbiosis or recombination draws our attention to the fact that this
classification tends to become increasingly blurred and irrelevant as ICTs increasingly
become a normal part of contemporary urban life.
This is also true if we consider the increasing number of mobile and wireless technologies
being developed. Mobility seems to diminish the importance of such recombinant spaces
and places. However, we should not forget that even mobile and wireless technologies
depend on a certain degree of physicality. The physical support (infrastructure and
threshold environments) for virtuality (in this case mobility), would then be also related to
recombinant spaces.
The way our public places are conceived and constructed, both virtually and physically, is
a key issue for problems of access, democratic design, governance, life style, and the
interplay between virtual and physical spaces. Stressing that virtual spaces should
function as additions to traditional use of spaces rather than replacing them, Mitchell
highlights some interesting questions about the nature of these recombinant public places:
Who will pay for them, who will control them, and who will have
access to them? Will they be universally accessible public property, like
the streets of a city? Will they be commercially operated pseudo-public
places, like malls and Disneylands? Or will they be like private clubs,
which the electronic equivalents of velvet ropes and beady-eyed
bouncers? (Mitchell, 2000: 86)
It is widely accepted that we still need assembly places, face-to-face communications and
a physical dimension to our lives, but these public interactions can now be augmented by
digital technologies. The public space still exists, but perhaps with a different meaning
and architectural style.
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Transformation of space has been an inherent part of urban history. Now, though,
transformation is not the only factor, as there is the possibility of an augmented public
place which is not limited to the physical/material dimension.
3.2.3.3 Grounding recombinant ideas of architecture, design and planning
In Digital Places: Building our City of Bits, Horan (2000) draws an analytical framework
and proposals for grounding Mitchell’s ideas of a recombinant
architecture/design/planning. He justifies his intentions of bringing recombinant ideas to
the place-making process by saying:
Building in this notion on how technology facilitates the fragmentation

and recombination of places, my aim is to analyze digital placemaking
in homes, workplaces, libraries, schools, communities, and cities.
(Horan, 2000: 06)
Grounding the recombinant concept is a multidisciplinary task which involves improving

social actors’ awareness of the symbiosis between digital and physical spaces as well as
the direct and indirect consequences for every aspect of their normal daily lives (citizens,
politicians, developers, governments, officers, civil servants, architects, planners,
technicians, the private sector, depending on the specifics of each local strategic urban-
technological development process).
To try and create the right environment for a more aware and conscious development,
Horan (2000) analyses recombinant architecture/design/planning at local, community and
regional levels according to four different strands: fluid locations, meaningful places,
threshold connections and democratic designs. The first strand refers to the need for new
strategies capable of understanding and dealing with the spatial fluidity. This is directly
related to Castells’s concept of space of flows (Castells, 1989) and is, in fact, calling our
attention to the necessity of taking these spaces into consideration. ‘Fluid locations’ also
relate to new architectural typologies for building and places.
Regarding meaningful places, identity is said to be a crucial player in the process of

designing digital places which, according to Horan, must ‘respect functional and
symbolic associations that places often contain’ (Horan, 2000: 15-6). The challenge here
seems to be the one of bridging the gap between the specific and unique characteristics of
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certain physical public places and digital design: digital places must also contain what
makes physical places unique, the sense of place.
Thirdly, threshold connections are related to issues about the nature of the relationship
between physical and virtual spaces. For Horan, there are two dimensions to this
relationship in terms of design: virtual aesthetic in the physical environment, and what he
calls the ‘interspace’ between physical and virtual places.
Finally, democratic design, as the name itself reveals, refers to the ways by which digital
places are designed. In order to create a sense of place or community (and consequently
meaningful places) design must address and be controlled by those who will really use it.
Objectivity, participation and access are keywords here. By considering the pervasive and
melting nature of ICTs, and consequently paying attention to the concept of
‘recombination’ we can grasp the fundamental idea that digital places are emerging and
evolving to reinforce our physical relations rather than replace them.
There is no doubt that digital technologies will have an impact on our

social and community relations, but how well they integrate with these
relations will depend on how well we build our city of bits. (Horan,
2000: 132-3)
Interestingly, Page and Phillips (2003: 10-2) list a number of examples which they call
‘acts of urbanism’ that capitalize on the hybridization of digital and physical space, and
that we argue are informal applications of recombinant architecture/design/planning.
As only one of many examples, a public art project called ‘welcome to America’s finest
tourist plantation’ in San Diego (USA), took the theme of illegal immigration and the
local authorities’ policies on this issue.3 The aim was to spread critical interventions
across many parts of the city through photo-montages in highly visual places.
According to Page and Phillips, these actions ‘incited intense debate about the problem
and attracted national attention’ (Page and Philips, 2003: 10-2). This simple example
shows how a combination of community actions and digital technologies can affect
policy-making. Other social actors could of course also have been mobilised and called in
to participate.
3
This project can be followed at http://crca.ucsd.edu/~esisco/bus.
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Improved and more coordinated projects of this nature, using even more artefacts,
instruments and technologies, spread to other important local issues, and involving a
wider variety of social actors could be linked to the points raised by Horan (2000).
In this way, considering different aspects of recombinant development (fluid locations,

meaningful places, threshold connections and democratic designs) would involve
integration in a more comprehensive urban-technological strategy for cities.
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3.3 WHAT IS THE VIRTUAL CITY FOR THIS STUDY?
As the previous section indicated, although ‘virtual city’ can have an almost infinite
number of interpretations, it is assumed for the purposes of this study that a virtual city
means the combination of elements directly related to ICTs, in terms of their relations
with cities. These are, in turn, intrinsically connected to the ‘traditional’ city through what
has been called symbiotic/recombinant/cybernetic urbanisation.
For this research, a virtual city is neither a portal/website on the Internet, nor does it
represent the contemporary city as a whole. It can be said to be something in between.
The contemporary organisation of urban spaces includes the virtual cities, but it is not
limited to them. The result is a ‘hybrid’ city (Castells’s informational city), in which new
and traditional elements coexist in a complex interaction of flows (space of flows),
electronic and physical spaces (see Figure 3.1, p.65).
So, according to this distinction, a virtual city is not exclusively made of electronic or
immaterial elements.
In this section, I will discuss the elements of the virtual city, including its material
aspects. A virtual city seems to have also a necessary ‘layer’ of materiality which
connects it to the physical environment and gives it a physical support.
Based on the need for a more precise definition for virtual cities, and drawing on the
relevant literature, I propose a typology based on a separation of major elements. What is
paramount here is to discover what these elements are, and to structure them according to
an integrated model capable of representing a generalisation for the typology of virtual
cities. In this model, the parts constitute relatively independent elements that interplay
with each other.
Such flexibility would allow these elements to be different depending on the context of
historical, social and economic arrangements of the space. The result is a number of
combinations of distinct virtual cities. Thus, the virtual city of Manchester (UK) can and
will be completely different from the virtual city of São Paulo (Brazil), although they are
still made of the same categories of elements as we will describe.
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The next sub-section draws empirical and theoretical research by various commentators
to argue that the virtual city can be seen and analysed according to three major
independent components (Figure 3.5):
Figure 3.5 - A comprehensive typology for virtual cities.
First, there are the people and/or institutions (users) involved with the deployment and
use of ICTs in cities (or ‘relevant social groups’, according to SCOT). The way the virtual
city is shaped to attend to these users’ needs is heavily influenced by the type of interests
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(private and/or public) that governments and private institutions use to define cities’
urban-technological strategies.
Secondly, virtual representations in cyberspace are the flagship of virtual cities. These
representations can assume different forms and use several kinds of technologies. The
most well-known examples are public, private and NGOs websites, which can in some
way serve to represent a city or region. Three dimensional virtual reality models, which
reproduce the physical shape of certain urban territories as computer-generated
environments, are also an emblematic of how cities can be represented in cyberspace.
Intranets (particularly governmental Intranets) are also part of the digital dimension of
virtual cities. It is reasonable to argue that the majority of efforts to define the concept of
virtual city, in the literature, have been dominated by these fascinating aspects of virtual
representations.
Finally, we also take physical spaces and the infrastructure of ICTs into account. Due to
certain misconceptions around what ‘real’, ‘virtual’, ‘digital’, and ‘physical’ might be,
there has been a neglect of physical spaces in discourses about the virtual or digital city.
‘Real’ is normally associated with ‘physical’ and, in turn, assumed to be the opposite of
‘virtual’. Indeed, as we assume, even virtual cities depend on a certain materiality for
their existence. Their constitution is concurrently dependent on material and physical
spaces and structures and, therefore, might be organised in many different ways
(according to distinct historical contexts).
The challenge of this multifaceted view of the virtual city is to find the answers for
questions like: what types of community, private and public interests are shaping the
virtual cities? What kind of virtual cities are being built? What are the physical references
for virtual cities? And most importantly, how are all these elements put together to form a
comprehensive concept of virtual cities that goes beyond purely technical and web-
centred explanations?
3.3.1 Who is involved?
Although the reality of the construction of the elements which constitute the virtual city is
part of a very complex range of social, cultural, economic and political processes, it is
important to recognise the general lines of such elements.
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While shaped by numerous and sometimes divergent interpretations and visions, major
contrasting interests seem to have a crucial role in determining the shape of a virtual city.
At the same time, different layers of social extracts (people and/or institutions) are
involved with the implementation, use and effects of ICTs in cities.
Regarding the interests that are shaping virtual cities, it seems that most of the websites
referring to cities, as well as infrastructure plans, access-points, etc., tend to follow two
different directions (not necessarily one at a time). First, when there are non-profit
organisations or governmental institutions running the main elements of the virtual city, it
is more likely to assume a public configuration, which is therefore driven by public
interests.
On the other hand, when those elements are shaped according to the market in an attempt
to make any sort of profit out of it, then the virtual city assumes a marketing
configuration driven by private interests.
It is worth reminding ourselves that ‘virtual cities’ here refers to the conjunct of ICT
developments in cities, and not to a single initiative or project. Consequently, private and
public interests seem likely to influence the strategies governing the implementation of
any given urban-technological development.
The idea of such urban-technological strategies combines ICT policies with traditional
urban planning and city administration, while trying to even up the balance between
private and public interests. This idea can be related to variations of Mitchell’s
recombinant architecture such as ‘recombinant planning’ or recombinant administration.
In reality, though, planners and city makers seem mostly unaware of the possibilities for a
recombinant approach of cities and virtual cities altogether. There are just a few cases in
which a virtual city is seen as an important instrument helping the public administration
to deal with better the physical reality (see Aurigi, 2000 for a European perspective, and
Peeters, 2000 for the specific case of Antwerp).
With regard to the layering of groups of people and/or institutions, they relate to one
another and to ICTs to different degrees (of access, use and dependence on technology),
usually depending on their financial status. These differences, according to social and
economic position in society, are commonly seen in relation to two major scenarios.
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Following a utopian perspective, cities in cyberspace are seen as a strong opportunity for
the empowerment of public places, and as a ‘new public realm’. In this sense, virtual
communities on the Internet ‘are seen to be safe, inclusionary and space-transcending’
(Graham and Aurigi, 1997: 33).
On the other hand, and from the perspective of public participation, the virtual city
phenomenon is also seen as even more excluding than the twentieth century industrial
city. For Robins (1999), the city is itself a spatialisation of capitalist inequalities and
exclusions, and ICTs only tend to make these problems more acute.
In this sense, due to the fact telematics technologies are highly commodified, the virtual
city is said to be a very selective one. Graham (2001) warns us that information and
communication technologies are increasingly being used for the construction of socially
differentiated consumption practices and, as a result, creating highly polarised societies.
Building on this idea of a polarised networked society, Graham and Aurigi (1997) point
to three main layers of groups ‘within the emerging urban social architecture of the
cyberspace’. The first group is mainly made of those who are controlling the production
of ICTs and more directly operating the global economy.
They are an elite group with complete access to new telematics technologies. This group
is often made of executives linked to market and commercial forces. People in this group
have access to the most sophisticated innovations and, usually, depend very much on
technology.
They are what Dordick, Bradley and Narris (1988, quoted in Graham and Aurigi, 1997)
call information users because of their proactive attitude towards new ICT devices and
implementations. Figure 3.6 shows the typical and ‘basic’ infrastructure for the
information users.
The second group acts rather as if it was the middle class of the information society. It is
usually formed by wage earners and people more recognised by their curiosity and
passive consumption. They are called information used (Dordick, Bradley and Narris,
1988 quoted in Graham and Aurigi, 1997), because of their passive attitude towards
technological innovations.
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Figure 3.6 - High-speed optical network in a planned gated community in Las Vegas (USA). Source:
Newsweek, 1999.
On the Internet, they are often guided by ‘press now to purchase’ buttons. Figure 3.7
shows a typical advertisement made to explore the commercial potential inherent to this
‘ICTs middle class’.
Figure 3.7 - Attracting passive consumers. Source: Newsweek, 1999.
The third group can hardly be defined as users, simply because they are very unlikely to
have access to the telecommunication or information apparatus. Sometimes called
‘unplugged’, they are in fact part of a non-plugged population; most of them living in
poverty, where telephones, modems, and Internet are still part of a Sci-fi story. Thrift
(1995) refers to the places where this excluded and marginalised group lives as
‘information ghettoes’ (Figure 3.8). These are normally the last places to be reached by
ICTs.
This divided structure shows along very general lines how society is being affected by
ICTs, and what the population of virtual cities is likely to be. Thus, the way city-makers
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deal with ICTs and build their virtual cities in terms of interests and goals – meaning how
they articulate the local strategies for technological development – determines how rigid
or flexible will be the social division of its population.
Figure 3.8 - Information ghettoes: Xalapa (Mexico). Photo: Mauricio H. Bonilla.
These three groups normally organise themselves according to their political and social
roles, as relevant social groups, in the process of social construction of virtual cities (as
citizens, politicians, officers, civil servants, companies, institutions, NGOs and so on).
The extent of access to the virtual city, and the way the content is made available for its
population, are very complex issues in terms of planning, social, political, and economic
strategies.
3.3.2 Immateriality/virtuality
Another important aspect to consider about the typology for virtual cities, and one which
receives far more attention than others, is the design of the city in cyberspace. In general,
this is restricted to types of websites on the Internet and the sort of data and tools that can
be accessed online. In this case, urban metaphors are commonly used to identify virtual
cities, regardless of their origin and ultimate targets (government websites, institutions,
agencies, commercial websites, and so on). The reason for a metaphorical approach is
either because it literally represents a real physical locality, or because the intention is to
make the interface and navigation on the website friendlier (as we tend to easily recognise
urban icons as reference points).
Besides, there is also the importance of Intranet systems as part of the virtual
representations of the city. The construction of urban Intranets, especially public ones, is
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a growing aspect of virtual cities as it represents a space where huge amounts of

information (usually information relevant for the public administration) are exchanged
every minute.
Thus, different public departments talking to each other and using information and
applications through a city’s internal network are also one type of virtual manifestation to
be taken into account as part of the overall virtual cities phenomenon.
These internal networks can either be a single public Intranet connecting different
departments and public institutions, or made of independent public and private Intranets.
They often contain databases for the public services, as well as applications commonly
used by different departments and/or institutions such as for instance, Geographic
Information Systems (GIS). The contents of an urban Intranet are usually exclusive to
civil servants, and are unlikely to become fully available for public access. In sum,
elements such as urban Intranets cannot be ignored, though cities’ websites on the
Internet are a far bigger and more visible aspect, deserving perhaps more attention and a
more precise definition.
There have been many attempts to identify different types of design for virtual cities on
the Internet in terms of contents and structure (for different views about the virtual city in
cyberspace see Aurigi and Graham, 2000; Ishida and Isbister, 2000; Dodge, Smith and
Doyle, 1997; Van den Besselaar, Melis and Beckers, 2000; Batty and Smith, 2000; and
Lobet-Maris and Van Bastelaer, 2000).
Commentators on cities in cyberspace agree, though, about at least one main division of
two types of virtual cities on the web, which is according to their relation to a real
physical locality. Aurigi and Graham (2000) classify these two broader types of initiatives
(especially in Europe) as non-grounded and grounded virtual cities.
The former simply uses the urban metaphor, as mentioned before, to name the website
adopting the urban reference. This is said to make for easier navigation and a more
recognisable interface. It is usually done to improve information for users and to put
together a range of online facilities (commercial or not). Most importantly, it is done
without any relation to a specific physical city or region.
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Most of these initiatives are directed towards the creation of a virtual community based
on common interests (Figure 3.9). This is known as community of interests (Horan,
2000), as opposed to the idea of a community of place, necessarily linked to a physical
location. Communities of interest transcend specific locations. People form such
communities around a common interest, such as politics or art or parenting issues. The
distinguishing feature of such communities is that they do not require a physical location
to exist (Horan, 2000: 62).
Figure 3.9 - Cybertown, a classic example of a non-grounded virtual city. Source: Cybertown, 1995.
On the other hand, the grounded virtual city is directly linked to a particular physical
location. In this case a city or region usually gives its name to the website, which
becomes a representative of the physical place in cyberspace (Figure 3.10). It is common
to see grounded cities on the Internet like Virtual Manchester, Digital City Amsterdam,
Digital City Bristol, and Lewisham Online, just to name a few.
According to Aurigi and Graham (2000), virtual cities on the web can still be
distinguished by their content and the way they are available online. Beyond being
grounded or non-grounded, the virtual design can also be defined according to its
provision of information and participation.
Therefore, some informative websites can work as ‘advertising and promotional space,
with little or no useful information for residents’ (Graham and Aurigi, 1997: 36).
Meanwhile a participative virtual design can offer ‘civic services providing public
electronic spaces supporting political and social discourses about the city itself’ (Graham
and Aurigi, 1997: 36).
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Figure 3.10 - Iperbole Bologna as an authentic grounded virtual city. Source: Iperbole, 1995.
In this way, different types of informative, participative or holistic virtual cities on the
web – the latter providing both information and participation – can be defined according
to a few characteristics: the relevance of the information provided online; whether single
or dual ways of communication are available; or even whether this communication is
synchronous or asynchronous. According to Aurigi and Graham (2000) websites which
predominantly provide information are called ‘information desks’. These could also be
divided into ‘tourists’/investors’ kiosks’ if a non-grounded initiatives, or ‘civic databases’
for grounded initiatives. Accordingly, ‘electronic place’ is the name for websites open for
participation, while ‘cyber mall’ is a non-grounded participative website and
‘cybersquare’ a grounded participative initiative.
Finally, the two previous groups (information desk and electronic place) are embodied in
a third type called ‘holistic-urban analogy’, involving higher levels of information and
participation at the same time. A non-grounded holistic website is called ‘global
cybercity’ while the grounded informative/participative initiative is positively seen as a
‘holistic virtual city’.
Decisions about the provision of information and/or communication through websites and
portals are crucial to defining what type of political impact these tools will have as
reflected on the ground in the cities. According to Dutton and Guthrie (1991: 280), ‘the
political impact of a public information utility will vary depending upon whether the
designers choose to make their system a one-way, broadcast system or a two-way,
interactive technology’.
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There are other slightly different classifications for virtual cities on the Internet. In
Development Models for Virtual Cities, for instance, Lobet-Maris and Bastelaer (2000)
suggest another way of naming and defining the design for virtual cities on the web.
According to them, two sorts of people can be related to the virtual cities phenomenon,
namely actors in the public sphere (public administration, citizens, associations and
voluntary bodies), and the private sector. They also talk about grounded and non-
grounded virtual cities.
Lobet-Maris and Bastelaer also take into account features like whether the virtual city
design is more suitable for real inhabitants or for any Internet user, as well as problems
with access, the sort of metaphor the virtual city is making use of, and its content and
services.
According to the levels of information and participation provided, together with the
control exercised by the designers or administrators of the websites, they established what
they called ‘three development models: the blueprint model, the experimental model and,
lastly, the open model’ (Lobet-Maris and Van Bastelaer, 2000: 61).
Although other efforts also have a recognised importance in defining types of virtual
cities in cyberspace, Aurigi and Graham’s model seems more appropriate to the typology
which is being developed here, due to its emphasis on the contents and structure of the
websites.
The other aspects considered by commentators that are taken into account here are not
limited to web initiatives. Thus, Aurigi and Graham’s model is used to define what I refer
to as virtual representations of virtual cities.
3.3.3 Materiality/physicality
Physical spaces are very often ignored when the main issue is the virtual cities
phenomenon. This is due to the fact that, as generally perceived, ‘virtual’ seems to have
nothing to do with ‘physical’. However, if this is true, how is a virtual environment built
with no material means? Is not there an infrastructure which supports such ‘spaces’? In
terms of public places, where do people go if they wish to dive into the virtual world? Are
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not the very traditional places affected (e.g. in terms of layout) in order to accommodate
ICTs?
In fact, physical spaces and places are a relevant part of the virtual city. Any digital-based
initiative depends on physicality very extensively for its existence, for the simple reason
that there can be no telematics without all the invisible but physical infrastructure of
cables and satellites. As Graham argues:
We need to consider the diverse, and interlinked, physical

infrastructures of information technologies (cable, public switched
telephone networks, satellite, mobile, microwave, Internet grids,
transoceanic optic fibres, etc.), and how they support the vast panoply
of contingent actor-network. (Graham, 2001: 178)
But, apart from infrastructure, how have space and public places been affected by ICTs?
What exactly is this physical dimension of the virtual city? The earlier section on urban
cybernetics and symbiosis (Section 3.2.2) has given us one clue, and Horan’s idea of a
recombinant classification for places in the virtual city (Section 3.2.3) provides another.
Thus, physical places interplay with electronic spaces in very specific ways. In other
words, the phenomenon of virtual cities has also been promoting changes in urban
physical space.
Some changes are related to the creation of ‘access-points’ to the electronic world.
Traditional public spaces and/or public buildings (e.g. libraries) are being re-designed to
provide access and to serve as a gateway to cyberspace, a reformulation that requires
physical, organisational and behavioural changes of space and its use. This means that the
impact of ICTs on physicalities is relevant not only to layout and design, but also to the
way we use and think through spatial arrangements. As we saw in Chapter 2, it also has to
do with our many interpretations of this relation between space and technology too.
Another possibility in terms of physical changes is the emergence of a completely new

space where technologies operate and are accommodated seamlessly alongside traditional
material elements. The very conception behind such spaces seems to be different. In this
case, ICTs play a part in the functioning of space (see Section 3.2.3 about urban
cybernetics and symbiosis).
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Bearing in mind these possibilities, one of the most important aspects of a virtual city is
how digital and physical places relate to each other, or how a ‘bridge’ can be formed
between these two parallel worlds in terms of access, usage, architecture, planning and so
on. Moving back to this study’s notion of virtual cities, we could ask: what are the
physical places directly related to the virtual city? How do these spaces, in turn, relate to
the traditional city and combine with the other elements to compose the actual hybrid
city?
This takes us back to the concept of recombinant architecture to explain why and how
physical spaces have been changed or created in order to incorporate ICTs. As Horan
(2000: 13) points out, ‘the concept of recombinant design focuses attention on how digital
technology can be incorporated into this complicated yet important place-making
process’.
In the following sub-sections, we therefore revisit each one of the three recombinant
space concepts developed by Horan (Section 3.2.3), in order to pinpoint those places most
directly related to the virtual cities phenomenon, referred to here as the physical
dimension of virtual cities. In these sub-sections, a more detailed account of these
concepts will be given, together with some examples and a further sub-classification, as
seen in Figure 3.5 (p.82).
3.3.3.1 Recombinant unplugged spaces: what virtual cities phenomenon?
Horan calls ‘unplugged’ those places that are apart from the digital revolution. While
Horan defines ‘unplugged’ as a design choice – or as places where physical forms of
interaction do not depend on the electronic elements of the space – I propose that non-
affluent places also be considered as a type of unplugged space. These are spaces
deficient in telematics deployment, usually having, at the most, a telephone line. Perhaps
a more suitable name would be non-plugged spaces as most of them are excluded even
from the basic telematics infrastructure (being close, as referred to earlier in Section 3.3.1,
to Thrift’s (1995) idea of ‘information ghettoes’).
Again, although Horan does not attempt to link this type of design to a lack of market
interest and deficient public policies, there is an evident relationship between non-
plugged population and non-plugged (or unplugged) places. In this way, non-plugged is a
common reference to poor suburbs in cities, the so-called ‘last mile’.
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A common way of tackling access problems via public initiatives is the provision of
infrastructure directly for unplugged places. Such simple ‘technical’ actions usually
disregard the fact that the problem of access is not limited to physical access, but is linked
to a series of social and cultural conditions (such as education) that remove people from
ICT literacy.
There is a natural tendency pointing to a decreasing number of non-plugged places, as

ICTs become common and part of the basic infrastructure, such as water and sewerage
facilities, a process that repeats what happened in the past with the introduction of
television or the telephone. This is not to say that less affluent sections of the population
will have equal opportunities with regard to access to information technology, as this
tends to be highly economic selective (see Chapter 2 above).
3.3.3.2 Recombinant adaptive spaces: unblended designs
Horan calls ‘adaptive’, traditional existent spaces refurbished and adapted to shelter and
use new telematics technologies such as libraries, schools, city halls etc. The library
(Figure 3.11) is a strong example of recombinant adaptive design attempting to reach a
community profile. Many libraries around the world have become places where
communities of places and communities of interests coexist by linking physical and
electronic spaces.
Adaptive spaces are seen by city-makers as a natural first step in tackling problems of
access to telematics technologies. Places like libraries, schools, city halls etc., are already
public spaces, and therefore provide an obvious link to public access.
Since adaptive spaces are usually existent places that need to be technically, logistically
and architecturally adapted, they are also the most common places from which virtual
cities are physically accessed.
According to Horan, one important distinction to be made when discussing adaptive

designs concerns the appearance and construction of adaptive places (Figure 3.11). He
states that these places,
Have been modestly altered to incorporate some level of technology,

but which retain their original organization and atmosphere. (Horan,
2000: 8)
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Figure 3.11 - Recombinant adaptive design for libraries. Photo: Fuad Al-Ansari.
Thus, the easiest way to find information about cities alongside access to services and
communication channels provided via Intranets is through public spaces such as city
libraries or local schools, or even through community services located at civic centres and
city halls.
On the Internet, most grounded virtual city initiatives are using, at least, city libraries as
their main public gateway to the physical city. Schools, for their educational role, have
also a huge potential for providing access to and disseminating the use of virtual cities as
extensions of the physical city.
Drawing on Horan’s adaptive space, there are yet two other classifications useful for
assessing the level of penetration of ICTs into traditional architecture and practices (or the
level of integration between these two elements of the space): partially integrated and
totally integrated adaptive spaces.
There will be cases in which ICTs are more or less apparent within traditional layouts and
architecture. Bearing in mind the example of libraries, there are cases in which the
architecture and traditional activities in the library on the one hand, and Internet use on
the other are easily recognised and distinguished from each other. This might happen in
cases where networks (Internet or Intranets) are somehow physically isolated from
traditional activities. There may be, for instance, a booth (Figure 3.12) separating external
network activities and traditional internal library activities. These then, could be called
partially integrated adaptive space.
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On the other hand, there are cases where ICTs are more integrated with the rest of the
space in terms of architecture, logistic, activities and functions. Therefore, these could be
called totally integrated adaptive spaces where, usually, both sorts of activities and
elements (traditional and electronic-related) are disseminated through the building and,
consequently, more difficult to be differentiated (Figure 3.13) – making the level of
recombination (or symbiosis) higher.
Figure 3.12 - Booths as an isolating architecture element. Source: Lasipalatsi, 1999.
Figure 3.13 - Shelves and networks as integrated activities. Photo: Fuad Al-Ansari.
Following the main characteristics of Horan’s concepts of adaptive design, and of a

continuum (or evolutionary line) of digital places, it is reasonable to say that partially
integrated spaces are closer to unplugged ones at the early stages of adaptive designs.
Meanwhile, totally integrated spaces would represent the most developed cases of
adaptive design in terms of appearance and construction towards the third type, namely
transformative spaces.
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3.3.3.3 Recombinant transformative spaces: seamless combinations
Following Horan’s continuum of digital places, what would then, be the type of design at
the front line of combination and re-combination between virtual and physical worlds? In
short, what are transformative spaces?
Perhaps the most interesting way to explain Horan’s transformative designs, regarding the
physical dimension of virtual cities, is by linking it to Marcos Novak’s transarchitecture
(Chapter 2). The symbiotic nature of such a concept, which supposedly connects the
‘liquid architecture’ of cyberspace with the material elements of the physical world, is the
key characteristic of transformative spaces. Again, the works of Lars Spuybroek are good
examples of places that bear such characteristics (Figure 3.2, p.75; Figure 3.3 and Figure
3.4, p.75), places that:
Interweave electronic and physical components specifically in response

to ongoing and emerging social interests and market demands for a
more unified physical and electronic interface. (Horan, 2000: 9)
Other, not-so-radical kinds of transformative spaces can also be found. From small
access-points at street level to civic centres providing all kinds of information and
services, these spaces are usually new in terms of technology, architectural programme
and function.
Among the options for places conceived to act as this new public gateway, street kiosks
(Figure 3.14) with multimedia information and services are the most common examples.
They are usually small, easy-to-set, and easily recognised; they therefore represent
another kind of urban equipment on the streets. Their designers’ attempts to create an
entry point for cyberspace at street level often make use of innovative designs, and it is
this that qualifies such places as transformative.
Bearing in mind the above two levels of complexity among the cases of transformative
space (first the extremely innovative examples of transarchitecture, and secondly the
more ordinary cases of access-points), it is also possible to look at Horan’s transformative
spaces in a more detailed way. Considering the depth of interaction between physical and
virtual (or even between traditional and electronic) elements and their complexity in
terms of architecture and urban design, transformative spaces can be divided into access-
points and deep gateways.
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Figure 3.14 - Street level public gateways. Source: Cooper Union, 1996.
The former refers to places underdeveloped in terms of building space and architectural
resources. Although they form a new kind of public space (usually embedded with the
newest telecommunication technologies), access-points are commonly described simply
as another kind of urban equipment (such as benches, telephone booths, postal boxes,
etc.).
Telephone booths with Internet access, multimedia kiosks, and information pillars are the
most common examples of access-points (Figure 3.14). In terms of the continuum of
digital places, these access-points represent a very common kind of initiative, and would
be closer to the border between transformative and adaptive spaces.
On the other hand, deep gateways are relatively scarce due to their novelty and
complexity.
As mentioned above, examples of transarchitecture and liquid architecture are very close
to what we are describing as recombinant transformative deep gateways. Their hybrid,
seamless character puts these places at the very front line of Horan’s continuum of digital
places.
Another interesting example of transformative deep gateways comes from the Mexican
artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, whose works also assume an augmented notion of Novak’s
transarchitecture: transurbanism (Brower and Mulder, 2002).
In one of his most celebrated works, Vectorial Elevation, Lozano-Hemmer arranged

several searchlights on the top of buildings surrounding the Zocalo Square in Mexico
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City. For about 10 days in 1999/2000, people were able to configure a design through the
Internet, for the beams of the robotic lights to change every 6 seconds. The result was a
vivid dance of lights which could be seen from as far as 15 kilometres (Figure 3.15).
Since then, he has repeated this installation in Spain (2002), France (2003), and Republic
of Ireland (2004).
Figure 3.15 - Vectorial elevation. Source: Lozano-Hemmer, 1999.
Considering all the types of recombinant spaces that, together with ICTs’ infrastructures,
represent the physical dimension of virtual cities, we may be able to illustrate Horan’s
continuum for digital places. Figure 3.16 shows how this evolutionary line would look,
expanded with the new sub-categories of adaptive and transformative spaces.
Figure 3.16 - The continuum of digital places.
Public initiatives involving transformative spaces are particularly interesting from the
planning point of view as these spaces represent a powerful new tool for boosting
information and service delivery and to serve as a gateway to the virtual city.
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However, it seems that only few initiatives recognise this great potential of virtual cities
and proactively approach new urban strategies for ICTs and physical spaces within the
urban realm.
The questions are: are local authorities and planners aware of these new possibilities for
spatial design? Are these options being considered in the processes of policy-making for
the virtual and physical cities? The rest of this study sets to provide ways for us to address
these questions.
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3.4 CONCLUSIONS
What is the virtual city? This simple question has motivated this project from the outset.
Finding one of the possible answers implied dealing with the issues raised by Chapters 2
and 3:
♦ The blurriness of the relations between cities and telematics (partially explained
by SCOT).
♦ Recombinant spaces and the cybernetic urbanisation.
♦ And a model or typology for virtual cities.
This theoretical tripod supports the whole research into the way public bodies (mainly
local authorities) deal with initiatives related to ICTs. The core of this project has been
the use of this three-fold theory and real European experiences to map out the dilemmas
involved in integrating traditional urban policy-making and ICT policy-making into what
have been called urban-technological strategies.
At this point, it may be worth drawing out some issues from the discussion so far for
consideration in further studies of the phenomenon of virtual cities.
From the theoretical point of view, the concept of virtual cities has been integrated into
other notions of space, time and technology to define them as part of a complex
modernisation of urban space. The result is an ongoing dynamic actualisation of what has
been called the hybrid city, in line with the ideas of cybernetic and symbiotic
urbanisation.
The virtual city, together with the traditional elements of the city, the space of flows, and
the forces and designs which integrate physical and virtual components of the space,
forms one part of the entirety of contemporary urban space. The shape of this virtual city
depends on the three elements discussed in the last part of the chapter, namely: users (or
social groups) and interests; virtual representations; and the physical dimension.
In conclusion, Chapter 3 addresses possible ways in which local authorities may deal with
the problems and dilemmas raised in Chapter 2, showing how the outcomes of these
dilemmas are currently being translated into initiatives and strategies which try and
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integrate physical places, electronic spaces, in line with the new concepts of recombinant
spaces, symbiotic urbanisation and virtual cities.
In other words, the main focus so far has been on the social and political processes that
have led to the present shape of virtual cities, in terms of public policies, initiatives and
strategies. While acknowledging that the interactions summarised in this chapter
contribute to the formation of the actual informational (or hybrid) city, the scope of this
study is focused on the efforts to ‘build’ part of this city: the processes involved on the
construction of the virtual city. The following chapters then concentrate on the analyses
and discussions of such processes from the point-of-view of local authorities.
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CHAPTER 4 - METHODOLOGY: DESIGNING AN EXPLORATORY
RESEARCH
4.1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................104

4.2 DEFINING THE BOUNDARIES OF THE STUDIES: THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND
PROPOSITIONS....................................................................................................................................107
4.2.1 Research propositions: focusing the research questions..............................................................109
4.3 RESEARCH STRATEGY: A TWO-FOLD LINK BETWEEN THEORY AND EVIDENCE ............114
4.3.1 Issues in exploratory cross-national research ..............................................................................115
4.4 A STRATEGY FOR THE EXPLORATORY TYPOLOGICAL STUDY .............................................118
4.4.1 Sampling from European cities: the TeleCities network.............................................................118
4.4.2 The design of the Study................................................................................................................120
4.5 THE CASE STUDY STRATEGY...........................................................................................................127
4.5.1 The choice of a case study strategy..............................................................................................127
4.5.2 Designing and developing the case study strategy ......................................................................128
4.5.3 The role of research propositions, case study questions and the sources of evidence................131
4.5.4 Constructing the case study narrative and comparative analysis ................................................135
4.6 CONCLUSIONS ......................................................................................................................................139
Rodrigo J. Firmino Chapter 4 - Designing an exploratory research
4.1 INTRODUCTION
The aim of this chapter is to describe the exact procedures undertaken to create the
conditions for moving from the comfortable position of discussing theory to the more
difficult task of observing reality through the lenses of such a theoretical exercise. A
crucial moment in any academic research, the verification of theoretical propositions
through the findings of real cases needs to follow a solid but flexible range of planned
actions in order to produce satisfactory results. This chapter thus draws out key themes
from the theories reviewed in previous chapters in order to build a ‘bridge’ between
analytical creativity and reality. This will allow us to go back and forward while
constantly reviewing the theory and analysing real data before finally offering some
concrete propositions.
The previous chapters have established a theoretical framework which is basically

sustained by the three strands. First, SCOT was suggested as a major theory to help us
articulate possible dilemmas posed to local authorities who are trying to develop urban-
technological strategies. This was an outcome of the broad review of the phenomena
involved with the development of ICTs and their relations with urban issues. After
demonstrating a simultaneous complexity and vagueness surrounding ICTs, one of the
main questions raised was: how can local authorities and planners successfully
incorporate different visions from different social groups about ICTs, and translate them
into a single strategy?
Second, we considered innovative ways of thinking through the relations between space,
time and technology. We explored the importance of an urban strategic view for the
development of initiatives, actions and policies related to ICTs in defining the overall
shape of the virtual city. This strategic view would be directly connected to the notion of
recombinant space and symbiotic urbanisation, providing a holistic interpretation of the
interplay between physical places and virtual spaces. In relation to the first strand, various
questions arose, such as: how is the paradigm challenge of spatial and territorial concepts
affecting local projects for the implementation of ICTs? How is it influencing the way
urban spaces are perceived and dealt with?
Third, a number of models and theories were gathered, arranged and reviewed to
compose the scope for a broader concept of the virtual city as a complex socio-technical
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process. The virtual city was also considered as a parallel complementary entity to the
traditional modernist city in its transition to Castells’s informational city. Most
importantly, virtual cities were defined for the scope of this research, as one of the
elements which composes the entirety of the urban space, alongside the traditional
elements of the city, and the space of flows. Various additional questions arose from this
discussion, namely: are local authorities and planners considering the interplay between
physical places and electronic spaces while building public policies? Are the elements of
the virtual city (as presented in Chapter 3) taken into account in the process of urban
policy-making?
In order to deal effectively with the questions posed by these three major theoretical
strands the empirical studies have been divided into two parts. The first part is considered
broader, more general, and more descriptive, whereas the second part offers a more in-
depth study in which the complex social construction of ICTs can be analysed by means
of a specified set of dilemmas.
The initial research plan was, first, to carry out a survey of TeleCities – a consortium of
cities dealing with ICTs within the European Union (EU) –, and then to focus on the
relevance of two of the theoretical approaches concerning the interplay between virtual
and physical spaces. In other words, the project was mainly concerned with the general
shape of the virtual city, and the potential implementation of urban-technological
strategies (respectively the third and second strands mentioned above). The dilemmas
confronting local authorities as they attempt to address urban-technological issues were
not at this stage central to the project. Due to the quantity and nature of the outcomes of
the survey, the research plan has been adapted to provide an exploratory typology of
exemplar mini case studies. This process will be described later in this chapter, but
because of this transformation, what was initially to have been a survey, is now to be
understood as an exploratory typology.
In the second part, two case studies – Newcastle and Antwerp – were then, described and
analysed through the lens of the various theoretical approaches outlined above, with a
view to providing a better understanding of the complex relations and conditions behind
the constitution of the ICT approaches developed in these two cities. The main aim of
these case studies was to focus the analysis on what is beyond the general approaches,
and to discover actors’ interpretations for the interplay between ICTs and cities. Key
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questions to be asked here were: how do relevant social groups interact within the scope
of the public administration? How are their visions translated into an approach or strategy?
Therefore, what factors influence the implementation of a local urban-technological
strategy?
The questions presented in this chapter, together with those discussed in Chapters 2 and 3,
were crucial in defining of the research questions and propositions that shape the
presentation of the case study material in Chapters 6 and 7.
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4.2 DEFINING THE BOUNDARIES OF THE STUDIES: THE RESEARCH

QUESTIONS AND PROPOSITIONS
Before moving on to design the exploratory typology and the case studies, a direction had
to be taken, led by a group of propositions which, in turn, would result from a blend
between the theoretical strands on one side, and the complex problematic that motivated
this research (the research questions) on the other. Having reviewed and synthesised the
theory necessary to support the exploratory typology and the case studies, the main
research questions needed to be formulated to allow boundaries to be defined for the
study as a whole. A group of five questions with respective sub-questions emerged as
follows.
Research Question 1: How are ICTs and traditional urban issues intermingled to form
the perceptions of key social groups in the process of local stabilisation of these
technologies in cities?
This question consequently points us other sub-questions or related aspects:
♦ Can these perceptions be identified and linked to the concept of interpretative

flexibility?
♦ How have these perceptions been translated into deliberate action by local
governments? Put more simply, what effects do recombinant strategies have in
practice?
♦ How have these perceptions been turned into a strategy involving the network of
the various actors and interests to simultaneously address ICTs and urban issues?
Research Question 2: Bearing in mind the complex and intricate process involved in the
social construction of technologies part of ICT initiatives, what are the dilemmas that
actors have to face in order to stabilise this process and locally absorb it as part of the
urban agenda?
This question also raises further areas of inquiry:
♦ What are the local circumstances and historical conditions influencing the
comprehension and consequent implementation of an urban-technological strategy?
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♦ What types of constraints have challenged the development of such strategies and
the potential stabilisation of ICTs within the universe of urban policy-making?
♦ What are the issues raised by trying to implement recombinant strategies in

practice?
Research Question 3: How have urban planning, public planning departments and
planners been involved with the development of urban-technological strategies?
The following sub-questions are raised:
♦ Why do leading-edge cities integrate recombinant thinking into planning

strategies?
♦ Can we successfully link a (lack of) planning vision in urban-technological

strategy to the dilemmas faced in developing the set of ICT initiatives that define
such strategies?
Research Question 4: How can we relate the recent development of what have been
called ‘virtual cities’ to the simultaneous appearance of public actions and strategies
aimed at the implementation of ICT initiatives in various areas of public local
governance?
Additional questions are as follows:
♦ What is the virtual city in the context of ICT initiatives being developed by local
authorities as part of a broad strategy involving urban issues?
♦ Can we apply the concept of the virtual city (reviewed in Chapter 3) to the reality
of implementations being made on the ground?
♦ How and why are recombinant issues being addressed by virtual city initiatives?
Research Question 5: How have the tensions between local, regional and national issues
been affecting the development of urban-technological strategies by local authorities?
Related issues are:
♦ Can we identify and distinguish between intra-local and extra-local influential

factors relevant to the local implementation of urban-technological strategies?
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♦ What kinds of tensions are present in each case, considering that we are dealing
with a cross-national study involving distinct contexts and levels of influence
from extra-local factors?
Having defined the most important research questions, the next task is to show how the
questions have been operationalised to define the research boundaries. We then describe
how this exploratory empirical research was structured, planned and undertaken vis-à-vis
its design, methods, rationale and progress.
4.2.1 Research propositions: focusing the research questions
The two parts of this research have been driven by a group of seven hypotheses drawn
from the theoretical discussions in the previous chapters. Rather than biasing the studies
by informally and prematurely determining what the outcomes of the studies should be,
the definition of these propositions was aimed at making clear which areas the studies we
should look at. They are a way of simultaneously operationalising the research questions
and defining the boundaries of the exploratory typology and case studies.
In this sense, the propositions translated the theoretical strands into statements which
could then be used to conceive, plan, design, execute and analyse the exploratory
typology for TeleCities, and to carry and then compare the case studies of Newcastle and
Antwerp.
Although the group of seven propositions was also used to analyse the results of the
exploratory typology, the propositions were more specifically designed as a tool for use in
the two case studies and their subsequent comparison, as these were characterised by in-
depth and more precise detailed studies, so that the explanations for each proposition
could flexibly evolve with the case studies.
Following an explanation-building method of analysis, for each one of the propositions,

two basic rival patterns or explanations were defined – a corroborative and a disproving
explanation. These were matched to the findings from the fieldwork constructing an
ongoing process of reviewing the interpretations for the two case studies.
It is important to remark that, although they represent a contrast between two possible
explanations for a proposition, both could be happening at the same time. The intention of
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these rival explanations was to illustrate two possible rather extreme scenarios related to
each proposition. Although, in some cases, they may seem to be pre-empting results, they
were not taken for granted in any way during data collection and analysis. On the
contrary, the aim was to keep the stance of the research as open-minded as possible, while
using these extreme explanations as a reference-point for the boundaries of this study.
The ultimate aim of such a strategy was to keep the research focused on its own major
questions.
The seven propositions and their respective rival explanations, in their final form for use
in the analyses of the exploratory typology and case studies are as follows:
Proposition 1: Interpretative flexibility represents the most significant dilemma

confronting local authorities as they attempt to develop an urban-technological strategy.
While a pluralism of visions may be beneficial for a democratic construction of
initiatives, it may be also make it difficult to handle and to translate the visions into a
strategy.
♦ Our findings may show that the variety of interpretations of the virtual city and
ICT initiatives, though an important aspect of SCOT, is obstructive for the
implementation of a single strategy.
♦ On the other hand, evidence may show that the plurality of visions does not
interfere with the final shape and constitution of a given possible urban-
technological strategy. It may even be the case that interpretative flexibility, at
least in this context, is not as critical as Pinch and Bijker (1989) would suggest.
Proposition 2: apart from interpretative flexibility, there other major barriers to the
development of urban-technological integrative strategies, which could be related to a
range of intra-local and extra-local aspects.
♦ We may find out that many interrelated barriers connected to intra-local and extra-
local aspects play an important role on local authorities’ ability to control ICT
initiatives and a possible strategy.
♦ Instead, it could be that the evidence will point to a minimal influence of such
aspects on the development of ICTs at the local level.
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Proposition 3: there is a ‘parallel’ city made of transactions, communication,

information, services, feelings, interpretations, exclusions, expectations, and ‘bits and
bytes’ called virtual (digital) city which is interacting with the traditional city and its
citizens.
♦ The findings could lead us to a situation where a virtual city is becoming

increasingly used and accessed by citizens and city-makers and in which this
process itself is, consequently, generating new patterns of interaction with the
physical urban space.
♦ On the other hand, the findings could indicate that virtual cities are mere urban
propaganda, neither used effectively by citizens/city-makers, nor exhibiting a
significant degree of interaction with the physical urban space.
Proposition 4: virtual cities have predominantly been developed without serious

reference to the ‘real’ physical city. This is starting to change however as recombinant
ideas start to break down paradigm barriers between the world of traditional urban policy
and the world of ICT policy.
♦ Findings may suggest that recombinant planning which considers new ICT
policies as part of the major urban agenda (together with urban planning) is
becoming increasingly common for European cities, and changing the way that
technology is treated by public urban policy.
♦ Recombinant planning may be found to be an exception considering most of the

cities in Europe which are dealing with ICT issues, and to be nothing but
boosterism when seen in relation to traditional urban planning strategies.
Proposition 5: functioning as new urban places, there are different sorts of space in
which the interplay between physical and virtual cities are taking place.
♦ This might be expected to reveal a growing phenomenon in which public places

are being adapted or created following an attempt to develop a seamless design for
the interaction between ‘bricks and mortar’ and ‘bits and bytes’, constituting
evidence of Horan’s (2000) adaptive and transformative spaces.
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♦ Instead of really bridging virtual and the physical city, the overwhelming majority
of these spaces might emerge as acting as a sort of a ‘high-tech make up’ for the
city without deep or meaningful interactions .
Proposition 6: when planned and used as a civic public space, the virtual city
phenomenon and its elements are helping urban planners and city-makers to materialise
possibilities of improving citizen participation in the decision-making process.
♦ A corroborative scenario would be the use of virtual cities, their virtual

representation and respective public physical spaces by local authorities, to
improve communication between citizens and city-makers, with a consequent
benefit for the provision of public services.
♦ Once again, there is a possibility that the significance of such initiatives may be
limited to their function within urban propaganda, with no real improvements to
the way cities are governed in terms of public participation.
Proposition 7: only a few cities are dealing consciously with the relations between
physical and virtual urban spaces towards a democratic construction of the virtual city
and a closer interaction with public places.
♦ City-makers are likely to interpret urban-technological strategies as a secondary

element and even as a competitive advantage, thereby losing the potential of such
strategies to try and better understand this relationship between virtual and
physical spaces.
♦ Alternatively, the findings may indicate that many city-makers are demonstrating
real inclinations to deal consciously with these issues, being only limited by small
budgets and other more minor influential factors.
Once again, the fact that these propositions are considered as having two rival
explanations, need not limit the comprehension of the phenomena. The remaining
chapters of this thesis will illustrate the way the empirical studies have tended to indicate
a balance between the explanations, and sometimes pointed to a third interpretation not
previously predicted.
The following table clarifies the links between each of the five questions and seven
propositions. The three theoretical strands discussed in Chapters 2 and 3 are also related
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to relevant questions and propositions. More than a single link can be found between
these three elements, which explains some repetition of questions and theoretical strands
connected to propositions.
Table 4.1 - Connecting propositions, questions and theory.
Hypotheses or Research Related Research Questions Related Theoretical

Propositions (summarised) (summarised) Strands
(predominant)
Proposition 1: interpretative Question 1: how are ICTs and SCOT*
flexibility as a major dilemma traditional urban issues intermingled
to form different perceptions of these
technologies in cities?
Question 2: what are the dilemmas
that actors have to face in order to
stabilise ICTs initiatives?
Proposition 2: other barriers, related Question 1 SCOT
to intra and extra-local aspects Question 2
Question 5: how have local, regional
and national tensions been affecting
urban-technological strategies?
Proposition 3: the virtual city as a Question 3: how has urban planning RASU**; VC***
parallel city been related to urban-technological
strategies?
Question 4: how can virtual cities be
related to public ICT initiatives and
strategies in local government?
Proposition 4: recombinant ideas Question 1 RASU; VC
breaking down paradigm barriers Question 3
Question 4
Proposition 5: public places and the Question 4 RASU; VC
interaction between virtual and
physical spaces
Proposition 6: virtual cities and the Question 3 SCOT; RASU; VC
possibility for improving participation Question 4
Proposition 7: city-makers see urban- Question 1 SCOT; VC
technological strategies as a Question 2
secondary element Question 4
*SCOT: Social Construction of Technologies.
**RASU: Recombinant Architecture and Symbiotic Urbanisation.
***VC: Typology for Virtual Cities.
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4.3 RESEARCH STRATEGY: A TWO-FOLD LINK BETWEEN THEORY AND

EVIDENCE
In order to promote the coming together of the three theoretical strands and real cases of
ICT implementation by local authorities in Europe, a two-fold strategy was pursued, itself
cross-cut by the five research questions and the seven hypotheses or propositions. This
strategy consisted of: the exploratory typological study on TeleCities with a potential
sample of 122 local authorities, public bodies and private companies within the listed
members of TeleCities; and the two in-depth case studies of Newcastle upon Tyne, in the
UK and Antwerp, in Belgium.
The first approach to real cases – the exploratory typology – has been chosen to provide a
broad but generalised snapshot of the kinds of projects and initiatives being developed by
engaged European cities. Priority was given to the possible interplay between physical
and virtual spaces, and to the concerns of local authorities in supporting integrative
strategies involving the development of ICTs.
TeleCities was selected as a sample for the population of ICT active European cities. This
organisation was chosen because, as a European Community initiative, it tends to
aggregate the first flank of innovative cases of public institutions and/or private
companies dealing with ICTs, mostly within the universe of the European Union. This
choice is well justified by the fact that this exploratory study was, from the start, focused
on cases of cities already involved with the implementation of projects and initiatives
related to information and communication technologies. Therefore, TeleCities was the
obvious option to narrow and focus a ‘ready’ sample of sought cases.
For the in-depth studies – the most important part of this research – two contrasting cases
were selected during the studies that accompanied preparations for the exploratory study
on TeleCities. The selection was also supported by the most recent literature at that time,
including reports and press releases from the European Union (see, for instance Ishida
and Isbister, 2000; Cornford and Naylor, 1998 and European Digital Cities, 1999).
Antwerp was first selected because of its evident importance in terms of ICTs
development and the advanced structure through which related initiatives were being
conceived, planned and deployed. The selection of the second case – meant to represent a
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potential average situation for many medium-sized cities in Europe – proved to be a

rather difficult decision. The limited resources available for the project dictated the use of
a British case at an early stage. Newcastle proved ideal because of its actual deployment
of ICT projects on the ground, and its typicality as a medium-sized European city
struggling to restructure its industrial basis. Conveniently, it is also the city where this
research is based.1
Following some initial findings during the exploratory study on TeleCities, it became
clear that the initiatives promoted by local authorities in Newcastle were, in general, very
similar to what actors in other European cities were trying to achieve. Meanwhile,
Antwerp has always been regarded as a best practice case and, highlighted when
compared to other cities in the European context. The two cities thus seemed well-suited
for a comparison of case studies advancing distinct approaches to the development of
ICTs.
An interesting condition to be carefully examined was the shape of interpretative

flexibility regarding urban-technological strategies for both cases through the analyses of
the respective actors’ discourses. The trajectory of the social construction of ICTs for
each case was something that would have to be very carefully observed.
4.3.1 Issues in exploratory cross-national research
Before moving on to the details of the exploratory typology and case study methods, it is
worth discussing some predicted and encountered problems in the course of the studies.
A cross-national study in an exploratory and mixed project such as this one inevitably
imposes some methodological constraints. Among the ones previously expected to be
faced, there were: the degree of general application of findings and conclusions; and
uneven depth and manageability. An additional barrier that had to be overcome during
what was originally planned to be a survey became an exploratory typological study was
that of low response rates. A detailed account of this latter issue is provided in Chapter 5,
where it is identified as an important factor in defining the direction of the exploratory
typology and a participant observation with TeleCities members.
1
Loosegrid, a recently-launched project in the borough of Southwark in London, was also considered.
However, the project did not take off with the speed and intensity expected to allow it to be studied by
relative short-term PhD project.
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With respect to the main predicted issues, cross-national studies always raise questions
about language, the amount of information available for the cases, access to the sources of
evidence, and the cultural background of the researcher as an influential factor (there is
always a danger of ethnocentrism).
Together with language, distance could have been an obstacle in accessing and obtaining
the sources of evidence in the Antwerp case study. However, accessing the sources in
Antwerp – which I expected to be a difficult task – was, in fact, a success due to two
major reasons. First, the atmosphere encountered in Antwerp was very helpful, in terms
both of people and institutions, especially the ones selected to be interviewed. Second,
much of this ‘facilitated’ access was the result of two very well planned trips to the field
and a very keen gatekeeper with good contacts within the groups considered ‘insiders’
and ‘outsiders’ in the process of stabilisation of the urban-technological strategy.
Surprisingly, the Newcastle case offered much more in the way of resistance and
difficulties, especially as regards access to sources and arrangements for the interviews.
The fact that I have carried out all the research in my second language has served to
balance the expected uneven depth between the two case studies: on the one hand,
difficulties were experienced in dealing with a third language in the case of documentary
evidence; on the other, face-to-face contact has generally been greater in Antwerp than in
Newcastle. Though clearly the interaction with Belgian respondents reflected the fact that
neither party was using their first language, in practice it proved possible to apply the
same protocol equally in both cases.
On the question of ethnocentrism, although I have been living in the UK during the period
of this research and thus had much more access to the British cultural framework, being
an overseas researcher meant that both Belgian and British culture and society
represented new backgrounds recently acquired. So, both cases have been assessed under
relatively equal conditions, from the point-of-view of an observer.
Finally, in terms of generalisability, the different directions in which the exploratory

typological study evolved, and the limited number of case studies obviously restrict the
extent of any generalisation. Since the beginning, it was clear that each empirical work
was going to present its own specific conditions of development.
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The survey (or in fact, the exploratory typological study) was initially designed to provide
a field for a few limited generalisations, which were arrived at through the development
of exemplar mini case studies.
Nevertheless, the value of this research can be attributed to the particular circumstances
of each case study, providing room for very controlled general analysis, always bearing in
mind the above-mentioned limitations. Therefore, the success of the two case studies lies
in their capacity to figure as exemplars of distinct conditions of the development of
urban-technological strategies in a cross-national context.
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4.4 A STRATEGY FOR THE EXPLORATORY TYPOLOGICAL STUDY
Survey is a suitable research method for studies where a general but partial explanation is
sought. As De Vaus (1996) argues, nomothetic explanations, when a class of cases is
partially explained, perfectly justify the use of a survey. As we saw above, the first part of
this project is characterised by the search for a broad but generalised perspective on the
public use of ICTs in Europe which, again, makes it a suitable subject for a survey.
The most common first steps then, were selecting the sample, defining its boundaries and
possible limitations, and designing the procedures and their respective strategies of
implementation – data collection, analysis of the results, and final report. These stages
evolved progressively until at a certain point late on in the data collection it began to
seem that the quantity and nature of the outcomes were no longer characteristic of a
classic survey.
The survey was then altered to become an exploratory typology to try and find out some
general exemplar cases for types of approach to ICT initiatives. The final report was also
driven by a need for additional participant observation of TeleCities.
The following section describes the above-mentioned stages, emphasising the design and
subsequent re-shaping of the project during its dynamic implementation.
4.4.1 Sampling from European cities: the TeleCities network
TeleCities, the European consortium of cities dealing with ICT initiatives within the EU,
was selected to limit the sample for this study, its members (local authorities and public
bodies) forming the units of analysis. This choice was made because this organisation
embraces most of the cities in the EU that lay claim to significant ICTs development. The
city members of the TeleCities consortium receive special treatment and help to search
for alternative funds for their ICT projects.
Although there is a small number of private members (internally called business members)
such as Microsoft and Oracle, TeleCities is a network formed mainly by local authorities
and public bodies, promoting discussions and conferences that enable its accepted
members to receive official support and share experiences on ICT developments. On its
own website TeleCities is described as:
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The major European network of cities committed to leadership in the

Information and Knowledge Society […] TeleCities provides a platform
of over 100 local authorities from 20 different European countries,
sharing experience and developing practical solutions achieving an
Inclusive Information and Knowledge Society, both at European and
local level. (TeleCities, 2002)
The choice of TeleCities members as a sample population was intended to facilitate the
direct targeting of cities with at least minimal levels of involvement with ICT strategies,
projects or initiatives. The time constraint of a PhD project and the preferability of
concentrating efforts on in-depth case studies led to the deliberate risk of selecting a
relatively biased sample population. The risk is justified by the fact that this study was
never intended to draw on a comparison between all European cities including those with
no ICT developments. Rather, the aim was to give a general ‘snapshot’ of those cities
allegedly deploying ICT-dedicated initiatives, and to compare their levels of
implementation in terms of physical spaces and provision of information and
communication. Consequently, sampling European cities through TeleCities became a
precondition in itself.
TeleCities also maintains an updated list of its members with contact details, and
promotes regular thematic meetings and conferences; these factors provided an obvious
advantage with respect to seeking participation from the major public bodies directly
responsible for the initiatives.
The primary idea was to use simple questions to grasp the general perceptions of
decision-makers (mostly public bodies, but also commissioned private companies), as
regards what they are doing in terms of ICTs for their own municipalities and what sort of
physical impact this is producing. The sought output from a single questionnaire was,
therefore, a broad but generalised notion of the interplay between physical and virtual
urban spaces towards or through the use of ICTs within the universe of cities in the EU.
The questionnaire drawn up contained a combination of closed and open-ended questions.

The major challenge was to find the best way to reach and encourage the participants to
respond.
In fact, this has proven to be the weakness of this study. After trying different methods
and approaches, and even with TeleCities’ official support, the study ended with no more
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than 11% of responses. This was a low level if one considers the small number of
TeleCities members during the period this study remained open for replies (122 listed
members, from which 109 were selected – excluding 13 private companies and local
authorities with no contact details).
However, this rather discouraging outcome has led to further attempts to improve the
level of responses which, looking from a different perspective has proven to be very
useful in understanding the functioning of the TeleCities organisation. This has also
triggered a shift in the approach taken to the data collected. As Chapter 5 will show, the
final results of this study are very different from those that would be expected from a
survey.
During this process, I aimed to keep as open as possible to the full range of positive and
negative replies. The re-approach to the study was realised through participant
observation during one of the TeleCities conferences, where explanations were sought for
the low response rates of TeleCities’ members to the questionnaire.
Having made clear the reasons for the choice of a focused sample population and the
general circumstances surrounding the preparation for data collection, it is necessary to
look into more detail the design and procedures undertaken to complete the exploratory
study on TeleCities.
4.4.2 The design of the Study
The design and preparations prior to data collection are a fundamental and time-
consuming part of most social sciences research methods. De Vaus (1996: 37) argues that
‘an appreciation of design issues highlights the importance of what data to collect (e.g. do
we need to ask retrospective questions?) and of thinking through the issues of whom we
should collect it from’.
Due to the dynamic character of this study – of being re-shaped during its course – the
current description of its design will follow a hybrid profile in which decisions made
before starting the data collection mingle with others made retrospectively.
After deciding upon the units of analysis (local authorities and public bodies), the
population (European cities) and the sample (TeleCities), contact had to be made with the
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organisations, alongside the development of a set of questions and a research overview.

The initial approach to the TeleCities team was made through its Manager and
Information and Project Officer, asking for their official support. It was also necessary to
obtain an official invitation for TeleCities members to respond the questionnaire.
A research overview was developed, highlighting the importance of the study. Benefits
were also identified for the participant municipalities and TeleCities. First, they would be
offered a general report of ICT initiatives and physical public spaces being developed by
the members of the organisation. Secondly, being more aware of each other’s situation,
TeleCities’ members would have the opportunity to exchange successful and, most
importantly, non-successful experiences more effectively (allegedly one of the aims of the
network).
This study also represented a chance to have the virtual cities in Europe classified
following the typology based on Aurigi and Graham’s (2000) model for virtual
representations and presented in Chapter 3: that is, according to their level of information
and/or the participation provision towards holistic virtual cities.
Together with Mitchell (1995 and 2000) and Horan’s (2000) recombinant space concepts,
these were the theoretical framework used to define the questionnaire for TeleCities
members in order to find out what they were developing in terms of virtual
representations and physical manifestations of the virtual city. Despite the conspicuous
influence of such theories, the use of jargon and conceptual terms was avoided in the
construction of the questionnaire, so as to reduce dubious or false interpretations of the
questions.
A mixed questionnaire with three closed and six open-ended questions was produced.
This was aimed at generating a general view of local authorities’ perceptions of ICTs, and
to find out what these municipalities are doing in terms of physical spaces related to the
virtual city.
All concepts addressed by the questionnaire were described in footnotes to avoid

confusing the respondents with jargon. The questions asked were as follows:
1. What is the main objective of your ‘virtual/digital city’ initiative? (A footnote

explained the concept of virtual or digital city)
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2. Who are the target users of the ‘virtual city’ and why?
3. Who are the main current users of your ‘virtual city’? Please state the approximate
numbers in percentage terms.
a. Citizens in general
b. Tourists
c. Businessmen
d. Government representatives and officers
e. Others (please specify)
4. Who are the promoters and/or partners developing the ‘virtual city’? Please rank in
importance (1, 2, 3 etc.) and identify the function of the following sectors in the planning,
decision-making and development of the project.
a. Government agencies (hierarchy and functions?)
b. Commercial companies (hierarchy and functions?)
c. NGOs (hierarchy and functions?)
d. Citizens’ representatives (hierarchy and functions?)
e. Others (please specify)
5. What is the technical configuration (Conceptual models of the virtual city were
explained in a footnote) of your ‘virtual city’ (please chose one)? Please state the main
services or facilities provided.
a. Informative-broadcasting
b. Participative unidirectional
c. Participative bi-directional
d. Holistic unidirectional
e. Holistic bi-directional
Please specify services or facilities for the selected configuration.
6. Is there any kind of physical implementation (buildings, booths, street urban

equipment, kiosks, etc.) directly or indirectly related to the web-initiative, or even a plan
to do introduce one? If yes, please describe.
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6.1 If not, why have such developments not yet emerged?
6.2 If yes, how far have these physical projects developed? How are these
implementations being formulated/planned?
6.3 Could you state a list of problems and success factors encountered in developing
the ‘virtual city’ and physical projects in parallel?
6.4 What, if any, interplay do you envisage between the physical and virtual sides of
your policies?
6.5 Do you think that physical references or physical access points (buildings, kiosks,
access points, booths, etc.) for the ‘virtual city’ are necessary and meaningful? Why?
7. How are you likely to plan and design in the future for the interactions between virtual
and physical projects in your city?
8. If you would be willing to discuss these issues in detail either by telephone or e-mail in
the future please add your contact details below.
9. If you have any other comments or feedback on this questionnaire please add them
below.
After official consent from TeleCities’ manager, the questionnaire was sent to members
in three different stages, as an attempt to reduce the communication gap between
researcher and respondents.
At the initial stage, the questionnaire was sent both via e-mail and post to every member
of TeleCities following the contact details provided on their website. The main body of
the e-mail explained the research, and was followed by the questionnaire and an attached
copy of it (this time in a word processor file). It was also sent by post with an
introductory letter, again explaining the reasons for the research and the importance of
cooperation from each member.
An apology note for cross-posting was enclosed in each version of the messages, as well
as a note offering a summary document to be drawn from the results of the study. In this
way, the benefits of the survey to TeleCities and its members were highlighted in every
communication with the respondents.
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Most replies were received a short time after the first stage. However, after a period with
no further responses, TeleCities was contacted and asked through its Information and
Project Officer to encourage its members to participate. TeleCities promptly agreed in
doing so.
When this did not produce much better results a last attempt was taken towards an
improvement in the number of responses. An online password-protected questionnaire,
where the same general username and password was created for easy use by every
respondent was then produced. Once again, with the official support of TeleCities an e-
mail was sent to potential respondents advising them on this new way to complete the
questionnaire.
A final and additional help to this third stage came with an invitation to attend a
TeleCities conference. This was seen as a chance to promote the online questionnaire and
try face-to-face communication with some respondents. It was also realised that this
opportunity was unique for a participant to observe TeleCities, and study how its
members interact and share their experiences.
Participant observation at that moment seemed an extraordinary chance to try and

understand how the networking between TeleCities members works – allegedly one of the
biggest assets of the organisation. It was also a golden opportunity to find out possible
reasons for the low response rates.
Together with face-to-face contacts, business cards and posters (Figure 4.1) were
designed to help advertise the survey during the conference. A further description (as a
report for the participant observation) for particular circumstances involved with
TeleCities’ conference, and the issues of communication during the whole period of this
study are addressed in Chapter 5.
Problems of communication ultimately yielded insights into the way TeleCities functions,
and thus provided additional support for my hypothesis concerning the dilemmas of
dealing with ICTs on a public scale.
As the levels of response did not improve from the initial 11%, the study was finally
closed for replies in October 2002. The experience itself and, particularly, the participant
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observation, raised answers for the original questions but now with much broader
implications for the project as a whole.
Figure 4.1 - Posters to increase visibility during TeleCities Conference.
Data collected with the questionnaires were used and analysed based on a three-fold
structure: the seven hypotheses or propositions; the similarities and differences in terms
of strategies towards the integration between virtual and physical space policies; and
according to the characteristic of the actual projects involved with the interplay between
physical and virtual spaces.
Additionally, short descriptions were also built for exemplary cases representing the
distinct types found by the analysis, particularly looking at the interplay between physical
and virtual spaces. Bearing in mind their highly descriptive nature, the results of such
short narratives are in effect mini case studies.
These descriptions and the three-fold analysis were particularly valuable in getting a
glimpse of the main ICT initiatives and related space restructuring projects in a range of
cities within differing national contexts. Combinations of network structure and parallel
physical support were sought during the construction of the individual descriptions.
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A typology was defined, in order to deal with this relation between physical
implementations and urban telematics networks (city websites, portals, Intranets etc.), and
to promote a classification based on different levels of development. In doing this,
considering was given to the provision of information, facilitation of participation, related
physical initiatives, and the depth of changes in terms of physical spaces (architecture and
urban design).
Finally, the experience with this exploratory typological study required considerable
versatility in the way the project was shaped. The design of the study needed to be a very
dynamic process aimed at responding to and guiding the developments rather than
dictating them. The open-minded profile assumed during data collection and analysis was
crucial for such dynamism and adaptability. The constant interactions between subject
and object, units of analysis, sample and population have led to the final shape of the
report transcribed in Chapter 5, which is presented together with the above mentioned
three-fold analysis and the participant observation on TeleCities.
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4.5 THE CASE STUDY STRATEGY
As stated above, the centre-piece of this research project is the case studies of Newcastle
and Antwerp, cities chosen because of their positions as regards stages of development in
their strategies for urban-technological implementation. These two cases were analysed
separately, with one chapter for each case (Chapters 6 and 7, respectively). The resulting
case study narratives are thus able to give a detailed account of the strategies and the
dilemmas faced by the local social groups. Chapter 8 was dedicated to the comparative
analysis.
4.5.1 The choice of a case study strategy
The choice for in-depth case studies as the core of the empirical research lays in the main
characteristics of this type of strategy. According to Yin (1994), the decision to use a case
study strategy depends on three aspects: the type of research questions; the control of the
researcher over the object’s behaviour; and the focus on a contemporary or historical
phenomenon. Case studies are more suitable for ‘how’ and ‘why’ kinds of research
questions, when the researcher has little control over the object, and when the focus is on
a contemporary phenomenon.
Moreover, this study needed to look at complex relations between space, governance,
institutions, technology and people. In order to cover general and specific aspects of these
relations, the exploratory typological study on TeleCities and the case studies of
Newcastle and Antwerp were selected as complementary strategies. The exploratory
typology covered a general overview about where in Europe and what has been
developed in terms of urban-technological strategies and virtual cities. On the other hand,
the necessary depth to understand how and why the recombinant issues have (or have not)
been addressed, was properly covered by a case study strategy using mixed sources of
evidence such as interviews, documentation and archival records.
The only way to look in detail at the relations and, most importantly, the perceptions and
interpretations of the key ‘inside’ actors – responsible for the implementation of the
urban-technological strategies in the two respective cities – was through the use of a case
study strategy. Case studies are regarded to be the right method that allows ‘an
investigation to retain the holistic and meaningful characteristics of real-life events – such
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as individual life cycles, organizational and managerial processes, neighbourhood change,

international relations, and the maturation of industries’ (Yin, 1994: 3).
4.5.2 Designing and developing the case study strategy
In order to maximise the chances for success in linking data with initial questions, the
research design needs to address at least the following four main issues: what questions to
study, what data is relevant, what data to collect, and how to analyse the results. For Yin,
‘the design is the logical sequence that connects the empirical data to a study’s initial
research questions and, ultimately, to its conclusions’ (Yin, 1994; 19).
Thus, with respect to the final design of the study, five major elements were taken into
consideration: the study’s questions, its propositions, its units of analysis, the logic
linking the data to the propositions, and the criteria for interpreting the findings.
Obviously, supporting these five elements, there also has to be a theoretical framework;
this has been outlined in Chapters 2 and 3 above.
To facilitate the collection of data, and their organisation for the process of constructing
the narratives and comparative analysis, a case protocol was developed for each city. A
case study protocol is an instrumental description of the procedures that should guide the
researcher across the entire case study research. It is desirable in all circumstances and,
according to Yin (1994), essential for multiple-case designs.
In order to guarantee comparability, a single structure was kept for the protocols applied
to both cases. This structure covered four basic points: an overview of the case study
project, field procedures, case study questions, and a guide for the case study report.
Using such a method has helped us to cover all the relevant issues for each case, step by
step, and to keep the data collected organised according to a chain of evidence which, in
turn, has contributed enormously to the construction of the case narratives.
This chain of evidence relied heavily on interviews with the key actors (representative of
social groups) identified in each case. This is because the main preoccupation of this
research was to highlight the central role of the actors’ interpretations about ICTs and
cities and to identify the impact of interpretative flexibility on urban technology. In this
sense priority was given to interviews, especially those with actors considered to be
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‘insiders’ – i.e. directly responsible for the implementation and attempts to stabilise the
current urban-technological strategies.
Secondary documentary evidence also played an important part in defining the previous
scope for the cases (and consequently helping the composition of questions for the
interviews). This also provided complementary information for the issues raised in the
interviews. Obviously, the case of Antwerp has not had the same benefit as the Newcastle
study in terms of secondary evidence because of a language limitation.
The case studies were then, strongly based on the interviews, which had to be focused on
key actors of the process of ICT implementation by the local authorities in the two cities.
Secondary evidence such as promotional documents, independent reports and academic
publications about the cases were crucial at this stage.
Another paramount task was the choice of the ‘gatekeepers’ for each case, influential
people inside (or with easy access to) the local government, who could help us gain
access to the evidence. The choices proved successful, especially in the case of the
Antwerp study, due largely to the gatekeeper’s important role in the historical
development of the strategy and ICT initiatives.
A difference should be noted here between the interview preparations for the two studies.
The trips to Antwerp had to be extremely well planned due to limited resources, and
interviews were thus all arranged well in advance and organised to take place in a short
period of time. The interviews in Newcastle, however, followed a more expanded time
span due to the obvious benefit of being literally a neighbour to the city council. In
addition, it was noticed later that despite the short distance and the common language, the
key actors in Newcastle were much more difficult to contact than the ones in Antwerp, a
factor which resulted in delays with interviews and their subsequent transcription. In both
cases, further approaches to the interviewees were made when necessary either by e-mail
or by telephone.
Thirteen key actors within and outside local government where interviewed between
February 2002 and April 2003 for the Newcastle study. In Antwerp and Brussels, sixteen
individuals were interviewed between December 2001 and May 2002. All the interviews
for both cases were unstructured, but supported by a memorandum providing the most
significant questions and points to be discussed. Interviewees were then free to express
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their opinions and interpretations, which could be followed or diverted according to the
importance of the information.
As already mentioned, the ‘insiders’ were more of interest to this project, as the aim was
to expose the dominant aspects of the actors’ interpretations, and the significance of these
in turning aspirations into strategies. Some ‘outsiders’ were also interviewed – mainly
members of regional or federal government – to try and establish a more precise context
for the local initiatives. Priority was given to the following groups in both cases:
representatives of the most directly involved departments or divisions of local
government, officers and civil servants involved in related projects, officers from the
planning departments, politicians, regional development agencies, members of the
regional and the national government, and representatives of the private sector involved
with relevant initiatives.
All interviews were transcribed and inputted into a document containing the most relevant
topics. This was later used to build the chain of evidence and the case study database. Due
to the importance of the interviewees’ perceptions to the development of strategy, the
interviews were ‘deconstructed’ and grouped according to major topics to allow for
identification of the dominant aspects inside the actors’ discourses.2 This was later
analysed as being part of the interpretative flexibility of ICTs in cities. Obviously, the
interviewees’ perceptions were not the only information sought. Also of interest were the
way projects were developed, the role of key institutions and individuals, difficulties and
constraints that impeded the implementation of the initiatives, and explanations for
possible controversial issues.
In order to improve access to the cases’ chain of evidence, and to accelerate further
consultation of these documents, a database was generated in an HTML file with all the
evidence separated into the major topics, with a hyperlink to the original file wherever a
digital copy was available. The physical files were also organised according to this
database. At the end of the studies, a Compact Disc was created with the database and
digital files. Basically, the chain of evidence was operationalised by these case studies
databases which benefited from the simple technology of a ‘navigable’ document.
2
‘Deconstruction’ is used throughout this study simply to describe the method of selecting key parts of
interviews and identifying ‘dominant aspects’ that characterise what interviewees were trying to say. It does
not relate to the philosophical line of analysis pioneered by the French poststructuralist thinker Jacques
Derrida.
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As the last approach to every individual interviewed, a specific question was posed to
them which asked them to prioritise their first thoughts in a short answer about their own
definition for the cities’ urban-technological strategy. They were instructed not to concern
themselves about the real meaning of the expression, but to focus on their opinion of it.
This questioning was realised after the actors’ discourses had been already deconstructed
and analysed according to their dominant aspects, in order to confront them with the
potential meaning of a city strategy for ICTs in a conscious way, as they now knew that
their own opinion was at the core of the question.
4.5.3 The role of research propositions, case study questions and the sources of
evidence
The significance of the propositions derived from the main research questions was, as we
saw before, to define the boundaries of the research, and to support the design of the
exploratory typology and case studies. In this sense, it was extremely helpful in designing
the case study questions which, in turn, were crucial in the definition of the questions
asked during the interviews (as part of the memorandum). According to Yin (1994), the
definition of the case study questions is the heart of the case study protocol. Basically, it
involves specific questions that the investigator must keep in mind when collecting data
and potential sources of information. This is usually accompanied by a probable list of
sources of evidence. The propositions and case study questions also helped in deciding
what type of secondary documentation had to be targeted.
The case study questions, sub-questions and respective sources of evidence have been
defined as follows.
Case Study Question 1: What are the actors’ understandings of ICTs and of their impact
on urban issues and governance?
The following issues and sub-questions were also incorporated:
♦ What kind of perception actors have of the different issues raised by the interplay
between ICTs and cities?
♦ Can these perceptions be differentiated and classified?
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♦ It was crucial to make the interviewees speak about both specific and broad
aspects of the issues raised, without drawing attention to the research’s particular
interest in their interpretations.
♦ Body language was also important, particularly in the case of interviewees’

reaction to more sensitive questions.
Sources of evidence: Interviews with ‘insiders’ and some ‘outsiders’, where their first
thoughts were valued as non-elaborated ideas of the issues discussed.
Case Study Question 2: How have ICTs been dealt with in terms of policy and strategy
and who has been delegated to overview or run these initiatives?
Issues and sub-questions:
♦ What is the importance of such strategies for the city?
♦ What is the history of ICT developments in this city?
♦ An organisational chart was drawn showing people and institutions involved in

ICT strategies.
♦ Key names regarding these strategies were obtained both in documents and with
interviewees.
♦ ICT initiatives were classified hierarchically, according to their relative

importance within the general strategy.
♦ What is the general shape of the city’s urban-technological strategy?
Sources of evidence: mainly interviews with the major promoters of the strategies as well
as current officers aware of the organisational functioning of local government. Historical
documentation, policy documents, promotional documents and websites provided
complementary evidence.
Case Study Question 3: How are actions related to ICTs organised, planned and
deployed in terms of integration and coordination?
The following issues and sub-questions were addressed:
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♦ How are the local authority and the division responsible for ICTs internally
organised? What are the main actions and responsibilities involved?
♦ How are new projects conceived and current ones maintained?
♦ How can integration and coordination be related to other divisions within local
government and to the whole range of ICT-related projects?
♦ How are ICT projects funded?
Sources of evidence: interviews, especially with ‘insiders’. The major promoters of the
strategies were significantly helpful in giving details about the internal organisation of
ICT initiatives. Policy and managerial documents were also consulted.
Case Study Question 4: What are the main barriers to an integrated strategy for urban-
technological issues?
♦ What types of barriers obstruct ICTs implementation?
♦ What types of barriers pose difficulties in relating ICT policy-making and urban
issues to one another?
♦ What are the dilemmas in understanding this relation?
♦ What specific and historical circumstances have helped to give the strategies their
actual shape?
Sources of evidence: interviews with ‘insiders’, especially those particularly aware of the
entire process of consolidation of the strategies. Academic publications, and historical
and promotional documents were used to set the background for these questions.
Case Study Question 5: How can the virtual city be defined according to the concepts
previously discussed, through the identification of its different elements within the city
strategy?
♦ What elements of the virtual city can be identified (actors, virtual representation
and physical dimension)?
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♦ What is the role of local government in shaping the virtual city? Does local
government have any control upon it?
♦ What are the relations between ICT strategies, the virtual city and city boosterism
or propaganda?
♦ What sort of influence do ICT strategies have upon public buildings and urban
design? Put more simply, how do virtual initiatives relate to physical spaces?
Sources of evidence: once again, interviews played a central role, especially those with
civil servants and officers directly involved with the initiatives. Policy and promotional
documents, press material, and academic publications were also considered.
Case Study Question 6: How have intra- and extra-local factors influenced the actual
shape of the strategy?
The following issues and sub-questions were addressed:
♦ What sort of extra-local factors have influenced the strategy and how?
♦ What have been the relations between public and private sectors since the
strategies started to be implemented?
♦ Have issues of inter-governmental levels played any role? What are the relations
between the different levels of governance (local, regional and national)?
♦ How have regional agencies or other institutions influenced?
♦ What sort of intra-local tensions have arisen?
Sources of evidence: Interviews with ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ where discourses and
opinions were confronted to support the coverage of sensitive or controversial stories
(further consultation to the interviewees were used whenever necessary). Policy
document, press material and independent reports were used as secondary documentation.
Case Study Question 7: Can the shape of the strategies of the two case studies of
Newcastle and Antwerp and the respective dilemmas encountered be interpreted and
explained according to the three strands of theory previously constructed?
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♦ Can we clearly identify parallels between Newcastle and Antwerp virtual cities?
♦ Can we identify elements of recombinant or urban-technological planning in the

strategies for these two cities?
♦ What shape is taken by the strategies in terms of coordination and integration

among actors, and between ICTs and traditional urban issues?
♦ Can we identify and explain the major dilemmas faced by actors and strategies
according to the social construction of technologies theory?
♦ Can we relate the blurriness of ICTs and cities to the interpretative flexibility
associated with the process of social stabilisation of new technologies?
Sources of evidence: Interviews with all key actors. Secondary documentation as well as
a constant revising of previous findings were useful in setting the background and
structure of such verifications.
Finally, it is important to note that case study questions were posed to the researcher
rather than the respondents, in order to remind him or her about the information to be
collected together with their targets. As we saw, such questions derived from the research
questions and propositions, and were also constantly brought together with them in order
to keep the findings organised according to the major concerns of the project.
4.5.4 Constructing the case study narrative and comparative analysis
As has been stressed throughout this chapter, the core of this research was the verification
of the interpretations present in the discourses of key actors in two contrasting cases of
ICTs implementation within an urban strategy. The identification of the dominant aspects
of these discourses was critical in the application of the SCOT (Social Construction of
Technologies) theory to these cases.
All interviews were therefore transcribed and deconstructed according to identified topics.
By deconstruction we mean that parts of the interviews were separated and prioritised by
the type of evidence provided rather than separating them by interviewee. In this case, for
instance, the same interview was split into many extracts, which were then grouped
according to major topics of description (stories, historical facts, barriers, and so on) or of
perception (the actors’ interpretations and respective dominant aspects). These extracts
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from the interviews were then added to the case study databases following the topic
classification, which was extremely useful in constructing the individual case study
narratives in accordance with the chain of evidence.
In the light of a dynamic interplay between propositions and the evidence for the case
study, this strategy of analysis was considered from a range of four current dominant
modes of analysis. According to Yin (1994) these are the strategies used by most case
study research in the social sciences: pattern-matching, explanation-building, time-series
analysis, and program logic models. As the aim for this research was to verify some very
specific phenomena proposed as hypotheses for two contrasting European cities,
explanation-building was the most appropriate strategy because of its inherent dynamism.
This strategy works similarly to pattern-matching analysis, by comparing empirically-
based patterns and variables with predicted ones. The difference is that in explanation-
building strategy the explanations have to be reviewed and rebuilt constantly according to
empirical findings. Therefore, it basically consisted of building or predicting explanations
for the events of the case study, reviewing and rebuilding it as an ongoing process. Yin
(1994) indicates some basic steps when using explanation-building analysis, which were
adapted and used during the data analysis:
♦ Making an initial theoretical statement or an initial proposition about policy or

social behaviour.
♦ Comparing the findings of an initial case against such a statement or proposition.
♦ Revising the statement or proposition.
♦ Comparing other details of the case against revision.
♦ Further revising the statement or proposition.
♦ Comparing the revision to the facts of a second, third, or more cases.
♦ Repeating this process as many times as is needed.
In this way, the narratives were constructed in a two-fold structure, contemplating a

mixture of descriptive and explanatory sections. The first part was dedicated to the
identification of the case in question as a virtual city. This part was yet further divided
into two other sections where, on the one hand, the historical conditions specific to the
actual shape of the urban-technological strategy were described, while on the other, the
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major elements of the virtual city including the local government’s strategy were
identified.
The second part considers three major groups of dilemmas, namely the blurriness of the
relationship between cities and ICTs (represented by interpretative flexibility),
endogenous (or intra-local) factors, and exogenous (or extra-local) factors. It is here that
the dominant aspects of actors’ perceptions play a central role by representing the variety
of divergent interpretations about ICTs and about the urban-technological strategy.
After each narrative was drafted, copies were sent to the gatekeepers of each case
respectively. They were invited to provide their comments on it as a way to improve the
accuracy of facts and analyses narrated. The gatekeepers had been previously informed of
this possibility, and so that were expecting such gesture in exchange for their invaluable
support. According to Yin (1994: 144), this review by the informants is ‘more than a
matter of professional courtesy. The procedure has been identified – but only rarely – as a
way of corroborating the essential facts and evidence’.
With the individual narratives completed, the comparative analyses concentrated on the
similarities and contrasts between the two cases. Again, preference was given to the same
division used for the narratives as the urban-technological strategies and the virtual city
on one side, and the dilemmas and constraints upon the understanding and
implementation of such strategies on the other. A third section was added to this structure
in order to complete the explanation-building analysis, with priority given to the
propositions previously defined and improved during the studies. As a result, a three-fold
structure for comparing the two cases was arrived at.
The first section therefore focused on the seven research propositions and their respective
rival explanations. Each proposition was finally explained according to the findings of the
two case studies. As mentioned before, a single explanation would not be necessarily
sufficient for each proposition. Generally, the two case studies supported a general
balance between the proposed rival explanations, and comparison between the two case
studies most often provided either an alternative or a hybrid explanation.
The second section concentrated on the contrasts between the main characteristics of the
ICT initiatives, the elements of the virtual cities, and the urban-technological strategy
adopted by the local authorities in each city.
137
Finally, the third and last section was centred on the enormous similarities amid dilemmas
and constraints for the implementation of the contrasting strategies.
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4.6 CONCLUSIONS
We have now described the exact procedures used to link the theories discussed in
Chapters 2 and 3 to the evidence of the exploratory typological study on TeleCities, and
to the case studies of Newcastle and Antwerp. These procedures included the way in
which data was analysed and reintegrated with the theoretical discussions.
An overall exploratory study was developed to observe, on the one hand, the broader
circumstances in which local authorities in Europe are building their urban-technological
strategies and linking them to physical space, and on the other hand, the detailed
conditions in which two contrasting cases have evolved into integrated and fragmented
strategies, respectively. For the latter, two individual narratives and a comparative
analysis were the result of such methodology. A further amalgamation of exploratory
typology and case study analyses was then provided; these are presented as conclusions
of the research project as a whole in Chapter 9.
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CHAPTER 5 - RECOMBINANT EXPERIENCES IN EUROPE: TOWARDS AN
EXPLORATORY TYPOLOGY
5.1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................141

5.2 VIRTUAL CITIES AND PHYSICAL SPACE: DISCUSSING QUALITATIVE RESULTS ..............143
5.2.1 General characteristics of virtual city initiatives .........................................................................143
5.2.1.1 Aims and targeted public of the (desired) virtual city initiatives....................................144
5.2.1.2 Enablers for ICT initiatives..............................................................................................145
5.2.1.3 Virtual representations.....................................................................................................145
5.2.1.4 Physical manifestations....................................................................................................147
5.2.1.5 General perception of ICTs and cities.............................................................................148
5.2.1.6 Converging the five parameters: towards a typology .....................................................149
5.2.2 Building a typology for the interplay between virtual representations and physical
manifestations .............................................................................................................................149
(Spain) .............................................................................................................................154
5.2.2.2 Type 1 – first attempts towards integration: Amaroussion (Greece) .............................156
5.2.2.3 Type 2 – low levels of information and a few projects in terms of physical
space: Metz (France) ......................................................................................................158
Birkirkara (Malta)...........................................................................................................160
Lewisham (UK) ...............................................................................................................162
5.3 RESEARCH ADAPTABILITY: LEARNING FROM THE EXPERIENCE OF TURNING A
SURVEY INTO AN EXPLORATORY TYPOLOGICAL STUDY .....................................................166
5.3.1 Using participant observation to understand TeleCities..............................................................167
5.3.1.1 Boosterism ........................................................................................................................169
5.4 CONCLUSIONS ......................................................................................................................................173
Rodrigo J. Firmino Chapter 5 - Recombinant experiences in Europe
5.1 INTRODUCTION
As explained in Chapter 4 above, the solid links between theory and practice in this
research are expressed in progressive empirical stages. The first stage presents a general
picture of the European situation regarding policies towards the integration of traditional
urban policies and ICT-driven policies, specifically those preoccupied with the interplay
between virtual and the physical urban spaces. The second stage is devoted to two in-
depth case studies, which serve as examples of actual practice in the field of policy-
making. The aim in this second stage is to identify the dilemmas involved in the complex
socio-technical process of constructing urban-technological strategies.
The first stage mobilises a much broader perspective, and was originally intended to
provide a European typology for virtual-physical city strategies by collecting data from a
wide range of local authorities, namely the members of the TeleCities consortium.
Thus, the exploratory study of TeleCities was designed to try and observe real situations
capable of physically representing all the ideas and theoretical assumptions discussed
earlier. We were looking for answers to questions such as: are Mitchell’s (1995 and 2000)
recombinant architecture, or even more sophisticated ideas of recombinant planning,
starting to be reflected in practices, projects, new public spaces and policies? What are the
perceptions of city-makers about this new way of integrating ICT effects into a general
approach to the city?
As we noted above, this study did not succeed as a survey in terms of response rates,
making it almost impossible for us to analyse the responses quantitatively with any
methodological rigor. No data received was dismissed however. Qualitative analyses
were carried out in order to find some exemplary cases for a few major types of strategies,
always based on individual responses to the mixed questionnaire. The model for such
typology – based on information, communication, physical initiatives and changes in
physical space – was a direct outcome of these experiences.
In addition, I was given the opportunity to participate in one of the TeleCities

conferences. I followed two distinct research strategies in relation with this event: A first
obvious approach was to take this opportunity to improve communication with TeleCities
members through face-to-face contact, and then try and improve the response rates to the
141
questionnaire; the second was determined by the reasons for such low response rates up to
the moment of this conference. I decided that participant observation of TeleCities
members and the way they interacted could go some way to explaining the internal
politics of this organisation. The importance of the internal organisation of TeleCities and
the networking of its members lies in the way they work together to build the collective
interpretation for virtual city projects. It is also crucial to understand the atmosphere of
competition between members, as well as their commitment to using ICTs as an
economic competitive advantage for place-marketing.
This chapter will therefore provide a description of the qualitative analyses for the survey
which became an exploratory typological study in Europe (also with different results from
the ones expected for a survey). It also describes the types of strategy found, and their
representative exemplary cases. Equally importantly, the last part of this chapter reports
the findings of my participant observation of the TeleCities conference.
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5.2 VIRTUAL CITIES AND PHYSICAL SPACE: DISCUSSING

QUALITATIVE RESULTS
The responses to the exploratory study were considered for their qualitative rather than
quantitative value. This was done to help construct a three-fold descriptive analysis
sustained by: the research propositions; the general approach of local authorities in terms
of urban-technological strategy; and by the actual projects and initiatives relating virtual
and physical spaces.
This exploratory study falls into two main parts: the general characteristics of the virtual
city initiatives, following five key parameters; and the typology of mini exemplary cases
for virtual city initiatives in Europe (according to information, communication, physical
projects and changes in physical space).
5.2.1 General characteristics of virtual city initiatives
In accordance with the specific research boundaries and from the answers received for the
questionnaire, we were able to select some key points of interest for the subject of this
exploratory typological study. These ‘parameters’ were particularly useful in identifying
the general approach of the respondents to issues relating traditional urban policies and
ICT policies, and distinguishing elements of the interplay between physical and virtual
spaces. The parameters identified were as follows:
♦ Aims of the (desired) virtual city, and targeted public.
♦ Who is behind the planning, implementation, management and promotion of ICT

initiatives (enablers)?
♦ Type of virtual representation in cyberspace according to its contents.
♦ Physical manifestations related to the virtual initiatives.
♦ General perception of the respondents about the importance of ICTs for urban
issues.
Whilst generalisation and quantitative analyses became irrelevant, it is still worthwhile

making some general comments about each of these parameters as a means to mapping a
typology for the cases covered by this study.
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5.2.1.1 Aims and targeted public of the (desired) virtual city initiatives
As regards the main objectives of ICT initiatives and urban-technological strategy, a few
aspects dominate the rationales volunteered by respondents. In general, these dominant
aspects assume a cause-effect relation with telematics technologies. Technological-
deterministic arguments tend to consider ICTs as a technical solution for all kinds of
urban problems.
These dominant aspects are referred to in isolation, hardly coming together as part of the
rationale for the same strategy. Most respondents referred to potential improvements in
public services and information provision as the main driver for the implementation of
ICT initiatives.
Other motivators for ICT initiatives were also mentioned. These included: widening
public participation; improving access to ICTs (in other words, tackling the digital divide,
or promoting digital inclusion); improvement of management and administration; and
economic competitiveness. The reasons for developing ICT-related projects can thus be
seen to be vague, broad and disparate, as the following answers to the question about the
aims of the approach illustrate:
‘To give access to as wide a variety as possible of information about the

life in the City of Bristol, its communities and its activities’. (Bristol,
UK)
‘We are implementing e-government, which means that we will have

electronic service delivery in place by the end of 2002’. (Lewisham,
UK)
‘The chief objective of the Infoville project was to promote the

implementation of the Information Society throughout the region of
Valencia, and through it to increase the competitiveness of the
economics of this region’. (Valencia, Spain)
‘To narrow the digital divide. By providing the necessary technical and
logistic support, the ‘Virtual City’ initiative aims to transform the risk
of digital divide into a digital opportunity’. (Birkirkara, Malta)
Another important factor to be highlighted within this first parameter is the shape of the
initiatives in terms of their potential users. Broadly speaking, virtual cities tend to follow
a civic and public profile, as the absolute majority of responses point to citizens or
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residents as the ones who should benefit from virtual cities. Other groups, marginally
indicated as the target audience, include: visitors/tourists, companies/NGOs, public
administration, businessmen, the education sector, non-plugged or disabled people,
emigrants who may, it is claimed, feel closer to their home-town, city-makers, and
politicians. In this case, responses tended to be very broad:
‘Citizens in general, disfavoured population in particular (unemployed,

women, young people without professional training, long-term
unemployed, etc.), local SMEs, entrepreneurs, NGOs and other local,
national and transnational organisations working with the target
populations, tourists, tourism related organisations (tour operators,
tourism fairs, etc.), other public administrations’. (Huelva, Spain;
responding to the question about the target public)
5.2.1.2 Enablers for ICT initiatives
In terms of enablers, governmental bodies such as local authorities and regional

development agencies appeared to have the main responsibility for all initiatives. The
majority however ran their virtual cities in partnership with various other actors. These
partners mainly represented commercial companies, NGOs, and citizens’ representatives:
‘The Digital City is a cooperative venture between the City Council and
local partners aimed at improving availability of local facilities, and
access to IT, for the local community’. (Bristol, UK)
All respondents declared the municipality or local authority to hold the major
responsibility for planning, implementing, managing and promoting virtual city
initiatives. The private sector and NGOs were normally the suppliers or providers of
infrastructure, information and content, while citizens’ representatives were likely to
work as watchdogs for the general public’s use of, and attitude towards, what is provided:
‘Citizens’ panel helps us to ascertain user requirements and continually

monitor the appropriateness of services being delivered’. (Lewisham,
UK)
5.2.1.3 Virtual representations
The type of virtual representation emerged as a very sensitive issue for this exploratory
study. There were clear contradictions in most of the answers to the question about the
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technical configuration of the virtual city (Question 5); this was also the case in answers
to the questions about the contents and features provided through the initiatives.
It might seem that a misunderstanding of the particular types suggested by the closed
question could have caused these contradictions. This is unlikely to be the case, however,
as clarifications of each type of virtual city were suggested: in a footnote, an easy-to-
understand table was provided explaining the relation between the contents and features
of the virtual initiatives and its respective type (Table 5.1).
Table 5.1 - Technical configuration for Virtual Cities.

This configuration is based on the main profile of the virtual initiative (providing channels for information and/or
participation) as well as the levels of interactivity (high-controlled interactivity (only polls, opinion boards: one-way
communication) or low-controlled interactivity (chat, forums, videoconference: double-way communication). For
instance, an ‘informative – broadcasting virtual city’ provides mainly information for its users and do not allow
interactions, while a ‘holistic bi-directional virtual city’, provides both information and participation with low-
controlled interactivity.
Provide Allow High-Controlled Low-Controlled

TYPE\FEATURES
Information Participation Interactivity Interactivity
Informative –
X
Broadcasting
Participative
X X
Unidirectional
Participative Bi-
X X
directional
Holistic
X X X
Unidirectional
Holistic Bi-
X X X
directional
Some respondents who identified their initiatives as ‘holistic bi-directional’, also

described the services and features provided online mainly as informative, offering very
low levels of interaction between the provider (usually the local authority) and the users
(aimed at common citizens).
The respondent for Huelva (Spain) described his initiative’s contents as ‘holistic bi-
directional’ providing job orientation, job application, and tourism and city-related
information. However, the communication in this case seems to be very tightly controlled
by the provider, it therefore would seem to merit a classification as, at most, ‘holistic
unidirectional’.
Another respondent, representing Metz (France), choose the ‘holistic bi-directional’

model, and justified his choice by stressing the provision of services such as traffic and
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parking, tourism, culture and leisure information, without any demonstration of

interaction. This initiative might thus be better classified as ‘informative-broadcasting’.
It seems likely that these contradictions are driven by a kind of boosterism, where actors
fear showing themselves as not advanced enough, and hence risking further investments
and developments. The responses regarding the technical configuration of virtual city
initiatives seem to have be seriously affected by the fact that most of the respondents
mainly depend on self-promotion to obtain attention and funding outside TeleCities.
As will see in detail below, this explanation is partly supported by my experience within
TeleCities. Exogenous factors like the ‘entrepreneurial imperative’ and ‘regional
competition’ (within the EU) seem to explain such a defensive attitude. This will be
explored in more detail in connection with the case study narratives presented in Chapters
6 and 7.
5.2.1.4 Physical manifestations
The range of questions about the interplay of the online initiatives with physical spaces/
implementations (Questions 6, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4 and 6.5) produced interesting results.
Most of the respondents assumed that physical references for the virtual city were
extremely important and meaningful and that, they themselves tended not to be as
proactive as they should in this respect.
In terms of physical projects linked to the virtual representations (buildings, booths, street
urban equipment, kiosks etc.) no respondent referred to deep interactive services through
physical access points. Three of the respondents had never had any kind of physical
implementation in terms of spaces linking the virtual and the physical cities; and those
with kiosks or access through public buildings identified these spaces as no more than
terminals for accessing the websites.
This aspect would therefore seem to reveal an interesting contradiction between a serious
considering of physical spaces important for enabling ICT initiatives on the one hand, and
a lack of real action towards the development of such places on the other.
While there is widespread over-excitement about the Internet, Intranets and non-material
initiatives, the links between these virtual spheres of action and physical public spaces
147
nevertheless remain almost completely undeveloped. They seem to be restricted to the

development of ICTs’ infrastructure.
5.2.1.5 General perception of ICTs and cities
As regards general perceptions and interpretations of the relations between cities and
telematics technologies, most of responses tended to be quite superficial, with a note of
technological determinism strongly in evidence.
Speaking about the importance of physical spaces for virtual cities, for instance, the
respondent for Bristol (UK) said that physical presence is not relevant as ‘the idea [of the
initiative] is to draw various Internet presences relating to Bristol and its citizens
together’.
The general effect of ICTs in terms of social, cultural and spatial aspects seemed largely
to be ignored, whereas the technological development and the implementation of ICT
initiatives were commonly related to economic development and competitiveness.
Only one respondent seemed to understand the complexity of integrating ICTs with
traditional urban practices as part of a broader socio-technical process. The respondent for
Birkirkara (Malta) recognised that ICTs should not be addressed in isolation from other
urban issues, and also showed some interest in social and cultural aspects. Answering
about the importance of such physical references, the respondent said that:
‘Physical references are meaningful since they make ICT a reality in the
daily lives of the local residents. Moreover, it would be easier for local
residents to use ICT related services like e-government and e-
commerce. Physical references bring the virtual world nearer to the
residents […] The increase in continuous ICT education and the
awareness campaigns targeted at different audiences will contribute to a
bright future for those “virtual cities”’. (Birkirkara, Malta)
This respondent also commented that apparently traditional urban problems should be
dealt with simultaneously, to assess the impact that ICTs would have upon them.
Problems such as social exclusion and low levels of political participation would need
deeper understanding and parallel resolutions rather than simply delegating to ICTs the
linear role of cause, effect and universal solution.
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5.2.1.6 Converging the five parameters: towards a typology
The five points (parameters) discussed above broadly support the points raised in Chapter
2, such as the difficulty of pinpointing telematics development in cities, due to the
simultaneous complexity and vagueness of this subject.
My seventh research proposition is clearly very relevant to the responses received: ‘only a
few cities are dealing consciously with the relations between physical and virtual urban
spaces towards a democratic construction of the virtual city and a closer interaction with
public places’.
The superficial arguments raised above, and the claim that cities are more interested on
individual projects, together support the argument that the complex phenomenon of
integrative urban-technological strategy still awaits full consideration.
On the other hand, there are also a few suggestions that, as stated in my fourth research
proposition, these ‘recombinant ideas start to break down paradigm barriers between the
worlds of traditional urban policy and ICT policy’. In fact, what this typological study on
TeleCities only suggested is to be verified by the depth of the case studies.
5.2.2 Building a typology for the interplay between virtual representations and
physical manifestations
The following description will briefly analyse some exemplary cases, using the
information produced by the exploratory study of TeleCities. This typology considers
four major aspects of the respondents’ approaches to ICTs. These are: virtual initiatives;
the provision of information and the facilitation of communication (participation);
physical initiatives, projects or places directly related to the electronic initiatives; and the
depth of changes in architecture and urban design provoked by these projects.
This classification ranges from 0 to 6, with 0 standing for a lack of any strategy that
relates physical to virtual initiatives, and 6 indicating a high level of interplay between
such initiatives. This typology was called degree of interplay between physical and
virtual spaces. Figures 5.1, 5.2, 5.3 and 5.4 illustrate how virtual and physical initiatives
have been taken to differentiate levels of development.
149
Well
Developed
Low levels,
website mainly
Poorly
Developed
None
Provision of Channels of Related Urban Depth of Physical
Information Communication Places Changes
Virtual Initiatives Physical Initiatives
Type 0
Only virtual initiatives; emphasis on information.
Well
Developed
Low levels, First Attempt;

website mainly Unsuccessful
Poorly
Developed
None
Type 1
Virtual initiatives and a few unsuccessful
attempts to develop physical links.
Figure 5.1 - The degree of interplay between physical and virtual spaces: types 0 and 1.
150
Well
Developed
Low levels, Small Projects

website mainly being run
Poorly
Developed
None
Type 2
Virtual initiatives and small projects
related to physical spaces.
High levels
Well
Developed
Small Projects
being run
Poorly
Developed
None
Type 3
Well developed virtual initiatives and
small projects related to physical spaces.
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Extensive Projects
High levels Being run
Well
Developed
Low levels;
One-way mainly A few changes
Poorly
Developed
None
Type 4
Well developed virtual initiatives and
many projects related to physical spaces.
High levels; Extensive Projects

High levels Participation Being run
Well
Developed
A few changes
Poorly
Developed
None
Type 5
Advanced virtual initiatives and extensive
projects related to physical spaces.
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Deep changes,
High levels; Extensive Projects Architecture and
High levels Participation Being run Urban Design
Well
Developed
Poorly
Developed
None
Type 6
Advanced virtual initiatives and extensive projects related to physical
spaces. High profile changes of architecture and urban design.
Figure 5.4 - The degree of interplay between physical and virtual spaces: type 6.
This typology is based on the experiences with each case, and a blend of the theoretical
discussions about recombinant architecture, recombinant design (Mitchell, 1995, 2000;
Horan, 2000) and typology for virtual cities addressed in Chapter 3.
Each city or local authority was given a type of interplay according to the development of
its initiatives for provision of information and participation (interaction), physical
projects, and changes of architecture and urban design.
In the descriptions that follow, in order to avoid repetition and duplication, only one case
was chosen to represent each level of interplay between physical and virtual urban spaces.
Within this range, no cases representative of types 3 and 6 were found; these will not be
discussed. Type 6 could be considered an ‘ideal type’, as it considers high levels of
correspondence between virtual initiatives in cyberspace and physical initiatives on the
ground.
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(Spain)
The type zero of the degree of interplay between physical and virtual spaces means that
there is no sign of any major project by local authorities trying to link virtual
representations of the ICT strategy to public physical spaces in the city. It also implies a
limited range of services and/or information available online. In other words, a type zero
virtual city most likely indicates a sole (limited) website, portal or Intranet as the main
initiative in the overall urban-technological strategy. In this case, physical manifestations
of the virtual city, apart from the most essential infrastructure, are nearly non-existent.
Four virtual city initiatives were classified as type zero in the exploratory study: Huelva
(Spain), Leipzig (Germany), Munich (Germany), and Utrecht (The Netherlands). This
does not mean however that the local authorities or enablers of the virtual city are not
pursuing more conspicuous projects bridging virtual and physical initiatives. As an
example of this type, the municipality of Huelva had plans to try and tackle the digital
divide by making information and communication technologies more accessible for
people excluded from mainstream advances, such as unemployed, women, young people
without professional training etc. Obviously, they also hoped to attend all other citizens,
companies and tourists.
However, their intention to broaden access to electronic information and services was still
limited by access to the technology itself, as no physical links were provided during the
period this study was being carried out. The respondent for Huelva stressed that the range
of services and information provided is restricted to the municipality’s local development
portal on the Internet (Figure 5.5).
The Local Development and Tourism Agency of the City Council of Huelva claimed to
have developed a holistic virtual city (informative and participative/bi-directional), whose
content was said to provide a range of services such as ‘social-economic promotion of the
city, employment initiatives, self-employment, training, job orientation, support to local
businesses, promotion of tourism etc.’ (Huelva).
Although information about these issues was available through text and hypertext, the
lack of communication channels between the user and the municipality was evident.
There was no provision of interaction related to these electronic services. According to
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the model of virtual representation showed in Table 5.1 (p.146), this project could be
classified as, at best, ‘participative unidirectional’.
Figure 5.5 – Huelva’s local development website. Source: Ayuntamiento de Huelva, 2001.
The implementation and promotion of ICT initiatives occur through a partnership

between local authorities and commercial companies, the latter being mainly responsible
for the technical development. A secondary role, as general users and content suppliers,
seems to be reserved for other possible actors such as NGOs, citizen representatives, and
multinational partners.
In terms of physical manifestations (such as access points, gateways, kiosks, etc.), the
local authority was planning to install interactive information points, in a coordinated
project to establish what they called a ‘one step shop for the City of Huelva’. This
initiative seemed to be a first step on the road to providing physical access to the virtual
city through public places for direct information and service delivery.
Whilst Huelva virtual city was still underdeveloped in terms of interactions between
traditional urban and virtual policies and spaces, the respondent demonstrated some
recognition of virtual and physical initiatives as just one complex social artefact.
Responding to the question about the meaningfulness of physical links for the virtual city,
the respondent said:
‘Many citizens do not have any means for accessing the virtual city, so
far. On the one hand, public kiosks in different locations make the new
services available for all; on the other hand, they are some king of
“physical memento” of the virtual services provided, “dragging” the
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virtual city’s existence into the consciousness of the public while it is a

new and unknown process of relations between PAs [Public
Administrations] and citizens, businesses etc.’ (Huelva)
The major barrier to starting and developing these more intensive projects was attributed
by the respondent to financial limitations. This could mean that the groups behind the
urban-technological strategy had not been able to convince politicians and other officers
in the public administration to ‘buy’ their idea and invest in such projects. Using SCOT
terms, the balance between insiders and outsiders was still uneven enough to make it hard
for the insiders to introduce their projects, let alone stabilise an urban-technological
strategy. This scenario can only be regarded as a possibility, as this exploratory study did
not provide data enough and margin for this sort of discussions; the case studies will
provide a more detailed account of the relations between insiders and outsiders of the
urban-technological strategy.
A type zero virtual city is therefore one like Huelva with a few developments in terms of
ICT projects and virtual representations. However, the respondent himself did admit that,
in his situation, ‘the “virtual city” [was] not really accessible yet’.
5.2.2.2 Type 1 – first attempts towards integration: Amaroussion (Greece)
The Type 1 of interplay between virtual and physical spaces corresponds to those
initiatives or strategies that already acknowledged the importance of such link and found
the means to constitute it, but for whatever reason had had to withdraw or slow down the
projects.
As with type zero, the cause of difficulties in stabilising the urban-technological strategy
could lie in a failure to convince other social groups of need for further implementations.
Two virtual city initiatives were classified as Type 1, namely Amaroussion (Greece) and
Linkoping (Sweden).
Amaroussion virtual city is, according to the respondent, a portal run by the municipality
targeting mainly local residents, businessesmen and visitors, and can be classified as
‘informative – broadcasting’ (Figure 5.6). Current users of this initiative include citizens,
businessmen and municipal staff (of which numbers and proportions are unknown). The
municipality intended to expand the services provided online in what was called eGOV
project (an interactive municipal website).
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Figure 5.6 - Amaroussion website: basis for the virtual city.

Source: Municipality of Amaroussion, 2002.
The whole strategy is concentrated in a number of very specific projects, concurrently

limiting the effectiveness of physical links to the virtual city. This sort of ‘behaviour’ is
commonly expressed by the assumption that a few isolated initiatives or projects are able
to trigger solutions to certain urban problems that in fact do not depend on the
technology:
‘Currently, the municipality is working on an eGOV project and it plans

to develop an interactive web-site which will improve the quality of the
services provided to citizens’. (Amaroussion)
According to the respondent, using physical spaces as gateways for the virtual city would
be an advantage in providing access to information and services provided by the
municipality. As regards effective projects in this direction, the respondent revealed that:
‘Originally, there were some info-kiosks, which provided some useful

information about the city. But most of them are not operating any
more. The installation of new info-kiosks is under consideration’.
(Amaroussion)
The respondent also highlighted a lack of interest on the part of the public as the main
cause of the failure of this attempt to establish a physical access point for the virtual city.
According to him, the majority of the population is not used to new ways of accessing
information and communication; this would probably require further education in IT
skills.
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In the light of the evidence provided (description of physical initiatives and current status
of projects), first initiatives have not incorporated the development of physical spaces
(kiosks or multimedia telephones).
An interesting initiative that local authorities were keen on deploying and that had the
potential to improve the general awareness about the relation between the city and ICTs,
was what they called the Information Technology Forum. Initially, the Forum was
planned to involve only municipal officers, representatives of IT and local companies. A
broadened forum with members of local communities and other local actors could
perhaps deepen awareness within the local community. No further information about this
project was received.
5.2.2.3 Type 2 – low levels of information and a few projects in terms of physical space:
Metz (France)
Type 2 of interplay between virtual and physical spaces indicates the existence of a few
projects in physical space that are directly linked to virtual initiatives. Normally, these
physical spaces do not implicate deep architectural or urban design innovations, due to
the simplicity of the projects involved. Horan’s (2000) ‘adaptive recombinant space’ is
usually the model that applies here.
As regards virtual representations, there is no provision of interactions or channels of

communications between local authorities and users, while a limited amount of
information is provided. Metz virtual city was the only case to match these
characteristics.
Metz was the first French city to have a virtual representation in cyberspace, in 1995. The
city has developed a few physical implementations, and the respondent characterised the
web-based initiative as a ‘holistic bi-directional virtual city’.
Considering the structure of the portal (Figure 5.7), a more suitable technical definition
would in fact be ‘informative broadcasting’, as an attractive interface is offered, but
without a wide range of information and communication services.
The lack of interaction is a particular weakness of Metz online: there is a link to what is
called a ‘portal of interactivity’, but there are no clear links pointing to the services
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provided by the municipality, such as basic information on traffic, parking, culture,

leisure, and so on.
Figure 5.7 - Metz attractive and basic website. Source: Metz, 1995.
The promoters of Metz virtual city include government agencies (planers and decision-
makers), commercial companies (planners and developers), and NGOs and citizens’
representatives (marginal actors in terms of decisive inputs, seen rather as passive users).
The initiative is aimed at improving the delivery of information and communication for
citizens and increasing access to public services via Intranet. Thus, residents, tourists and
businessmen are the main target public, while, according to the respondent, the actual
users include common citizens (60%), tourists (20%), government representatives (10%),
and businessmen (10%).
The respondent’s answers to the questionnaire indicated a technological determinist value

system, where vague statements try to link simple technological initiatives as solutions
for complex urban problems. This is clear from the respondent’s opinion of the
meaningfulness of physical links to the virtual city:
‘Yes, to make information easier and to get better communication

between citizens and the city’. (Metz)
Only limited efforts seem to have been made by local authorities to carry out physical
implementations. Apart from public cyber-cafés, free cyberspace access (including the
largest Multimedia Centre in France), the most advanced feature is on-street screens or
159
panels across the city for tourist and public information (e.g. traffic and parking). No
other complex architectural or urban interventions where reported.
projects and a few changes in terms of architecture and urban design: Birkirkara
(Malta)
What defines a virtual city strategy as a Type 4 in terms of interplay between virtual and
physical spaces is the provision of a wide range of information through virtual
representations, as well as some possibilities for communication and interaction. These
should then be accessible in public places through physical implementations such as
public telephones, information kiosks and public buildings with direct physical access to
the virtual city in cyberspace. With Type 4, we start to see some significant improvements
in terms of what is provided online and physically accessible in public places compared
with the previous types. However, no significant innovations in architectural or urban
design projects are visible yet. Three virtual city initiatives were related to Type 4: Bilbao
(Spain), Birkirkara (Malta), and Bristol (UK).
The Birkirkara web-based initiative is driven by original and well-established objectives.

As mentioned before, according to the respondent’s answers to the questionnaire,
Birkirkara’s was the most aware of the twelve respondents about the importance of
understanding the relations between ICTs and urban life.
For example, the respondent at one point implied that one of the most important things
about establishing a virtual city strategy is the possibility for creating a virtuous circle of
awareness, involvement, commitment, and usefulness that would include different sectors
of the local society to work together towards a more participative and democratic urban
life:
‘The increase in continuous ICT education and the awareness

campaigns targeted at different audiences will contribute to a bright
future for these virtual cities. The Training for Trainers initiative,
whereby a number of individuals are being trained in order to aid locals
making use of the Internet services, will aid in the achievement of the
objectives of the Virtual City initiative. Moreover as the services
offered through the Internet medium increases, more traffic is generated
on the Net, leading to further investment. Considering the investment in
the physical spaces mentioned above, it is anticipated that more
individuals will make use of the Site to get information about their
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locality […] Moreover, through these virtual cities, the concept of e-

democracy can be made a reality. Agendas, minutes and proceedings of
Local Council meetings can be made available on line, while the
Council can also encourage the direct input of local residents in the
decision-making process’. (Birkirkara)
In contrast to the technological-deterministic discourses of other respondents, the Maltese

case presented a strong rationale for its projects, and a clear vision of a desirable future
for its intervention as a local authority. ICTs were hardly seen as a universal cause and
solution for urban problems. At the same time, an important role was given to ICTs in
shaping the future city and initiatives towards what the respondent called ‘narrowing the
digital divide’: improving e-democracy and government service delivery, as well as
disseminating ICTs usage.
Citizen representatives, working alongside government agencies, were reported to play a

major role in planning and implementing policies and decision-making processes.
Unfortunately, no further details were provided of this interesting interactive process.
Despite this allegedly valuable interaction between residents and local authorities, the
structure of Birkirkara’s website appears to follow a standard and general tendency based
on text-links, and does not provide other features to make its interactive function obvious
(Figure 5.8).
Figure 5.8 - Birkirkara web-based initiative. Source: Birkirkara City Council, 200?.
Public access was already provided through local libraries, schools and the city council
premises. Public-private partnerships have been planned at a national level between
161
central government, local authorities and telecom companies to spread access points
across the cities in Malta. According to the respondent, choosing the main partner or
sponsor was the biggest barrier of such projects.
In terms of urban design and architectural transformations, no very deep changes were
noticed in physical public spaces in general.
New ways of governance (through e-government) were pointed out as a possible major
consequence of deploying ICTs publicly through physical access points. The respondent
noted that, in this way:
‘Interplay between physical and virtual public spaces will facilitate the
access of e-government, services which will be provided at local level.
This decentralization will not only result in a better service for the
community, but also in lowering the administrative costs for central
government’. (Birkirkara)
Although the local authority has conducted no official surveys about the distribution of
users for ICT initiatives, the respondent estimated that 60% of its visitors are common
citizens, 20% tourists and another 20% emigrants. He declared that people who had
emigrated had benefited from the website, using it to access local information and contact
local residents and/or authorities.
In general, the local authority in Birkirkara has a proactive approach to the way ICTs are
used for urban development, as well as their role in democratising the information,
improvement of service delivery and internal activities of the public administration.
Little has been done in terms of physical transformation however. In this respect,
Birkirkara virtual city is no different from many other cases of virtual cities; a strong and
clear ‘virtual’ proposal, but no deeper connections with physical public spaces in order to
augment the real penetration of ICTs.
projects and a few changes in terms of architecture and urban design: Lewisham (UK)
Virtual cities classified as Type 5 in terms of interplay between virtual and physical
spaces have a well developed virtual representation regarding the provision of
information and communication channels. According to Aurigi and Graham’s (2000)
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model of virtual cities, Type 5 cities exemplify ‘holistic urban analogies’, and hence
exhibit some developments in terms of physical public space. Again, no deep
transformations in terms of architectural and urban design projects are expected here. This
last criterion is the only one separating this type from Type 6, the highest level, which
incorporates all the characteristics described here, but combines them with profound
changes in architecture and urban design. In this study, two virtual city initiatives were
classified as Type 5: Lewisham (UK) and Valencia (Spain).
The borough of Lewisham in London proved to be one of the most developed cases
within this exploratory study in terms of physical implementations linked to online
initiatives. It has a very well developed virtual city with many services provided online,
as well as communication channels and information about the borough.
As regards the virtual representation model, Lewisham virtual city has a well designed
website with a more traditional structure (Figure 5.9). Despite this, the navigation is easy
and the links to specific areas are clear. In this sense, following the technical models put
to the respondents to the questionnaire, and in accordance to Aurigi and Graham’s (2000)
model, Lewisham virtual representation fully deserves classification as an example of a
‘holistic bi-directional’ virtual city, because of the huge amount of information, and the
interactivity provided.
Figure 5.9 - Lewisham Virtual City: information and communication.

Source: Lewisham City Council, 199?.
The range of services provided is very wide compared with other respondents. There are
also some channels for communication with the council, called Lewisham Listens. This
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service offers citizens the following ways of participating: citizens’ jury, citizens’ panel,
community forums, consultation updates, focus groups involving young groups, and Telly
Talk.
Lewisham council explains the provision of these services by saying that:
At Lewisham Council, we don’t believe that voting should be the only

way in which local people can influence the services their council
provides. We’re convinced that peoples’ views must play a major part
in the shaping of council policy. (Lewisham City Council, 199?)
The municipal administration and NGOs are in charge of the promotion of the ICT
initiatives, in accordance with the UK central government’s strategies and targets. The
respondent claimed that the target public was the whole community, including common
citizens, businesses, schools etc. The council also intended to run partnerships with other
boroughs in London in a project called London Connects.
The respondent listed the following projects as the main services and physical
implementations in Lewisham:
♦ ‘Your voice your say’ (major local democracy initiative).
♦ ‘Telly Talk’ (personal videoconference systems allowing remote contact with the
municipal staff and services).
♦ ‘One stop shop and Call Centre’ (providing information and services).
♦ Free Internet access from public areas.
♦ ‘Wired community pilot’ (empowering the local community).
♦ Videoconference suite.
♦ ‘Councillors online’.
♦ ‘Chief Executive online’ etc.
The respondent pointed out that bringing the infrastructure together, dealing with the
digital divide, and working as a corporate structure were the main barriers to
implementing ICT initiatives and promoting general awareness. On the other hand, he
believed that the use of the systems already in place demonstrated their potential for
success.
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Lewisham Council is acting effectively towards producing integrated virtual and physical
initiatives. This explains why Lewisham virtual city initiative was classified as a Type 5
case for the interplay between physical and virtual spaces. The range of services and
physical links provided are incomparably better than those described by most other
respondents to this survey.
As mentioned above, no cases representative of Types 3 and 6 were found, and therefore
they were not discussed.
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5.3 RESEARCH ADAPTABILITY: LEARNING FROM THE

EXPERIENCE OF TURNING A SURVEY INTO AN EXPLORATORY
TYPOLOGICAL STUDY
Discussing the results of a wide study that mainly relies on qualitative data is always a
sensitive and difficult task. The main risk arises where generalisations are based on poor
data or biased analyses.
The case of this exploratory study becomes even more complicated as the amount of data
collected was relatively small. In this case, generalisations have to be made with extreme
care, if at all, and analyses must be carried out as open-mindedly as possible, as
preconceptions may undermine the whole project. As discussed above, there is also a risk
of ethnocentrism when dealing with such a broad but generalised study.
There are other limitations that must be considered as well, such as the external validity
or reliability on the respondents’ answers. Robson (2002: 230) suggests that one of the
main disadvantages of this type of study is what he calls a ‘social desirability response
bias’ where ‘people won’t necessarily report their beliefs, attitudes, etc. accurately […]
responding in a way that shows them in a good light’.
The exploratory study on TeleCities is particularly vulnerable here, as, in addition to

responding to social desirability, respondents were likely to be supporting their own cities
initiatives. This is especially so in Europe, where cities are engaged in aggressive
competition for European Union funds.
Thus, as Robson (2002: 230) argues, ‘another type of external validity problem occurs if
we seek to generalize from what people say in a survey to what they actually do’. Thus,
above all, we had to take into account the relative distance between what a project is and
what actually is being effectively implemented on the ground.
Surprisingly, and fortunately for this research, the contradiction identified above seemed
to corroborate most of the points raised in the theoretical chapters, especially the ones
dedicated to explaining city-makers’ neglect of proactive ICT strategies and the tendency
to use the technological development mainly as a competitive advantage.
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Factors like the ‘entrepreneurial imperative’ (the city seen as an enterprise), invisibility
and intangibility of ICT effects, as well as the challenge posed to embedded paradigms of
spatial planning (discussed in Chapter 2 above) are at the core of the inconsistent
discourses of city-makers upon issues such as ICTs and virtual cities. In a way, this
exploratory study is generally depicting what is to be analysed into more details in
Chapters 6 and 7: the socio-technical barriers to integrative strategies of urban
technology.
The whole experience of studying TeleCities was important for checking and analysing
what the study was initially meant to only indicate: major problems and difficulties that
local authorities have in understanding and dealing with the relationship between ICTs
and more traditional urban issues.
In this way, participant observation at the TeleCities conference was useful for the
insights it provided into the responses obtained and the internal functioning of TeleCities
itself. By combining the data collected with my observations in TeleCities conference, I
was able to produce from this exploratory study an independent indicator of some key
points raised during the theoretical discussions. These are: the myth or the symbolism of
telematics technologies; the blurriness about urban-technological relations; the variety of
interpretations to ICT initiatives; the difficult task of considering such a variety of
visions; and boosterism related to ICT projects on the ground.
The next sub-section briefly describes the observations taken from TeleCities conference.
As already mentioned in introduction to this chapter, the rationale for studying the
internal organisation of TeleCities is solely based on the understanding of the atmosphere
of competition between members (which reflects the competition between cities), and
their will to use ICTs as an economic competitive advantage for place-marketing.
5.3.1 Using participant observation to understand TeleCities
The decision to transform simple participation in a conference into a deeper participant

observation came because of the low rates of responses through months of traditional
methods of surveying. Keeping an open mind, the initial motivation was to increase
response rates. More important, however, was the opportunity to gain insight into the
internal functioning of the TeleCities organisation.
167
Analysing the voids, rather than new data and information, was a more complicated task,
however. Only after a real involvement with TeleCities and its network, and a thorough
observation of its functioning and members’ reactions to different situations, was it
possible to analyse the problems that initially stimulated the adaptation of this study.
The participant observation was set to be carried out within this single event, the
TeleCities Conference. The whole idea of doing this participant observation, the
positioning of the researcher as an observer, and the procedures followed to collect and
analyse the data were considered according to what Patton (1987: 81) calls the five
dimensions for fieldwork observations. In this sense, the following conditions were taken
into account:
♦ In terms of the role of the observer, the observation was made as an outsider.
♦ Regarding his role in relation to others, the subjects did not know that
observations were being made.
♦ There was no explanation of this study’s purpose to others (that of participant

observation).
♦ It was an observation of limited duration (the time of the conference).
♦ And in terms of focus, the observations followed a pre-determined set of factors or

variables.
These conditions were what defined my own role and behaviour as a participant observer
during the TeleCities conference. In determining what set of factors to observe, (Patton,
1987: 82), special attention was paid to the following variables: the settings; the social
environment; activities and behaviours; informal interactions and unplanned activities;
and observation of what did not happen (such as discussions and activities one would
expect to find considering the type and title of the event).
My report as a participant observer centres on a major factor identified from the interplay
with TeleCities members, alongside careful observation of the above-mentioned variables
during the conference: the predominance of propaganda (boosterism) and the emphasis on
ICTs as a place-marketing tool.
168
TeleCities conferences are organised throughout the year as an opportunity for members
to meet, network, and discuss issues relevant to their own projects. According to
TeleCities’ website, such events are important because:
The exchange and learning of experience, policy-making and project

development are extensively carried out through four yearly events and
five Working Groups, established around the eCitizenship challenge, as
follows:
• Re-engineering service
• eLearning and Inclusion
• eSecurity
• eDemocracy and Community Building
• Benchlearning eStrategies in Cities
In order to disseminate the results of the WGs [Working Groups] and
foster the debate among the whole membership and external audience,
each event may target a different WG theme. (TeleCities, 2002)
Thus, under the title of ‘Towards E-Citizenship for All: Challenges and the Ways
Forward’, the conference which took place in Brussels on the 29th and 30th of April 2002,
organised by TeleCities and PACE (Public Administration and e-Commerce in Europe)
embraced the following events:
♦ Major speeches – ‘E-Citizenship in Europe’; ‘The Economic and Societal

Challenges in the 6th Framework Programme: SMEs, Innovation and Regional
Development’; and ‘Towards E-Citizenship for All: a Contribution from
TeleCities to the 6th Framework Programme’.
♦ Thematic round table: ‘E-Democracy and Citizens Participation’; ‘Re-engineering

of Services’; and ‘E-Learning and Social Inclusion’.
5.3.1.1 Boosterism
Presentation of cities main projects were the general practice throughout the major
speeches and round tables. Every initiative was showed as a ‘best-practice’ project to be
taken as a state-of-the-art example.
In a collaborative network, one would expect to see the sharing of problems and
solutions, based on an exchange of experiences. On the contrary, not a single account of
problems, barriers and difficulties was shared with the audience.
169
More attention was paid to this concern during participation in one of the round tables, on
the topic of ‘The Re-engineering of Services’, in order to test the boosterism imperative.
Notes were taken, observations were made of the presentations and of the way
participants were networking, and questions were asked by the observer to the presenters
and participants. Once again, the presentations and discussions were heavily based on
propaganda and successful cases. Difficulties were never the point of the debates. Not
surprisingly, no contrasting examples of failures were shown either. As a participant
observer, it was relatively easy to notice this self-promoting tendency among TeleCities
members.
Taking advantage of proximity to Mr Bruno Peeters (representing Antwerp, one of the

founding members of TeleCities), I deliberately stimulated a conversation on this issue, in
order to try and get an insider’s opinion of the way in which experiences were being
exchanged within TeleCities. Talking about the importance of ICTs, the role of TeleCities
conferences and the involvement between its members, Mr Peeters strongly agreed with
the statement that ICTs are a powerful marketing tool, and that people in TeleCities are
not very interested in sharing or exposing their problems.
Another confusing matter related to the ‘boosterism imperative’ is that in most of the
presentations, the speakers tended to obscure or omit the limits between what is still a
project and what is already a real implementation. The same problem of external validity
found for the exploratory study seemed to affect the way TeleCities’ members seemed to
interact as well. Or, using Robson’s (2002) words, ‘the lack of relation between attitude
and behaviour is notorious.’
Throughout the members’ testimonies, especially those from new members or current
contenders, TeleCities and its conferences were consistently referred to as a great
opportunity for acquiring techniques aimed at obtaining European Union funds. In this
way, TeleCities was referred to by many participants as a closed group of cities and
companies that gather to struggle for better chances getting EU funding.
The European Union has a very competitive and widespread range of schemes for
funding projects related to the development of information and communication
technologies. TeleCities is a consortium which helps its members in the process of
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application for and implementation of EU funds and ICT projects. Cities can apply
through different themes, according to the specific target of the projects to be funded.
Information Society is one of the thematic areas of the European Commission and has six
different funding programmes, namely Information Society Technologies (or IST, which
is part of the Sixth Framework Programme for Research and Technological
Development); eContent; eTen; Innovative Actions – ESF (European Social Fund);
MEDIA; and Safe Internet. According to the area of impact of the initiative to be funded,
the applicant city would apply for one or more of these schemes.
As the exploratory typology suggested – and as Graham and Dominy (1991) have also
demonstrated – financial limitations are amongst the biggest barriers for the
implementation of ICT initiatives, what explains the fierce competition among European
cities when applying for funds.
The relationship between this role of TeleCities as a fund-raising institution and the
prevalent boosterism is immediately apparent. Without exhibiting themselves, members
lower their chances to be seen and to obtain access to easier channels for funding. Mr
Peeters also agreed with this statement. By publicly admitting problems, difficulties and
weaknesses, despite widening the ground for discussion and interaction, delegates would
also expose the city within the network of informal competition between the members.
Although surprising at first sight, this kind of development for the conference is perfectly
understandable. In the end, TeleCities is a support network and its members may feel
tempted to show results rather than obstacles and unsuccessful initiatives. This in fact
does not invalidate my efforts, if we bear in mind that urban propaganda and the use of
ICTs as an economic competitive advantage are part of the dilemmas for building
integrative urban-technological strategies.
While discussing problems and barriers could improve the chances of success for future
individual initiatives, showing what had been successfully achieved seemed a natural way
of strengthening TeleCities as an organisation committed to attracting new members and
more funding.
Finally, it became more than evident that, in general, urban competition plays a
significant role in defining local authorities’ approaches towards the adoption of a
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strategic view of ICTs and urban issues. The general picture that emerged from this
exploratory study was one of ICTs as place-marketing tools, used according to the
imperative of urban boosterism by local authorities. This is one of the issues to which the
case studies will provide further evidence, in Chapters 6 and 7.
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5.4 CONCLUSIONS
Along this chapter the whole process of the exploratory study on TeleCities and its
justifications were given a detailed account. In this way, it is still worthy making some
concluding remarks.
It is important to note the growing and learning process about cities involvement with
ICTs that this study became. Meant initially as survey to get a general snapshot of
European cities dealing with ICTs as part of their major urban policy agendas, this ended
up highlighting some points discussed during the theoretical chapters, mainly Chapter 2.
Most importantly, the exploratory study on TeleCities, by its adaptability and discussions,
has been able to provide important clues of local development of ICT initiatives and
urban-technological strategies.
In this way, many aspects raised in the theoretical chapters could have been partially
advocated through the analyses of three main general observations, being: the struggle
trying to get better response rates for the exploratory study; some contradictions between
answers to specific questions; and the boosterism imperative identified during the
TeleCities conference experience.
In sum, these three points can be connected to the volatile combined development of ICTs
and cities. The invisibility and intangibility of ICT effects proved to be very strong and to
determine a general lack of interest on what a virtual city could be in the light of an
integrated development of urban-technological strategies.
Other factors influencing the results of this typological study are the entrepreneurial
imperative, leading cities across the economic competitive field; the general blurriness of
ICTs; and the challenge that these factors have been posed to so far-accepted paradigms
of spatial planning.
Moreover, interpretative flexibility seems to play a crucial role on the definition of ICT
initiatives on the ground and, in some cases, the definition of an urban-technological
strategy.
The participant observation on TeleCities, corroborates some of the tendencies mentioned

above. Despite not stressing itself as such, TeleCities is clearly a lobbying, political, fund-
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raising and networking organisation supporting European cities to use ICT initiatives as
competitive advantages.
Although the official reasons for its existence are the ones related to exchanging
experiences, they would hardly be interested on exposing its members’ weaknesses. In the
end, TeleCities’ success before the European Union depends on the success of its
members’ initiatives. Thus, two situations coexisted: first, facing an internal and informal
competition, the members could not risk exposing themselves within TeleCities; and
second, TeleCities could not risk its own existence and resources by exposing its
members’ difficulties to outside of the organisation.
Therefore, this exploratory typological study left a considerable ground of ‘pre-evidence’

for the main aspects mapped during the theoretical syntheses to be explored in more depth
with the two case studies of Newcastle and Antwerp.
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CHAPTER 6 - IDENTIFYING URBAN-TECHNOLOGICAL STRATEGIES I:
NEWCASTLE, A FRAGMENTED APPROACH TO ICTs
6.1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................176

6.2 NEWCASTLE AS A VIRTUAL CITY: ELEMENTS OF A FRAGMENTED APPROACH..............178
6.2.1 The historical conditions and general aspects of local government’s interest in ICTs...............178
6.2.1.1 Re-imaging the city...........................................................................................................179
6.2.1.2 Regenerating the city........................................................................................................181
6.2.1.3 A fragmented structure.....................................................................................................184
6.2.1.4 General motivations and limitations for ICT initiatives .................................................186
6.2.2 Newcastle virtual city: interests; actors; virtual and physical manifestations ............................188
strategy ............................................................................................................................188
6.2.2.2 Virtual and immaterial representations of Newcastle as a virtual city ..........................189
6.2.2.3 Physical and material manifestations of Newcastle as a virtual city .............................193
6.3.1 A multitude of visions: interpretative flexibility and ICTs in Newcastle ...................................198
urban-technological approach........................................................................................200
discourses ........................................................................................................................205
and initiatives ..................................................................................................................217
6.4 CONCLUSIONS ......................................................................................................................................230
Rodrigo J. Firmino Chapter 6 - Newcastle: fragmented approach to ICTs
6.1 INTRODUCTION
Known as the capital of the North of England, Newcastle upon Tyne is a city
characterised by the struggle of its local authorities, development agencies and population
against the decreasing number of jobs and quality of life that affects the whole North East
of the country. In recent times, as with most cities in this region, Newcastle and its
economy were dominated by heavy industry, especially coalmining and ship-building.
This dependence of the city’s economy on heavy industry has had a long-term effect on
its image, and on citizens’ confidence in the local authorities’ ability to reverse the
economic crisis in the region that followed industrial decline. Newcastle has entered
enthusiastically into the race for competitive advantages to attract people to live in the
region, with particular emphasis being placed on incentivising clean, high-tech industries
to relocate themselves in the North East. The recent history of Newcastle has been driven
by this, a fact which is reflected in the development of ICTs, which has tended to rely on
regeneration projects, and initiatives to rebuild the image of the city.
The analysis in this chapter will concentrate on what characterises the approach of local
authorities and civil servants in Newcastle City Council to ICT initiatives. A key element
here is the search for clues to how the council is organised to implement these types of
initiatives. This search raises questions such as: Is there a strategy in place regarding ICTs?
How do these initiatives relate to more traditional urban issues? Can we identify virtual
city elements in Newcastle? How are local authorities coping with the divergent visions
among the various actors and social groups, to define their central approach? What are
these different visions? What is the influence of intra-local and extra-local factors on the
way ICT initiatives are implemented and managed?
These questions are addressed using a historical and social constructivist perspective,
based on the constitution of ICT initiatives by local authorities, as well as the different
individual approaches to this topic by officers and civil servants. Interpretative flexibility
is a key concept here as it explains how different visions interact to build a city-wide
strategy.
The aim is to identify the dominant aspects in these approaches or interpretations, and
then identify how these are put together (if at all) by local authorities. This process, it is
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hoped, will result in an overall account of the shape of local government’s central
approach to ICTs and urban issues, which is to be the final outcome from this case study.
The importance of this case lays in the fact that Newcastle represents a typical or familiar
case for medium-sized European cities, especially in the UK. It is not rare to find old
industrial cities in Europe struggling to attract alternative resources and to acquire the
image of an ‘innovative city’, rich in employment, leisure, culture, knowledge,
entrepreneurship, and quality of life.
We will begin by identifying the main characteristics of the ICT initiatives in Newcastle,
assessing how the city’s approach is structured through the local particularities and
historical conditions that make up the City Council’s approach. This first, descriptive part
is structured as two sub-sections. The first will focus on the historical and specific
motivations for the current conditions of local authorities’ approach, while the second
will concentrate on description of the major projects and of how they are organised to
form the elements of Newcastle as a virtual city.
The second part of this chapter focuses on the most important issues raised in this project,
namely the ways in which visions interplay to characterise the general approach. This part
is divided into three sub-sections. First comes the analysis of the actors’ discourses, in
which their perceptions of ICTs and cities will be analysed by looking at the interview
material. The outcome of the interplay between these perceptions will also be explored.
The second and third sub-sections will be devoted, respectively, to the description of
endogenous and exogenous dilemmas that still influence the way the local strategy is
understood, approached and implemented.
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6.2 NEWCASTLE AS A VIRTUAL CITY: ELEMENTS OF A FRAGMENTED

APPROACH
The vision of Newcastle as a virtual city involves the comprehension of the whole range
of projects, actions, perceptions, actors and local circumstances that interact as part of the
process of local social construction of ICTs. In this sense, as we saw in Chapter 3, the
description of the virtual city of Newcastle necessitates identification of its major
elements. This in turn defines the way local social groups approach the need for an urban-
technological strategy – such as the interests and the people involved, and the main
projects related to virtual and physical manifestations of the strategy.1
Before moving on to a description of the strategy or approach though, it is crucial that we

understand the historical and particular conditions that have driven or contributed to the
way current ICT initiatives are implemented and related to urban issues. This whole
section will concentrate first on the historical conditions and general aspects of local
authorities’ approach to ICT – in sub-section 6.2.1. The different elements will then be
juxtaposed in order to identify Newcastle virtual city in sub-section 6.2.2.
6.2.1 The historical conditions and general aspects of local government’s interest in
ICTs
As already mentioned in introduction to this chapter, local development of ICTs is closely

connected to many deliberate attempts by local authorities to build or re-build an image
for the city. As we shall see later in this chapter, the ICT initiatives in Newcastle are
subject to this influence.
The constant attempts to rebuild the city’s image are a feature of urban renaissance and
urban regeneration discourses that have in turn provided strong motivations for the
implementation of ICT initiatives. This sense of renewal stems from the economic
development premise that Newcastle has to get rid of its image of a depressed former
industrial city with poor quality of life, in order to advance as a new city of the 21st
century. Champion (2002: 90) identifies this process of redefining the economic basis of
the city and region as one affecting the British urban system as a whole since 1950:
1
The focus of this account on Newcastle as a virtual city is very much on public sector components and
initiatives, rather than on commercial and private sector elements.
178
De-industrialization, involving a massive shake-out in manufacturing

and mining employment, with the biggest relative effects impacting on
the places that had the greatest specialization in these sectors, most
notably the larger towns and cities in northern Britain.
6.2.1.1 Re-imaging the city
Historically, Newcastle has witnessed two major waves of attempts to re-image the city
through local and regional boosterism and place-marketing: one during the 1960s and
another more recently in the 1980s and 1990s.
The first, in the 1960s, is strongly characterised by modernist-oriented projects and

concepts headed by the Council Leaders and City Planning Officers of the time,
respectively T. Dan Smith and Wilfred Burns. The focus of this first wave was two-fold.
On one side, the strategy deliberately promoted (and partially realised) major physical
changes in the city centre and accesses to the city. Part of the city centre was
fundamentally affected by the main plans of Smith and Burns, being nowadays crossed by
regionally important motorways.
On the other side, the plans also dictated the way the city and region had to change.
Newcastle was constantly referred to as to be the ‘new Brasília’ or the ‘Milan of the
north’, by analogy with other symbols of progressive and vibrant modernist cities.
According to Wilkinson (1992: 178), ‘Newcastle was to be re-born out of the ashes of
economic decline to become “the Milan of the North”’. Urban renaissance was thus
inherent to Smith and Burn’s projects to renew the city centre:
He [Smith] had an obsession with the potential of both town planning

and the arts as a means of improving people’s lives […] He often sought
to encapsulate this with his image of ‘Brasília of the North’, designed to
convey modernity and progressive planning. (Pendlebury, 2001: 119)
At that time, ICTs were yet to be born, and did not play any part in the plans for the
revival of the city. However, a second and bigger wave of attempts to reshape the image
of Newcastle, rather than just its proper physical form, emerged in the late 1980s and
early 1990s. This time, boosterism was identified as the way to introduce the city into the
global, macro-regional and regional competition for inward investment. Marketing and
propaganda were largely applied as strategies to change the vision of Newcastle and the
North East, targeting especially key people from London and the South of the country.
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The major goal of these image strategies was to attract new kinds of industry to the region,
namely service, leisure, cultural and clean high-tech industries. It is at this point that ICTs
started to play an important role from the point of view of development agencies and the
City Council itself:
The civic boosterism and comprehensive planning projects of the 1960s

have given way to a more fragmented, marketing-oriented approach to
the image question in the post-modern city of the 1980s, and this has
manifested itself in the relatively new process of image projection
which involves the encoding of new identities for places via image and
media campaigns. (Wilkinson, 1992: 178)
The urban regeneration discourses, ideas and strategies emerged with full force during the
1980s and 1990s as an attempt to ‘rebuild’ cities and re-arrange local economies. The
ideas embedded in urban regeneration proposals brought about a strong sense of
renovation. With the advance of information and communication technologies, the
convergence of media, and the development of other new technologies, this will for
renewal seems also to have been renewed. ICTs are a great motivator for regeneration
projects, and may be used to attempt to trigger shifts in the local economy. The use of
ICTs for boosterism is apparent in the local actors’ discourses and perceptions as a vision
of urban regeneration which:
Encapsulates both the perception of city decline (in local economies, in

the use of land and buildings, in the quality of the environment and
social life) and the hope of renewal, reversing trends in order to find a
new basis for economic growth and social wellbeing. (Parkinson, 1989
quoted by Healey, P., S. Davoudi et al., 1992: 3)
The search for a better image for Newcastle was such that one of the most successful
advertising agencies in Britain (J. Walter Thompson advertising agency) was hired by the
City Council to work on what was called the ‘new face of Newcastle’, a city with a
‘proud past looking to the future’ (Knox and Thompson, 1990 quoted by Wilkinson, 1992:
182).
Following these ideas, Newcastle and its region were being promoted through different
forms and vehicles: the City Council, Tyne and Wear Development Corporation, The
Newcastle Initiative, and the Northern Development Company. The Tyne and Wear
Development Corporation was closed down in the late 1990s. The Newcastle Initiative
has become The Newcastle Gateshead Initiative, which also became the promoter for the
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unsuccessful Newcastle Gateshead 2008 bid for the European Capital of Culture 2008.
Finally, the Northern Development Company was merged with other institutions (the
North East Regional Office of English Partnerships, the North East Offices of the Rural
Development Commission and some functions of the Government Office for the North
East) in 1999 to form the One North East Regional Development Agency.
Together with the City Council, these agencies are still very proactive on promoting ICTs
as a competitive advantage in a business-focused approach across the region. The focus is
primarily on ICTs infrastructure, seen as basic and crucial in the race for inward
investment. In this way, broadband connection has become totem to these local and
regional promoters of the re-imaging process. According to Beveridge (2003b, Principal
Policy Officer, North East Assembly), ‘competitiveness is a key word, especially for this
region that has a history of manufactory. This history has to be bounced with the use of
ICTs’.
As a result, ICTs did not take long to find a place within the discourses for a new
Newcastle and a new North East. Agencies and institutions were constantly presenting
them as offering potential competitive advantages for companies and people willing to be
relocated in Newcastle. New technologies – especially their infrastructure aspect – were
naturally considered a product to be advertised. Wilkinson (1992: 184) argues that, under
the inspiration of an entrepreneurial perspective,
Cities must keep abreast of their competitors’ product development, not

only to better position their own product, but also to appreciate what
they have to match or surpass in the competitive marketplace.
In the same way, Harvey (1989b, quoted by Healey, P., S. Davoudi, et al., 1992: 8) argues
that:
The approach to urban governance has been shifted from a managerial

to an entrepreneurial form.
6.2.1.2 Regenerating the city
ICTs were and are still the ‘product of the moment’ for cities, so Newcastle had no option
but to adopt a proactive discourse. The economic development agenda based on
regeneration has always been the most important focus for the council. It was therefore
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natural that telematics technologies should become a major player in the game of local
boosterism following the entrepreneurial imperative. The following statement is part of
the publicity material of The Newcastle Initiative in the late 1980s (quoted by Wilkinson,
1992: 197), and expresses the move towards the regeneration of the city centre through
the introduction of new technologies. It emphasises the fact that Grainger Town (where
Grey Street is) is a series of façades where the buildings behind it have long lost their
historical characteristics. It is a classical example of redevelopment of historical sites to
attract businesses:
A great heritage – behind the elegant façade of Grey Street lies the
opportunity to create a modern office environment serviced with the full
range of the most advanced telecommunications systems.
ICT projects and, most importantly, local authorities and civil servants’ visions about
ICTs, emerged as part of this second wave initiated during the 1980s. This impetus
continues today under the umbrella of other agencies and institutions and, from the local
point of view, in the City Council’s Going for Growth initiative. Ideas of renewal,
renaissance and regeneration are exactly what the 25-year strategy Going for Growth is
based on. ICTs are a very small part of the whole project, and ICT projects are scattered
through various initiatives and parts of the council.
ICTs are incorporated by this major urban regeneration strategy through very specific
projects that are mainly meant to function as attractive symbols of innovation and renewal,
as was the case with the Teleport phenomenon in the early 1990s (Graham, 2000). Dyer
and Burns (2002), two Project Leaders working in different initiatives in the City Council,
unambiguously state that ‘ICT is a small part of a very large regeneration project’.
Newcastle Great Park is a big flagship project for the local ambitions to attract inward
investment to a business park. For that reason, many of the interviewees (especially
planning officers) see this project as embodying the core of developments in ICTs in the
city. The business park invokes that great late twentieth century urban and regional
development symbol, the science park, as typified most famously by Silicon Valley. The
science park, provided with one or more spaces offering the newest technologies
infrastructure, and especially designed to locate high-tech companies, has become
inseparable from urban policy-making recently; so have ICTs, for a crucial enabler for
this process.
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In the same way, there is also what is called Newcastle Silicon Alley, an ‘urban
televillage’ in the historical centre of the city. Recalling the Silicon Valley fever (or
indeed New York’s original Silicon Alley), this is a private development of residential
and small business premises (specifically targeting design and multimedia businesses) all
with access to networking facilities.
Cities all over the world – and Newcastle is no exception – are trying to recreate the
synergy and conditions that culminated in the formation of Silicon Valley on the West
coast of the USA. In many cases, they fail to realise that such a situation was only
possible because of very particular social, economic, political and spatial elements that
came together to socially construct what today is known as Silicon Valley fever (Rogers,
1986). In Newcastle, the council and agencies widely advertise the initiative for the
creation of the Newcastle Great Park as a representative of proactivity on dealing with
ICTs:
This international quality business park will be the flagship project for
the region, and will be home to 500 small and medium sized ICT, high
technology and telecom companies, creating up to 8,000 jobs over a 10
year period. The City Council is leading a proposal to create a Centre of
Entrepreneurship & Innovation (CEI) in the heart of the Great Park,
which will provide incubation space for business start-ups, and move-on
accommodation linked to the commercialisation of university research
and development. (Newcastle City Council, 199?)
Indeed, when asked to pinpoint a major ICT initiative or show examples of Newcastle’s
proactivity in terms of urban-technological strategy, the interviewees immediately started
to talk about the business park. This only reinforces the historical role of ICTs as a source
of competitive advantage within an entrepreneurial place-marketing strategy.
Another example of boosterism through the promotion of ICTs is the Exhibition and
Conference series called ICT Works, which has been taking place in Newcastle since
1997. Companies, universities, research centres and governmental bodies come together
to stimulate the use of ICT facilities. This attempt to promote the local ‘innovations’
through ICT Works is an initiative of the One North East Regional Development Agency
through its digital counterpart n-e-life.com. One of the publicity documents presents ICT
Works 2003 as follows:
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Whether you are from the public, private, community or academic

sectors we have something specific for you.
ICT Works aims to show how e-business can improve your business
and your community, at the same time providing guidance on how to
maximise your expensive asset – your ICT infrastructure and the people
who use it. (ICT Works, 2003 - advertisement)
6.2.1.3 A fragmented structure
These projects and visions are also, in fact, reflected in the fragmented way in which
ICTs are implemented by the City Council through its management structure of six
directorates. Projects, apart from bigger cross-division ones such as Going for Growth,
are usually defined and carried out internally within the directorates and divisions. ICT
projects are no different. They are, therefore, developed almost in isolation across the
divisions of the council. This means that projects are developed without attention to
mutual interaction. In this way, even costs, benefits and budgets for ICTs are extremely
difficult to pinpoint.
To try and generate an overview of this situation, the council has implemented what is
called the E-Services Panel, which is made up of City Councillors and directors of some
divisions. It is aimed at the discussion and approval of ICT projects. However, the
analyses and deliberations of this panel tend to follow predominantly economic factors
rather than social, cultural or even spatial ones. In the end, the panel becomes dependent
on priorities setup by other departments, and tied to the management structure of the city
itself (Figure 6.1).
Figure 6.1 - The management structure of the council.
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The management structure of the city (as with many others in the UK), follows a ‘silo’
distribution model, so that the resources and targets are vertically distributed between the
six directorates and their respective divisions. There is thus no global budget established
especially for ICTs.
Each one of the six directorates has its own projects related to the use of ICTs for
different purposes, each therefore has its own separate budgets. These are, in turn, part of
one departmental budget. The ‘IT Development Team’ is responsible for the
modernisation of the administration as a whole (in terms of equipment and internal
processes), but this, as we have seen, corresponds to only a small part of what an urban-
technological strategy (or the virtual city) is. The Going for Growth project has more
integrative characteristics – for embedding different initiatives from different departments
– than any other project related to ICTs. Karen Brown, Coordinator of the Virtual
Newcastle Initiative, expresses her concern at not having an ICT-dedicated agency and
points out the contradictions of the silo structure (Figure 6.2):
‘I think that the notion of one organisation looking at the best uses of
resources doesn’t exist in Newcastle. This may be caused or linked to
the political organisation of local authorities in the UK and the silo
structure of the funding structure’. (Brown, K. A., 2002)
Figure 6.2 - The ‘silo’ system of ICTs development in Newcastle.
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6.2.1.4 General motivations and limitations for ICT initiatives
From the points discussed above, we can see that the city’s image and the future shape of
local economy are the most relevant motivations to what is realised in terms of new
telematics technologies. The new image sought for Newcastle is clearly directly related to
the current trends of cities which centre their economies partially on high-tech industries.
Additionally, emphasis is also given to the leisure, tourism and culture industries. This is
made explicit in the following vision for the future of Newcastle as:
A service economy with a healthy slimmed-down manufacturing sector.

A European business centre of excellence and quality. (Wilkinson, 1992:
205)
A number of projects have been implemented across the city for the national competition
for British representative on the bid for European capital of culture 2008. Newcastle and
its neighbour on the other side of the river Tyne, Gateshead, in a joint bid, were being
considered favourites because of the quality of the projects and the level of involvement
of the local community. The bid was mostly promoted and organised by The Newcastle
Gateshead Initiative.
Being the European capital of culture in 2008 would certainly have brought investment,
together with opportunities for the technological and cultural development of the city and
region. However, at the beginning of June 2003, Liverpool was announced by central
government as the British representative for 2008.
It is unknown yet what the impacts of this reverse will be on the rhythm and course of the
current projects and developments in Newcastle, as the bid for the capital of culture had
been advertised as a huge motivation for the implementation of regeneration projects and
initiatives related to ICTs. Local authorities say projects will continue unaffected, and that
the bid had been treated merely as an extra motivation for initiatives that the city needed
anyway. In fact, the Newcastle Gateshead initiative has launched a programme called
‘Culture10’, to consolidate the projects previously being developed for the European
capital of culture bid (‘10’ stands for a decade of cultural initiatives).
A further aggravation in the UK is the political dependence of local authorities on the

decisions made by central government. This situation may well be worsened by the
process of devolution of power to be put in place in 2004. Different initiatives, powers,
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management and political structures are going to overlap, which may create some
confusion when the political boundaries of the city and region assume new shapes.
The North East Assembly is the body which will gain the regional political power to look
after the region. Political wards within the city are going to change as well, in order to
balance elections turn-outs. Thus, in the end, it is yet uncertain what is going to happen in
city and the region in terms of control and management of ICTs.
The historical approach to ICTs, and their symbolic meaning as an investment attractor,
though, points towards continuity in terms the way telematics technologies are developed
as part of entrepreneurial and business-focused strategies. If this general historical
perspective prevails, Newcastle is likely to continue to figure in the crossfire of fierce
competition among urban centres:
Inter-regional and inter-urban competition has forced cities such as

Newcastle to become more entrepreneurial in exploring new ways in
which to reposition themselves in the emerging post-Fordist era.
(Wilkinson, 1992: 208)
Finally, what we want to make clear is that all the historical and local aspects discussed
above – mainly of economic relevance, but also having influence over the local and
national political structures – directly contribute to the shape of the social construction of
ICTs in the city of Newcastle.
The fragmented and dispersed way in which these technologies are scattered across the
structure of the council is the result of a situation historically and socially constructed.
The process of re-imaging the city was crucial on relating ICTs with the entrepreneurial
imperative, place-marketing strategies and a business-focused vision for the future of the
city.
These common conditions are closely related to and explained by the fact that ‘over and
above this competition for attention between places within the city, urban regions
themselves are positioned in competition with each other for economic opportunities in
national, macro-regional and global space’ (Healey, P., S. Davoudi, et al., 1992: 5).
In the next sub-section, we describe the most relevant initiatives by the City Council and
the way they are organised and implemented to form the elements of Newcastle as a
virtual city.
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6.2.2 Newcastle virtual city: interests; actors; virtual and physical manifestations
It is an extremely difficult task to define what the virtual city of Newcastle is and to
identify the entirety of the city’s initiatives as a solid and unique strategy. The following
description of the city’s approach is driven by the three concepts that summarise it:
fragmentation, dispersion and decentralisation, specifically regarding ICTs.
In the next sub-sections, we try and put all the pieces of this approach together by
describing them according to the three main ‘layers’ of the virtual city (discussed in
Chapter 3): what the particular circumstances are with respect to the actors and their
interests; how virtual representations are like; and what kind of direct physical
manifestations are linked to ICT projects.
strategy
As stated above, every recent effort towards the implementation of ICT initiatives in
Newcastle stems from a desire to re-image the city and by removing all vestiges a
declining traditional economy, unskilled workforce, unemployment, and decreasing
quality of life. As a consequence, most of politicians’, officers’ and civil servants’
interests have tended to concentrate on just a couple of long-term regeneration projects,
the latest being Going for Growth.
This situation has a particular influence on the scenario surrounding everything run by the
council and the other public agencies in the region, and also sets the priority for local
initiatives to be concentrated on economic performance and development. The idea –
which has its origins in the 1960s and 1970s – is, roughly, that other areas will directly
benefit from economic development almost automatically. In this sense, potential ICT-
technological strategies are strongly influenced by the notion that new technologies have
no further impact on urban space; urban development then has to act as a functionality or
infrastructure that gives competitive advantages to those able to use it.
No consideration, or very little, is given to direct and indirect effects of the use of ICTs
with respect to new spatial patterns and configurations in the light of the challenge that
these technologies pose to the very concepts of space and time. There is no time or desire
on the part of the authorities and civil servants inside the city administration in Newcastle
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to reflect upon these further consequences of the relations between ICTs and the urban
milieu.
Bearing in mind this scenario and these perspectives, it would appear that the approach to
ICTs in Newcastle is mainly driven by economic development. Telematics technologies
would thus seem to offer two basic applications: first as a physical and also symbolic
advantage to attract more inward investment through the relocation of companies and
industries dependent on the use of these technologies; secondly, as a way to modernise
the management structure of the city administration through maximising the use of these
technologies inside the council.
This two-fold application of ICTs by local authorities results in the informal delegation of
power and responsibility for major ICT projects to the Economic Development Division
of the council within the Enterprise, Environment and Culture Directorate (EEC). The
Economic Development Division of the council seems to have an important role on the
committee especially created to oversee and endorse the implementation of ICTs
contracts and projects, the E-Services Panel. Together with its regional counterpart, the
Regional ICT Strategy Board, the E-Services Panel is the main initiative towards some
sort of coordination of ICT projects. However, as we shall see later, it is again heavily
driven by priorities centred on the economic development of the city.
Finally, due to the fragmentariness of the council’s management structure, and the way
ICT projects are launched and looked after, it is still difficult to pinpoint all the active
actors within the city’s approach. On the other hand, the motivations under which the
projects and initiatives run are, as we have noted, mainly related to the economic
development of the city, and its regeneration as an innovative locale.
6.2.2.2 Virtual and immaterial representations of Newcastle as a virtual city
Like most cities of its size and historical/geopolitical circumstances, the major virtual
representation in terms of public sectors initiative in Newcastle is incorporated in the City
Council’s web-site.
The city does not run an entirely public Metropolitan area network and the directorates
and divisions are interconnected by a common corporate Intranet with restricted access.
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The representation of Newcastle as a virtual city in cyberspace is thus almost exclusively

performed by the open access web-site.
The amount of information provided is huge, and virtually every important public
document can be found for consultation or download. Meetings of the council are
broadcasted online via stream video and are kept recorded for further consultation.
There is hardly a section, division, sub-division, directorate, or main project of the

council regarding which the information could not be found on the web-site. This
enormous effort to enable public access to council initiatives and material is part of the e-
government targets set locally to be accomplished by 2004, which will then meet the
national targets for 2005.
Despite this race to ‘digitalise’ every document and increase access to the council’s
internal procedures, the web-site stands out for two negative characteristics. The first is
that channels for communication with civil servants and politicians are completely absent,
with the result that participation is virtually ignored
It looks like a shop-window rather than a real attempt at using the Internet as an open
channel for mutual communication and public consultation. The obvious impression is
that, as everyone else had a web-site, the council could not be left behind. Accordingly, as
Geoff Walker points out, there is a misconception of what ‘making public services online’
means:
‘If the central government says you must deliver 95% of your services
electronically by 2002, then most people would say well we’ll put all
our documents on the Internet by 2002, so we deliver 100% of our
services electronically by 2002. The problem is this perception of what
delivering your services electronically means. It’s a lack of
understanding I think of where we’re going to’. (Walker, 2002, ICT
Development Officer for the council)
The second characteristic is the confusing structure of the web-site itself. Finding the
right information can prove to be a very difficult task on Newcastle.gov. There is a
reasonable number of broken links and overlapping pages which result in the
overexposure or hiding of a specific piece of information.
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As an example, during the interviews and data collection – including virtually daily visits
to the council’s web-site – it took several months to come across a page named ‘a view of
information and communication technologies’.
More than half the interviews had already been done by that time, and nobody had ever
mentioned this web-site where there is a collection of information about what is being
developed in Newcastle in terms of ICTs implementation. However no keyword search
using words of the title of this page could direct us to it. No direct links were found either.
In part, this story can tell us about the council’s fragmented approach by the fact that no-
one had even mentioned the web-site after a number of interviews with key actors
regarding ICTs development. In addition, it also shows how this fragmentation is
reflected in the virtual representation of the City Council on the Internet.
Two further remarks about the virtual representations of the city should be added here.
The first relates to the main council web-site, where one of its sub-divisions is highlighted
as an important initiative by the council in terms of ICTs. This was also pointed out by
some interviewees as such: Competitive Newcastle and Newcastle.com (Figure 6.3).
Figure 6.3 - Competitive Newcastle, the city’s economic development web-site.
Competitive Newcastle is an initiative led by the Economic Development Division of the

council focused on the attraction of new investment to the city. It is basically organised as
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information on an independent web-site about what are called ‘strategic sites’ across the
city, aimed at potential investors. Newcastle.com was developed to replace Competitive
Newcastle, according to its creators, to provide a more attractive name, and increase the
availability of information about areas in the city waiting for investment. In general, these
initiatives are characterised by web-sites loaded with information about the strategic sites.
The economic development emphasis of the whole approach is thus obvious from these
web-sites.
The second remark is about another version of the representation of the city in cyberspace.
The interface and application used with the recently deployed street kiosks is a well
structured picture of the city and the City Council, even providing some ways of
communication, although with much less information available.
The model is a standard one in use in other kiosks across the UK where the contents are
locally adapted by Cityspace, the company responsible for the maintenance and
implementation of the kiosks.
The programme’s interface (Figure 6.4) offers both information about the city and the
possibility of communication with the council, as well as access to other networks such as
a national job search engine and the use of a 500-character free e-mail.
Figure 6.4 - Information and communications provided through a more friendly interface.
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6.2.2.3 Physical and material manifestations of Newcastle as a virtual city
In terms of physically built manifestations of ICTs implementation in Newcastle, there

are two further areas in which this is visible: in a symbolic search for a physical reference
to ICTs; and in the adaptation or deployment of real physical built spaces as a
consequence of ICT projects.
The first case is intimately linked to the efforts of the City Council towards the e-
government agenda. Further information will be provided on this story later when we
address the symbolism of new telematics technologies and their need for more tangible
and visible references.
When analysing the proposals for the modernisation of the council, local authorities and
some senior officers found out that there was nothing or no-one trying to understand and
group the council’s ICT initiatives. This would help to form a clear picture of the
situation in terms both of internal organisation and of the provision of external services.
Officers from the IT Development Team decided to elaborate what they called an ‘e-
government and customer services Metro-map’ where the Metro map design style was
used to graphically link the different parts of the council and their respective projects
related to e-government and customer services.
The symbolic use of the Metro map as a physical entity is clearly an attempt to give other
people in the council a clear familiar reference-point in order to focus their attention on
the issues of integration and coordination (the full story of the ICTs Metro-map is
described later in this chapter).
Symbolism, thus, seems to be the major motivation for projects involving ICTs and
physical space: visibility is clearly a keyword for these projects.
The invisible infrastructure of a possible public area network is not among the physical
manifestations of the Newcastle virtual city. Broadband is always mentioned by actors in
the city and the region to be a key infrastructure, but it is usually approached from the
point of view of its entrepreneurial importance for newcomer companies and businesses.
Thus, as an example in which ICTs and physical spaces are dealt with side-by-side, is the
infrastructure for the Newcastle Great Park, the business park development at the
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outskirts of the city. ICTs infrastructure is the main advertised feature of this initiative
which aims, again, at attracting highly profitable clean-businesses.
This is widely taken as the physical project that best represents the city’s commitment to
the development of ICTs. The Economic Development Division and the Planning and
Transportation Division regard this project as such, and have no hesitation in saying that
this is one of the council’s most important ICT initiatives
With respect to adaptive spaces – the most common physical implementations in terms of
ICTs –, the council seems to be very proactive everywhere. A number of projects point to
the adaptation or reformulation of existing buildings and facilities to provide access to the
Internet and other regional and national networks. Among these initiatives, the following
stand out:
♦ Training in IT skills and public access through schools and libraries. Public
libraries and schools offer a range of free courses for citizens, subsidised by the
government. There is thus a big sense of responsibility from the local authorities
to close the gap between job seekers and ICTs, in order to introduce unskilled
workers (many of them formerly employed in heavy industry) into a more skilled
labour market.
♦ The Use IT@Centres. Part of a bigger initiative called Virtual Newcastle, this is a
programme that aims to stimulate the training on and the use of computers and
networks at the many community centres across the city. There are currently over
90 centres with computers connected to the Internet and printing facilities
available. (See Figure 6.5).
♦ Public access through libraries, museums and schools. Besides offering IT skills
training, these institutions also provide free access to the Internet and job search
networks through a type of public cyber-café. As described above, the community
centres also help on these matters through the Use IT@centres programme.
♦ Customer service centres. This facility is situated in the same building as the City
Council (the Civic Centre) and is to be extended to other small units across the
neighbourhoods in the city. Apart from allowing the smaller units to work
remotely, ICTs also allow civil servants to be more flexible in offering services
directly to citizens. For these reasons, ICTs are considered crucial for the centres.
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Figure 6.5 - One of the city’s sub-regions and its Use IT@Centres.
As regards transformative spaces, there is no major building or public place in the city
that can be said to have its design and structure as well as architectural programme
heavily influenced by the combined use and provision of physical and virtual spaces. The
closest the city’s initiatives get to transformative space are the street kiosks which,
because of their poorly developed architectural and urban design characteristics, can be
classified as no more than ‘transformative access points’ (See Chapter 3).
The current Multimedia kiosks (i-plus project, Figure 6.6) are the City Council’s second
attempt to implement this type of initiative at street level. In the first project, four kiosks
were deployed and failed to deliver the services and information they were meant to,
basically because of a lack of maintenance of the hardware and software by the private
sector partner.
For the current project, the city adopted an already established successful initiative by a
company specialised in this type of business (Cityspace) with similar projects running in
other cities around the UK. In terms of design and architecture, the model for the kiosks is
the standard one in use in other cities, although with different applications and locally-
provided information. Besides making sure the infrastructure is in place for the
installation of the kiosks, the City Council is also responsible for the contents and for
funding the project.
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Figure 6.6 - Standard design for the i-plus kiosks.
So far, officers in the council consider the project to be a success (though it is a very
recent initiative). The private sector partner will now, through a partnership with
Newcastle and other regional authorities, start to implement the same project at the
regional level, with interactivity and connectivity between kiosks in the different cities’.
Finally, it is important to recognise that the projects described above represent only a
small part of the range of small and big initiatives currently being developed as part of the
city’s urban-technological approach.
Because of the low levels of integration between projects and interactions between the
administrative divisions, local authorities seem to adopt a rather defensive than proactive
attitude towards the involvement of ICTs with urban issues. This is to say that initiatives
are implemented as a response to economic development performance, instead of being
proactively developed to anticipate certain social, economic, political and spatial demand.
This is currently done following a fragmented pattern based on the way services and
projects are delivered and the way they interact internally.
It is equally important that we acknowledge the important part played by interpretative

flexibility on the ‘final’ shape of local authorities’ approach. The next section therefore
assesses different interpretations of ICTs, the way they interact with urban-technological
strategy, and the influence of endogenous and exogenous factors.
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6.3 BARRIERS TO BUILDING AN URBAN-TECHNOLOGICAL STRATEGY
In this chapter we have been stressing how the approach to ICT initiatives in Newcastle is
characterised by the fragmentation of the city’s management structure and the way
projects are initiated and carried out in dispersed fashion through the six directorates and
their subsequent sub-divisions.
In practice, the first impression is that there is a wide variety of possible visions and
interpretations not being taken into consideration by local authorities. As projects are
conceived and run independently, divisions and directorates may have the chance to put
their own different ‘models’ of virtual cities in place. Given that this is the case, can it
really be said that there is a strategy in place? Alternatively, does this multitude of
projects represent a direct result of interpretative flexibility at the divisions level, skipping
a broader stage of problematising and translating a particular vision within the upper
levels of the full council? How does this process work?
Considering that interpretative flexibility is something inevitable and necessary (for

attempts to problematise, translate and implement any socio-technical project), what we
want to verify, then, are: the types of vision for ICT initiatives that dominate the
discourses of politicians, officers and civil servants in Newcastle.
Therefore, to understand the particular ways in which ICTs and new technologies are
incorporated by the local social groups, it is also crucial – apart from describing the
initiatives and approaches – to discuss some key factors that influence the diverse
interpretations.
As we have seen, the city has long been studied and recognised as an industrial city trying
to reconstruct its image and renew inward investment in the relocation process of services
and clean industries. As Wilkinson (1992: 203) remarks, the future envisaged for
Newcastle by its local and regional authorities and policy-makers ‘a future vision which
could be transplanted to any number of older industrial cities’.
Thus, it is also important to analyse possible relations between the interpretative

flexibility among the groups within local government, the council’s structure for projects
implementation, the attempt to rebuild the city’s image, the influence of economic
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development and regeneration strategies, and the fragmented shape of the ‘final’ approach
of local authorities to ICTs and the city.
In this way, we use a combination of actors’ discourses and official documents as

evidence of the influential aspects of their visions and the overall interpretative flexibility.
These experiences are also used to identify possible endogenous and exogenous factors
which contribute to the whole process of the socio-technical construction of urban-
technological initiatives in Newcastle.
Instead of establishing an ‘ideal model’ for strategies and judging the Newcastle approach
according to this model, we are rather looking for clues to what the determinant factors
are in shaping Newcastle’s own historical experience.
The next sections (6.3.1, 6.3.2 and 6.3.3) and respective sub-sections therefore draw on
the three major circumstances chiefly responsible for the actual shape of the local
authority’s approach to ICTs in Newcastle: the local characteristics of interpretative
flexibility, and the endogenous and exogenous agents/factors.
6.3.1 A multitude of visions: interpretative flexibility and ICTs in Newcastle
As we saw in Chapter 2, virtual cities and ICTs have an almost infinite number of
interpretations, depending on the interests and backgrounds of those behind these
different visions. Problematisation is a crucial initial stage in defining such visions, as
different social groups will have different problems and, consequently, different solutions.
Interpretative flexibility is thus something normal, necessary and inevitable in the process
of developing technologies. The distinctiveness of each case lies in the ways that
divergent visions are translated to other groups, incorporated and finally implemented.
In this way, the particular characteristics of ICT development in Newcastle are the ones
related to the local authority’s fragmented approach, rather than the mere existence of
different and divergent interpretations to it.
In other words, Newcastle’s fragmented approach to an urban-technological strategy, the

way ICTs are interpreted and addressed by the City Council and its divisions, and the
configuration of Newcastle as a virtual city, are all part of the same local socio-technical
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ICT development process. The challenge then, is to find out how these interpretations are
like in terms of their dominant aspects, and the way they are considered together (if so)
on the implementation of initiatives.
The blurred boundaries between cities and ICTs seem to be deeply influenced by
interpretative flexibility which, according to Pinch and Bijker (1989), affects the social
development of every major technological system introduced to society. As showed in
Chapter 2, socio-technical ensembles are by their nature interpretively flexible for various
reasons, including their novelty.
We draw on this concept to argue that the blurriness of ICTs-city relations is worsened by
the fact that ICTs present an inherent invisibility and volatility – due to their fast
evolution – when compared to other technological systems. As a consequence, many
interviewees, especially in Newcastle, argued that ICTs were difficult to pinpoint, to work
with, to invest in and, consequently, to defend politically.
The interviewees’ discourses show how vague, varied and contradictory interpretations
can be. Due to the contours of the individual projects and the general approach to ICTs
(discussed earlier in this chapter), we may also expect to find embodied into the
discourses a symbolism of ICTs as economic and entrepreneurial artefacts.
The constant attempts to make ICTs noticeable, are seen by local authorities as
economically important, and as a strategy to demonstrate a commitment to the
development of ICTs. Local authorities traditionally expect this to call the attention of
external investors and people in general to the North East.
We therefore need to understand whether these impulses, towards boosterism for instance,
are related to the local authorities’ visions and models of virtual cities. Moreover, while
these relations may seem obvious (as actions on the ground are inevitably the result of a
certain type of dominant vision), we are looking for more specific details of how actions
and interpretations are related, what aspects compose these interpretations, and how
different visions interact with one another.
In order to provide this detailed account of the particular shape of interpretative flexibility
in Newcastle, we deconstructed actors’ discourses (provided at the interviews and during
further consultation), and determined how Newcastle was being interpreted as a virtual
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city (possible shape, functions, problems, solutions, etc.) by different groups within local
government, and what the dominant aspects of these interpretations were.

urban-technological approach
In general ways, the physical manifestations of the virtual city in Newcastle are hardly
noticed by most of the people, and there is still uncertainty about the very meaning of
ICTs, let alone ‘urban-technological strategy’. Obviously enough, people from different
areas and departments have different visions about what ICTs are and what an urban-
technological strategy could represent for the city. This variety of interpretations
obviously affects the overall implementation of initiatives in the city. This variety of
visions is not necessarily negative, but it must be recognised that these visions are
difficult for the dominant social groups, who usually give policies and initiatives their
final shape, to blend together.
Interpretative flexibility is inherent to technological developments, and can be used for

the benefit of the initiatives, as long as diversity is taken into consideration during the
processes of problematisation, translation and implementation.
During the interviews and analyses of the documents such as minutes, green and white
papers, press releases and so on, it was interesting to note many divergent or non-
complementary opinions of how the city should be dealing with ICT issues. The tradition,
as we pointed out previously, was to relate ICTs to competitive advantage in the
entrepreneurial race for more inward investment. The actions by the council towards ICTs
mostly reflect these arguments, while this was used to promote the city and implemented
projects without integration and coordination across the administrative units. Following
this type of motivation, Dyer and Burns (2002, Project Leaders in the council) describe
the ambitions of the city and the role for ICTs as follows:
‘What Newcastle wants to do is to be a major player, across a number of

arenas. What we have to do is to get people into employment, and ICT
is seen as a large theme for that. Moreover a lot of traditional industries
on Tyneside – we have industries like shipyards and those types of
things – are moving away from there and we’re going to try to attract IT
companies’.
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In order to understand this complex and contradictory reality through the various
interpretations, and to pinpoint the distinct visions of ICT initiatives, the perceptions of
each interviewee were identified and grouped into a few dominant aspects, which
represent the common issues raised by actors of each case study.
Instead of grouping the evidence by people, actors or social groups within the local
government, we defined the most common topics raised by the interviewees to explain
and justify their visions, and grouped the actors’ perceptions according to these topics.
Some themes were identified with more intensity than others, and differently for the two
case studies. The ‘pure’ technical functionality of ICTs as an ‘aseptic’ tool is imperative
for most of them. Thus, for Newcastle, four dominant aspects within actors’ discourses
were identified and grouped as follows:
a. The organisational aspect where ICTs are referred to simply as a tool to

modernise back-office activities, as well as a way to deliver services more quickly
and efficiently (and also customised). This is called the ‘client-oriented vision’.
b. The aspect of substitution (‘physical replacement’), where ICTs are seen as a set
of technologies capable of replacing physical dislocations with remote
interactions/consultations/negotiations.
c. The aspect of planning involvement. This aspect is particularly related to the type
of involvement of planners and planning departments with the development of
urban-technological initiatives. Do planners participate in the processes of
conceiving, planning, implementing and managing ICT initiatives? How do they
take part in these processes?
d. The propaganda aspect. Due to its recent history of image development, this
aspect is the most used argument for ICTs implementation in Newcastle. It is
characterised by the symbolic vision of ICTs as clean, modern, and high level
technologies (invoking much of the science park culture). In this way, ICTs are
referred to as a technical fix to urban problems (Graham and Marvin, 1996) and as
an attractor of social, cultural and economic developments and quality of life. It
also represents economic growth through more service and high-tech companies
(clean industries).
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Although a wide range of interpretations for ICTs and urban-technological strategies can
be found among actors’ discourses, most of them tend to be influenced by at least one of
these four dominant aspects. An important remark about them is that they seem not to
intermingle into the actors’ discourses, tending to represent alone or in pairs the overall
vision for ICT initiatives. Perhaps the most important question to be asked here is: are
these aspects and the visions they influence incorporated by the initiatives which are
implemented and prevail?
Divergence and unrelated initiatives is an imperative for Newcastle’s approach to ICTs.

The four dominant aspects illustrate the discontinuity between actors’ diverse
interpretations of the subject and the meaning of ICTs as technological systems.
During the interviews, we were never told what Newcastle’s urban-technological strategy
might be. Afterwards, when the final question was posed to the same interviewees asking
them to define such a strategy briefly in short as a first thought, the answers (as follows)
indicated a wide variety of views as to what problems ICTs should tackle, and what sort
of solutions they should provide.
In general, interviewees’ statements have been presented as projects rather than

definitions of attitudes and initiatives of the city towards an ICT policy-making
perspective. The following definitions illustrate this characteristic of the general approach
as ‘something to be implemented in the future’; or a strategy that ‘should do’ instead of
the one that ‘is doing’ something:
‘[The urban-ICT strategy should:] 1) Ensure that the council’s customer

service strategy drives the e-government agenda - this leads to changes
in how frontline services and back office functions are organised and
increases opportunities for outsourcing arrangements with ICT suppliers
through the councils adoption of thin client technology. 2) Our
“Implementing Electronic Government” statement clearly sets out our
priorities in relation to citizens, business and communities with the main
emphasis on delivery to the citizen. 3) Integrating our efforts with our
sub-regional partners in Tyne and Wear local authorities so that we take
a common approach to procurement, share information on customers
and develop common strategic approach to e-gov, e-business , e-
learning , e-infrastrucure etc. 4) Develop a city-wide ICT partnership
with the private sector through the newcastle.com city business portal,
targeting thousands of SMEs [Small and Medium Enterprises] for e-
enablement with broadband connectivity, consultancy desktop business
solutions and business content. 5) We do not do enough to identify the
links to national policy and understand what government wants from
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us’. (Cosh, 2003a, Head of the Economic Development division in the

council)
‘Urban-ICT Strategy should provide citizens and visitors to

municipalities with access to information and services. It should be
done in a way that disregards a user’s knowledge of ICT, i.e. it should
be transparent and intuitive. Urban ICT or ‘on-street’ technology needs
to be robust and must offer users various opportunities to ‘connect’
either through fixed platforms such as kiosks, or wireless media such as
PDA, Laptop, or mobile phone and other such devices. Most of all
Urban ICT needs to be convenient and relevant for the user i.e. it needs
to take into consideration, the location and therefore the relevance of the
information/services it provides’. (Collin, 2003, Business Development
Manager, Cityspace Limited)
When the strategy is not described as something like a technical tool, it is defined in
terms of economic development and investments attraction, as the following examples
emphasise; the first highlighting the technical benefits of ICTs, and the second stressing
their economic role:
‘My first thoughts are that the urban ICT strategy is two-fold. Firstly,
ICT is key to modernising local government internally within the
council to improve customer service (whether those customers are
citizens, businesses, voluntary organisations etc.) and provide staff with
access to information. This also includes the use of ICT to automate
routine business processes and to develop new channels for access to
council services and those of other public agencies. Externally the
strategy is to provide opportunities for development of ICT skills in the
city in order to equip the population with the ability to get jobs and to
promote the area as one that is attractive to the technology industries’.
(Brown, K., 2003, Principal Consultant for IT in the council)
‘Newcastle’s economic [underlined by the speaker] ICT strategy is to

make maximum use of high levels of broadband infrastructure to
encourage the development/relocation of businesses that make use of
this. This is in two main areas: 1. Strategic developments – creation of
new-build business parks with high connectivity – typically on end of
the city – to attract inward investors, and; 2. Incubators/small business
workspace to encourage new start e-businesses. Other aspects of the
strategy, I guess, relate to training, community access and e-government
services, but I feel that the economic element is driving it’. (Beveridge,
2003a, Principal Policy Officer, North East Assembly)
Another characteristic of these diffuse and diverging interpretations lies in their use of
vague or generalised language that avoids specific definitions. The bullet-points structure
to enumerate the projects is commonplace. The following examples show very broad
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statements where it is difficult to spot and pinpoint specific objectives and applications on
the ground:
‘To ensure a cultural step change in the use of ICT by the city’. (Hyslop,
2003a, Head of Knowledge Information and ICT, One Northeast)
‘I believe Newcastle’s urban-ICT strategy is the management of

information and knowledge that will benefit the politicians, and in
particular the labour politicians of this city. I believe the politicians
think it would be disastrous for the people of Newcastle to fully utilise
the power of ICT and therefore they are setting up situations whereby
they can control the process as much as possible. This is done with a
mixture of slowly rolling out ICT across the city in order to induce a
boredom factor, and therefore the people will not fully utilise its
potential. The other half of the equation is that the politicians do not
fully understand the potential of ICT and therefore leave it to mediocre
unelected bureaucrats that they think they can control to implement
what they foresee as a policy that will benefit the populace of
Newcastle’. (Riley, 2003a, former ICTs Development Officer in the
council)
A possible democratic role for the use of ICTs was also highlighted by some interviewees
as a potential for empowering community networks, information and service provision.
The first of the following two statements also mention the limited power of the full
council over ICT initiatives:
‘Although the Council does not control the entirety of Newcastle’s

urban ICT infrastructure or resources by any means, our overall strategy
is to ensure (and encourage where we cannot ensure) that all
communities are able to take advantage of the revolution in digital
technology regardless of their personal circumstances. This extends
from regional and sub-regional strategies to assist and improve the
competitiveness of businesses in the north east to the provision of ICT
facilities both in public buildings and on-street to ensure that all
residents can enjoy some level of access to e-government services and a
wider range of ICT facilities. The Council seeks to promote constructive
usage of all ICT and electronic channels, and to provide or work with
others to encourage the provision of the underlying infrastructure to
support those channels’. (Elliott, 2003a, Corporate Modernisation
Manager in the council)
‘Assisting in the more efficient provision of services, reaching more

people, and giving information about the council and its activities, and
democratic meetings to the general public and its own staff. This would
be, for example, through placing larger numbers of routine documents
online together with search facilities, enabling form-filling e.g. jobs,
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housing, and planning applications, and making more terminals

available, e.g. in libraries’. (Edwards, 2003, Senior Officer, Planning
and Transportation division in the council)
A final important remark about these broader definitions of the local shape of urban-
technological developments, in general, is the deterministic way in which ICTs are
represented within interviewees’ perceptions. Most of them give much importance to the
technical improvements, regardless of social and cultural aspects.
These statements provide valuable clues to the nature of the local interpretative flexibility
about ICTs. Both in terms of variety and of types of interpretations, these visions provide
a general picture of how this phenomenon is embedded in actor’s minds. Next, we try to
go even further and analyse more specific statements according to the four dominant
aspects defined earlier.

discourses
As the variety of visions form the basis of our analysis of the local shape of interpretative
flexibility for ICTs as urban issues, it is crucial that the dominant aspects listed above are
made clear through a deconstruction of actors’ discourses. A description of each of these
dominant aspects in turn, with exemplar quotations, now follows as an aid to
understanding the general characteristics of the interpretations of the functionalities of
ICT initiatives for different groups within local government.
a. The organisational aspect
One of the most common aspects identified within actors’ interpretations of ICTs and
their potential use for the public sector is the organisational aspect. In Newcastle, it
corresponds to an overstatement of the possible benefits of ICTs for the internal
organisation of the council as a stand-alone factor.
This is mostly driven by local government’s target of achieving 100% of its services
available online by 2004 (in order to meet central government’s target for 2005). The
target is commonly expressed as the e-government agenda or the ‘implementing
electronic government’ statement. There is constant reference to the standards of the
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private sector, as if the city administration could follow corporate or business standards
for its performance.
In this sense, e-government is set up as a major goal for the administration, where the
definitions of what agenda this should pursue are extremely vague.
Plans for implementation of e-Government will assist in the

development of performance management through the modernisation
and better integration of back office systems, and the development of
improved management information systems, thus enabling better
information provision to the public. (Newcastle City Council, 2001: 5)
According to Ken Brown, e-government represents the City Council’s ICT focus. The e-
government agenda is then considered to be the expression of an urban-technological
strategy in Newcastle.
‘What is becoming more important is the direction we’re giving to the

council in terms of e-government, customer service and the use of IT on
how to achieve the modernisation agenda in general. E-government has
become a focus for IT in the council’. (Brown, K., 2002)
In terms of hierarchy, e-government is the major umbrella for ICT projects, under the
Going for Growth regeneration project. Many people inside the City Council have
difficulty in defining exactly what the e-government agenda is in terms of practical
achievements for traditional urban policy-making. The broad message about e-
government from people inside the council reads as something that will help the council
to deliver 100% of its services electronically by 2004.
Walker (2002) sustains that there are different ways of understanding what ‘electronically
delivering services’ might mean in terms of policies and actions. He questions the nature
of these actions as to be considered as service delivery. For Walker, there is still
uncertainty about what we should consider a provision of 100% of online public services.
There is an important distinction to be made between listed online information and

interactive services. Accordingly, he also agrees that the varied and blurred
interpretations that people have for ICTs make it difficult to translate the e-government
agenda into significant actions on the ground. As a representative of the internal
management and corporate structure of the council – and as a documental evidence for
the organisational aspect – most of the e-government goals are met by what is called the
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IT and Related Services (ITRS) procurement. This is mainly characterised by a series of

actions leading to the modernisation of the council, or the introduction of systems,
networks and applications to be used by all directorates and divisions.
Described by the first Implementing Electronic Government Statement as a package of

services, the ITRS has a three fold vision, according to the council: to ‘modernise and
improve services in line with Best Value principles and e-government requirements’; to
‘establish a basis for the development and exploitation of technology and e-services
across the whole Council’; and to ‘establish a regional service centre, capable of trading,
which will bring new employment to the City’ (Newcastle City Council, 2001: 23).
Procurement was initiated by the council to assess the involvement of a third party from
the private sector as the responsible for the implementation of this package of services.
However, after two years it was decided that an alternative ‘in-house’ proposal should be
followed – where the council itself and its IT development team would be carrying out
the implementations. We will discuss this story later while addressing the private sector
involvement in public services.
Another notable fact about the organisational aspect is the tendency of different sectors of
the city administration to start looking at citizens as clients. This is directly related to the
adoption of the discourse that the public administration should act as a private sector body
and follow the same or similar standards in terms of economic and financial performance.
This feature of a client-oriented vision is identified in Newcastle across the interviewees’

statements, and a strong value embedded into the development of the customer service
centre.
The jargon used internally and during the interviews to describe visions and projects is an
important indicator for this comparison between public and private sector performance:
Terms like ‘corporate management’, ‘client group’, ‘customer relationship management’,
are commonplace. This is evident in the vision of the council for 2004 (after having
established the goal of 100% of services online):
Managerially there are four key criteria that guide decision making:
- Getting closer to the public;
- Adopting a corporate approach;
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- Modernising how we work, reducing bureaucracy, increasing

efficiency and becoming more open;
- Valuing staff by communicating more effectively, providing more
training and development and extending supportive policies.
(Newcastle City Council, 2002a: 7)
It would therefore appear that people within the council and city administration tend to
lose the focus on a broader view about the use and implementation of ICTs in governance.
This fact seems to distract most of their attention to specific and partial goals. E-
government and the corporate vision of the public organisation are, then, very closely
related to the general approach of the local authority to ICTs. As a consequence, most
initiatives seem to be motivated by this two-fold aspect.
b. The aspect of substitution
The second aspect identified within actors’ discourses and documentation about the
initiatives in Newcastle, although not as conspicuous as the organisational aspect, is the
argument about physical replacement, the ‘death of distance’, and of the
anywhere/anytime.
The aspect of substitution is dominated by the clash between virtual and physical, and
between space and time concepts. This aspect seems to be commonplace for most people
in the city administration. Justifications like travel substitution commonly appear in
official documents and in the arguments of interviewees, such as the following statements
from the Implementing Electronic Government document:
E-government contributes to both cohesion (bringing support to

communities reducing the need to travel away from them to access
services) and competitiveness […] Web/portal development will enable
service at home or in a more local setting, reducing the need to travel.
(Newcastle City Council, 2002a: 15-20)
While not exactly wrong, these statements can be misleading. The general idea about
substitution in these types of affirmation is the one sustaining that virtual or distant
communication is going to replace most physical interactions. For instance, Richard Elliot,
believes that with greater investment in ICTs, local authorities can save physical space
(and apparently, even money) on administrative tasks.
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‘A possible impact on public administration would be that ICT removes

the need to have a lot of services geographically located in a particular
area. A lot of back-office processes and services can be done almost
literally from anywhere around the world’. (Elliott, 2003b, Corporate
Modernisation Manager in the council)
This can be one of the effects of having a well-structured strategy for the implementation
and use of ICTs. However, in the light of similar statements, technologies and virtual
communication seem to carry all the burden of having to fix the administrative structure
of cities and, most importantly, of having to be more efficient than physical means of
interaction.
It is also noticeable that this aspect is connected to the organisational aspect in the way
that most interviewees point to the shrinking of the public administrative structure as a
result of intensive use of technology. In the same way, Philip Dyer believes that ICTs
challenge the very need for physical administrative spaces:
In terms of public spaces, you may see a rationalisation in some sense

of physical space as business processes are changed and are now
rationalised using information technology. So, clearly process will
change and become more efficient, new services will evolve […] The
use of public space and public administration will change because of the
use of ICT […] With things like the smart card, it’s often about
increasing thoroughfare. For example with the contact-less card you can
swipe it over and pass through very quickly in a transport for example.
So, conceivably if you extend that scheme 20 years in time you could
look at smaller physical spaces. (Dyer and Burns, 2002)
Finally, the importance of finding these types of visions among actors’ discourses is not
related to the validation of the nature of what they are saying. In other words, the
interesting feature for this study is not to verify whether these statements are true, but to
provide evidence for the prominence of physical substitution among the interpretations of
ICT initiatives. Later, this can also be used to analyse the impact that these aspects have
on the whole of the local authority’s approach to ICTs.
c. The aspect of planning involvement
Thirdly, one of the most intriguing aspects is the distant involvement of planning with
urban-technological issues. The aspect of planning involvement within actors’ discourses
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is summarised by an apparently weak link between those who plan, decide and implement
ICT initiatives and those responsible for the territorial organisation of cities.
Interviewees seem to indicate that this distant relationship is two-way, meaning that
planners are neither interested in ICT issues, nor those responsible for ICTs development
keen to involve planners in it.
The planning division in Newcastle showed little interest in the subject of ICTs
development during the interviews. In fact, the planning officers interviewed showed only
a partial vision of the council and of the responsibilities of planning itself.
The fragmentation in the administration, as we saw, comes from the structure of the main
directorates, and goes down to the divisions and sub-divisions, with consequences for
peoples’ visions as regards their own functions in the council. This also affects the
planning division, which is part of the Environment, Enterprise and Culture directorate
(EEC) under the name of Planning and Transportation Division.
Yet, within this division there is a number of groups that share the functions related to
planning and transportation issues, namely: development control of planning, to deal with
planning applications; policy section, responsible for the Unitary Development Plan
(UDP); the implementation team, for the action plan; a specialist design team; and a team
responsible for transport quality and traffic management. Asked whether there was any
attention to ICTs and the impact of telematics technologies upon the city within these
groups, Helen Golightly, a Senior Planning Officer in the council, answered with a
categorical ‘no’. With such a structure, it is not difficult to encounter partial views among
the officers and civil servants.
In terms of the relation between policy-making and ICTs, Robin Beveridge declared that:
‘I think people are aware that ICT is important but don’t understand the
details to be able to say “this is what we’re going to do, and this is what
the impact will be” […] When we first started scrutinising ICT, I had to
get a definition of “broadband” for my manager because he didn’t know,
and that was only about a year ago […] So policy-makers don’t talk to
IT specialists as well as IT specialists are not interested in policies’.
(Beveridge, 2003b)
The planning division in the council is regarded by other officers as not committed at all
to issues related to ICTs, having even mentioned their dated way of working and delays in
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joining the modernisation of the whole council. With reference to the lack of vision from
the planning officers, after asked to give her opinion on obvious signs of physical changes
in the city provoked (even indirectly) by ICTs, Helen Golightly answered:
‘I don’t know if we can say that there has been a great impact yet, you
may have a different view […] I’m not convinced [that the recent
changes in terms of location and re-location in the city and even the
regeneration and redevelopment projects are related to ICT] […] I think
it’s the case of turning the question around and asking why you think it
will’. (Golightly, 2002, Senior Planning Officer in the council)
The planning division plays no role regarding the development of ICTs vis-à-vis major
projects, actions and policy-making. As physical impacts are one of the major
characteristics of recent developments of ICTs, the neglect of planners in thinking
through these issues, and the distant involvement of this division with major initiatives
such as e-government and the E-Services Panel is representative of the confusion that
characterises the structures more generally.
Planning as an issue and as a division is not referred to anywhere in the section of the
City Council’s web-site titled, ‘a view of information and communication technologies’.
There is no mention either of officers related to this division. This fact generated the
obvious question: why not? Or even, why do people in the council judge it as so?
My first approach to a planning officer with these questions produced an interesting

reaction, showing a complete lack of information about the web-site and also about some
important initiatives. The officer in question works in the planning division with the sub-
group responsible for urban policy. When questioned about the web-site and about the
absence of planning concerns, he answered:
‘This is a very good question. I didn’t even know this document. I think
this is about how the City Council organises itself internally and
operates, rather than how they deal with the individual services’.
(Edwards, 2002, Senior Officer, Planning and Transportation division in
the council)
After being informed about the E-Services Panel, from which planning people and
concerns are absent, he again showed surprised and moved on to the next subject,
exposing the fragmentation in the planning division’s way of working:
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‘I’ve never heard about it […] We are developing our planning systems
and that’s ongoing to afterwards interconnect with the whole system’.
(Edwards, 2002)
In terms of officers from other divisions justifying this absence of planning issues and
people in the major initiatives regarding ICTs, the general argument is that planners are
no more important than any other function in the council, and that they do not act
proactively towards ICTs. The following two statements by officers from different
divisions exemplify this disregard of the planning involvement on ICT issues:
‘The planning division doesn’t play any important role regarding ICT at
the moment, and I’m not sure they should […] From the outside, the
planning division doesn’t seem particularly advanced in IT and the vast
majority of planning still paper-based’. (Elliott, 2003b)
‘They don’t take part in the E-Services Panel and they have a peripheral
interest in ICT. ICT is not something that they feel as core business.
They have got their own vision, which is, in terms of how they do
things, very traditional. So they have a strategic research function which
doesn’t make any use of IT. How can you have a strategic function that
doesn’t use IT? I don’t think they even should take part in the E-
Services Panel’. (Cosh, 2003b, Head of the Economic Development
division in the council)
This sort of neglect seems to be indicative of, at least, two main factors regarding the
parties involved, and the overall urban-technological approach. First, it suggests that
planning, in general, is not regarded by the city administration as more important than
anything else. We are not arguing that planning should be regarded as the most important
division (above all others), but it should certainly be given more importance. Planning has,
after all, a central role in directing public interests to public initiatives through policies,
and plans. In an ideal situation, a planning division or department should be directly
connected to other divisions in other to translate any and every aspiration through to a
city development plan or the like. Unfortunately, there is no room in this project for
further discussion of planning.
The second indication is that, within the planning department, planners themselves have
little or no interest in understanding the physical effects of ICTs in the city. These
technologies in the planning division are restricted to the use and implementation of
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) or the division’s own web-site (not yet
established).
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People inside the planning division rarely get to know about what is being developed in
other departments, let alone ICT initiatives. As an example, Golightly (2002) shows
confusion while trying to define two very distinct initiatives by the council on the Internet,
Newcastle.gov and Newcastle.com:
‘I have to be honest here. As far as Newcastle.com is concerned I don’t

know much about it. I have just seen a presentation by some people
involved with it […] on City Council’s web-site, Newcastle.gov, there
is quite a lot of confusion and I’m confused about what is the
difference’.
To a certain extent, these indications discussed above seem to be causally related to one
another. In general, if planners do not show an interest in participating and using ICTs at
all, it is natural that other divisions will not see them as key players.
d. The propaganda aspect
The last of the aspects identified in Newcastle is probably the most significant of them all.
The propaganda aspect has a particular and very intimate correspondence with the city’s
recent history of re-imaging and regeneration projects. This aspect can be related both to
other relevant aspects of the actors’ perceptions and to the city’s actions towards the
implementation of ICTs, such as the entrepreneurial and the urban renaissance
imperatives.
The myth of ICTs as stand-alone attractors of investment, clean industry, and better
welfare and quality of life make it ‘the issue of the moment’ for local authorities and
development agencies as they attempt to rebuild the economic reputation of the city and
region.
One North East, as the regional development agency, is the biggest promoter of this
approach to the use of ICTs. According to Maitland Hyslop, from One Northeast, there
are six major themes that concern the regional economic strategy: the creation of jobs;
more entrepreneurs; more skills; putting the universities at the centre of the region; better
infrastructure; and cultural renaissance. The discourse defending these themes seem to be
closely aligned with the ideas of transforming the region in a techno-pole, bringing
critical mass, the conditions for the formation of technological or science parks with an
entrepreneurial profile, and promoting the north east as an innovative region.
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In the same way, aware of the close relationship between ICTs and the elements
necessary to advertise Newcastle as part of this innovative milieu, the head of the
Economic Development division in the council maintains that:
‘Our focus therefore is how we can grow key clusters such as added-
value engineering, marine off-shore technologies, information and
communication technologies, new media, software, tourism and culture,
and financial protection services. My view is that to grow these clusters
of businesses, ICT plays a key role on the level of individual businesses,
but also in terms of how you use electronic mechanisms and electronic
media to work with groups of businesses’. (Cosh, 2003b)
What is clear from these efforts to rebuild the city and region’s economic position in the
UK and in Europe, is that their image is constantly interplaying with the entrepreneurial
imperative towards economic development and urban regeneration initiatives aimed at
attracting new competitive businesses. In this sense, the Newcastle Great Park is seen by
local authorities and civil servants as a key competitive advantage.
Enormous efforts have been made to make this site available for businesses that want to
move into the region. Originally part of the green belt of the city and protected from
developments, the area for the Newcastle Great Park was removed from the status of
green field land by political means in order to be used for business allocation. So, the first
effort was concentrated on taking the land out of the green belt and allocating it for
development purposes, which had to be done through the development plan process. The
Great Park is situated in a very accessible location beside the A1 trunk road, close to
Newcastle airport and ten minutes’ drive from the city centre.
According to John Edwards, this development was part of a combination of political

articulations to favour an economic development project which represents, in the view of
the council, a major step forward towards the implementation of ICT initiatives.
‘The whole idea of the Newcastle Great Park was a political decision
and has everything to do with politics. It was very controversial by
taking it out of the protected green belt. It was an entire corporate
approach by the council, and the planning department had the main role
in the technical and professional aspects for making it happen’.
(Edwards, 2002)
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In the eyes of some of the actors themselves, this entrepreneurial view of the city already
compromises the other visions of what an integrated urban-technological strategy should
be.
Among the variety of flexible interpretations, it is evident that the ones which prevail are
those driven by the economic development and the regeneration initiatives. As a
consequence, the use of ICTs as a competitive advantage for boosterism and propaganda
is obvious:
‘We want the Northeast of England to be recognised as the safest place

in Europe in which to invest […] Unless you have some form of
economic driver, which is based in some form of competitive advantage,
you’re not going to go anywhere’. (Hyslop, 2003b, Head of Knowledge
Information and ICT, One Northeast)
In this way, the Regional ICT Strategy Board (mainly run by One North East) and the E-
Services Panel (run by and within the City Council) act as aggregators and catalysers for
economic activities where the main objective is to use ICTs as an attractor for companies
and people, and as a symbol of innovativeness and quality of life. Other social indicators
such as health, education, culture, public spaces and so on are said to either benefit from
the attraction of new business to the region and city, or to be used as factors of attraction
to new businesses. These are rarely described as the core of major implementations
regarding policy-making for ICTs.
As Hyslop (2003b) states, ‘the purpose [of the Regional ICT Strategy Board] is really to
improve three things: infrastructure, demand and support in the ICT agenda’. Yet the
exaggerated importance given to economic-driven initiatives related to ICTs becomes
clear when the Principal Policy Officer for the North East Assembly declares that:
‘I think economic competitiveness is the most important thing that can

be empowered by ICT. It’s important also reaching groups and
communities but less important than the economic aspects’. (Beveridge,
2003b)
Therefore, in Newcastle, due to its recent history of industrial decline and the necessity
for the City Council to run after alternative ways of heating up the local economy, nearly
everything that comes from the council as a public sector initiative tends to be driven by
economic performance and urban regeneration projects.
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The approach to ICTs is obviously affected by this historical particularity, and is led by
the e-government agenda which, in turn, was set to be closely related to up by the central
government. The dominance of the economic renaissance and the distant involvement of
the planning division seem to contribute to the generation of a yet wider variety of
interpretations, and hence increasing the mythology about ICTs.
6.3.2 Endogenous influences
By endogenous influence, we mean a series of intra-local factors that, combined with

interpretative flexibility and its four dominant aspects, directly affect the way ICTs are
understood and dealt with by local authorities.
These factors can therefore be said to influence the shape of the general approach of local
government to ICTs. The way initiatives are planned and implemented reflects these
influential factors. I have classified them as intra-local or endogenous influence due to
their relation of (possible) dependence on what happens at the local level in cities.
Three major elements are likely to interfere with the implementation of ICT initiatives at
the local level: internal administrative and political disputes within local government;
integration, coordination and control of the implementation of projects and initiatives
related to ICTs; and private sector influence on the public administration. The next sub-
sections are dedicated to describing such elements, which have been considered primarily
from the point-of-view of their influence on the current shape of local authorities
approach, rather than because of possible negative or positive impacts.
6.3.2.1 Internal administrative and political disputes within local government
This influential element is directly related to internal reluctance and disputes about the
implementation of change, either in the management and political structure or in the way
ICTs are introduced and projects run. Due to high levels of fragmentation in the council’s
management structure, this seems to be one of the less influential endogenous elements. If
divisions and sub-divisions rarely interact from the point of view of ICT projects, the
conflicts between them tend to be reduced (though there is the parallel cost of other
problems such as the risk of duplication).
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As discussed from the perspective of planning involvement above, we could not find
evidence of any attempts to link ICTs and urban policy-making in the city to date,
whether through changes in the management structure of the council or through the ways
ICTs are approached by the current urban strategies.
However, in terms of administration and management, major changes are expected to be

carried out by the implementation of the ITRS, based on an ‘in-house’ proposal. This
implementation may expose some of the problems related to internal struggles of officers
and civil servants to accept structural changes.
Although the ITRS proposal does not make ICTs a central issue for urban development, it
does recognise the importance of such technologies to promote a reorganisation of the
whole management structure of the council. The ITRS is intended, among other
objectives, to: mobilise a process of organisational and cultural change within the City
Council which breaks down traditional barriers between services, sections and
departments; centralise and integrate functions, together with the rolling out of new
customer service centres to provide new and enhanced customer access, communications
and better quality services in the city; and meet and exceed e-government targets
(Newcastle UNISON, 2002).
Although the proposal does not mention the creation of a central agency or body to be the
champion for ICTs promotion, the proposed shifts in the way the council operates would
mean the ITRS is unlikely to come about without internal struggles. After all, besides
involving changes of practice, it will also bring job losses.
Therefore, because of the premature stage of broader initiatives that involve structural
administrative changes, Newcastle has only revealed this factor as a potential relevant
influence.
and initiatives
In fact, the most influential element here is a lack of integration and coordination that
consequently implies reduced control over the entirety of the urban-technological
initiatives.
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This has proven to be one of the most visible points in Newcastle’s approach to ICTs, due
to the virtual non-existence of integration and coordination of initiatives by the council.
The rather dispersed way in which the council delivers its initiatives by the silo structure
of the directorates does not facilitate any attempt to create integration.
As coordinator of Virtual Newcastle, Karen Brown has the job of trying to integrate
different ICT initiatives, among other aims, in order to avoid duplication. She regards the
lack of integration and coordination as one of the weaknesses of the city’s development of
ICTs:
‘Newcastle has its directorates operating almost as independent bodies

and there is no much cross-working between them. My job is to work
towards rectifying that and try to get a cohesive ICT picture for
Newcastle. What is hard is that funding comes through from different
divisions. Each division has its own funding to deal with, and I have no
influence over how that is funded. And this is one of the things that
Newcastle is weak on: it doesn’t have a cohesive IT strategy to go
throughout’. (Brown, K. A., 2002)
As described before, there have been two major attempts to coordinate ICT projects, the
E-Services Panel at the local level, and the Regional ICT Strategy Board at the regional
level. Both tend to drive the initiatives basically centred on economic or financial aspects
and/or as subordinated to major urban regeneration projects. Despite this, both attempts
lack powerful organisational backing, and are bound to the function of overseeing the ICT
initiatives rather than being fully dedicated to the genesis, development, implementation
and follow-ups of the overall strategy. As Karen Brown states, the problem is the lack of
any comprehensive notion of ICTs as a city-wide issue:
‘What I think is that they [E-Services Panel] aren’t really interested on

how it sits with a wider strategy; it’s something that’s going to bring
some benefits to Newcastle therefore we can just go ahead and start
delivering that’. (Brown, K. A., 2002)
The ITRS aims to improve coordination and integration throughout the council, but does
not address the creation of such an agency.
This is due to the secondary and marginal role of ICTs for the council and the success of
the regeneration projects. Going for Growth is the biggest umbrella of projects, and so
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detracts much of the attention from other attempts at coordination and integration within
the council.
Although ITRS is concentrated on the modernisation of the public services and the
introduction of new technologies into the daily practices within the city administration, it
does not regard ICTs as part of an urban strategy. This is mainly a managerial
reformulation where the introduction of ICTs is going to be the justification for in-house
management changes.
This comes after a period of few years during which some officers inside the council,
such as Ken Brown, realised the fragmentation between initiatives, and identified the
problem of ICT initiatives being duplicated across the various directorates and divisions.
In order to illustrate how ICT and customer services initiatives were spread across the
council, Ken Brown organised a presentation for the corporate management team and
some of the councillors, and provided what he called the ‘e-government and customer
services Metro map’ (Figure 6.7).
As he explains:
‘It was quite clear that we had various parts of the organisation working
in isolation from other parts of the organisation. Going back about 2
years, I was thinking how we could put these things down and see how
they are co-related. What we were trying to do with this ‘Metro-map’
was to illustrate the things we were working on in terms of e-
government, customer services, and particularly the themes coming out
of the economic development strategy trying to build the city and the
region into one more IT aware and IT skilled […] It was a presentation
to grab people’s attention and make them realise that we’re not
coordinated and therefore we’re not efficient and we’re not working
well as an organisation’. (Brown, K., 2002)
These initial efforts to understand and visualise some of the ICT initiatives strongly
indicate the high level of fragmentation that exists in the management and political
structure. Even with the Metro map and ITRS attempts to integrate and coordinate the
initiatives, the origin of the difficulties on pinpointing and controlling ICTs development
seems to be down to the management and political structure. Geoff Walker argues that:
‘One of the problems that we have is back to the political infrastructure,

lack of coordination between the directorates. Say for instance, talking
about education, ICT literacy issues will go through education and stay
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with education rather than being a city wide issue; it’s a corporate issue
within the directorates. I think this is just that way of ‘pigeon-holing’
everything, like saying this sits here, or this is over there’. (Walker,
2002)
Figure 6.7 - Origins of the ITRS: e-gov and customer services Metro map.
After being implemented, the changes proposed by the ITRS tend to promote more
integration among council’s services and initiatives but, as regards ICTs, it is likely that
related projects will remain disperse across the new structure and continue to be given a
secondary priority as just one element in the urban development strategy.
In this way, the council is unlikely to become prepared to deal with further implications
of the relationship between cities and ICTs by, for instance, relating direct consequences
of such a relationship to the physical space in cities. Many questions about the future of
the city’s spaces and the way local authorities will deal with them are likely to remain
unanswered: For instance, what will the ongoing and increasingly development of mobile
technologies represent to inner spaces in cities such as Newcastle in a near future, and
how should the urban strategies address this phenomenon?
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6.3.2.3 Private sector influence on public administration
One of the possible indirect consequences of not having a central coordination for urban-
technological initiatives is the increasing involvement of the private sector in public
projects within public-private partnerships. On one hand, the public sector seeks funding
and investment to turn its initiatives into reality while, on the other hand, the private
sector seeks for less risky ways of putting new technologies into trial before or at the
same time as they are launched on the market. They are also concerned with profit, of
course.
Perhaps the biggest vulnerability that stems from the lack of coordination over the ICT
initiatives is the one that exposes a number of projects to public-private partnerships (PPP)
without a central body aware of all the details and implications of each one of the private
involvements for public service delivery.
The E-Services Panel represents an attempt by the council to oversee this sort of
relationship between public and private sectors. It was originally created, according to
Elliott (2003b), after a simultaneous involvement of the council with two or three major
procurements for ICT initiatives. However, despite overseeing the process, the panel does
not take part in the process of negotiation and no real implementation of any initiative on
the ground results.
According to the Centre for Public Services (2001), among the reasons for opposition to
deeper involvement of the private sector with public services through PPPs and PFIs
(Private Finance Initiatives) are:
♦ Changing the nature of risk.
♦ Lack of democratic accountability.
♦ Service failures.
♦ The private sector dictating social and public needs.
♦ The shifting balance between capital and state.
Two examples of major projects can illustrate some of these risks in terms of ICT
development by the council.
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The first case is related to the above-mentioned ITRS proposal for management changes
and introduction of ICTs. Before recently deciding in favour of the so-called in-house
option to run the changes, the City Council had started a procurement process in which
the only bid came from British Telecom (BT). If it had succeeded in establishing this joint
venture, the council would have been handing over to BT the management of changes
across the whole city administration, with the introduction of BT’s own technologies, and
control over the customer management relationship.
As Newcastle UNISON (2002: 3) points out, this procurement
Could result in BT, a major private sector company, having

responsibility for the management and provision of a range of services
to residents of the city and to the council itself.
This joint venture would surely involve, within the points listed above, at least the lack of
democratic accountability and the private sector dictating social and public needs. The
report by Newcastle UNISON (2002: 14) titled No Corporate Take Over of Council
Services exposes the interests of BT in such a partnership with Newcastle City Council as
follows:
♦ Profit from the bid – normally between 10% - 15%, on the contract value.
♦ Sell itself for consultancy, with charge-out rates of up to £1,600 per day.
♦ Profit from sale of software designed and tested in Newcastle.
♦ Guarantee use of its own phone lines for 10 years.
♦ Boost its own image on the basis of already well-performing City Council services.
♦ Increase its credibility as a bidder with other local authorities.
The same report, published just before the council’s decision to go for the in-house option,
assesses the BT bid as a highly risky operation. This was not only because of private
sector involvement with important parts of the council service delivery structure, but also
because of the unstable managerial situation of BT in recent years:
For Newcastle City Council to enter into a ten year contract with BT
would be highly risky: BT is in a constant and continuing state of flux,
with no prospect of internal stability and the real possibility of further
radical restructuring. BT’s ‘change management’ expertise may be more
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than soaked up by its own transmutations. (Newcastle UNISON 2002:

14)
In a second example, another very likely possibility regarding corporate take over of
public services (with no coordination) is a transfer of the risks of an unsuccessful
initiative back to the council, while the private sector partner could put new technologies
into trial. This was the case for the ITRS BTs proposal and seems also to be the case for
the implementation of the street kiosks in Newcastle in recent years.
In 1998, the council started to deploy a sheltered structure that would accommodate
computer screens connected to the council with basic information about the city and that
would also work as an ATM. The project was called GOSIP or ‘General On-Street
Information Points’ and never really succeeded in terms of efficiency, due to a lack of
maintenance2 of both hardware and software applications:
‘The content management of the GOSIP wasn’t done properly (it wasn’t
allowing people to council’s web-site, so the content tended to be wrong
or out-of-date, links were broken, etc.). The main lesson we got from
the GOSIP terminals was that you need to make sure that you get your
content management solid and done properly’. (Elliott, 2003b)
In the end it was the council’s responsibility as far as the public were concerned. The
private sector partner is never mentioned in accounts of what went wrong with the kiosks.
More recently, the City Council has started a new partnership with Cityspace, a British
company that delivers street kiosks across the whole country. The initial plan is to deploy
about 40 kiosks at central spots and others of touristic relevance for the city, as well as in
more remote neighbourhoods. It is anticipated that the kiosks may even incorporate
banking services (ATMs).
However, the council itself and the private sector partner have admitted that the biggest
risks in this kind of partnership are always assumed by the public sector, while the
benefits in terms of the technological development and testing at low cost are almost
exclusively the private sector partner’s. Answering a question about which partner would
take the biggest risk in this kind of partnership, Elliott (2003b) admits that is:
2
It is worth mentioning though, that maintenance is a common problem affecting all kinds of physical
urban initiatives, not only in Newcastle but everywhere. Local authorities seem to underestimate the costs
and efforts associated with maintenance when they plan to implement a new development.
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‘Probably the council, which, if it fails, will have to face accusations of

wasting public money, and that is a very visible symbol (it’s a kiosk that
is not working or not being used, in a sense, the same that happened
with the GOSIP terminals)’.
Together with this risk attached to private sector involvement with public businesses, the
other two endogenous influential elements – internal administrative and political disputes
within local government; and integration, coordination and control over the
implementation of projects and initiatives related to ICTs – also combine to influence the
way in which local authorities deal with ICTs. There is, though, something else deserving
consideration, with the same level of influence over the final shape of local government’s
approach. So, the next section addresses the extra-local or exogenous influences.
6.3.3 Exogenous influences
There are also factors less influential at the local level that together represent more
general aspects, having their effects also felt beyond the arena of ICT developments.
They are dependent on the relationship between local, regional, national and international
levels of political and economic decision-making. As a British city, and thus within a
particular set of political, economic, social and cultural conditions, Newcastle is exposed
to specific circumstances in terms of actions and decisions which are far from the
influence of the local authorities.
Three major elements stand out to represent this exogenous influence, with variations
from case to case according to extra-local conditions: political and administrative conflict
with upper level governmental stances; the increase of regional competitiveness
(especially among European Union State Members); and the entrepreneurial imperative.
All three are closely connected, the last two elements in particular. As was the case with
the endogenous elements, the following were also considered for their influence rather
than impact.
6.3.3.1 Political and administrative conflicts with upper level governmental stances
In Newcastle, instead of a conflict with other government levels, this is rather the case of
the local authority being restricted by limited power and autonomy because of a highly
centralised national political system.
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The British political system is based on a strong centralisation of the decision-making

process upon the central government in London. The main policy guidelines as well as a
significant part of the funds for local authorities invariably come from the central
government. Only the management of these funds is up to local government, along with
the implementation of projects and initiatives to achieve the targets set at the national
level. There are multiple central government departments responsible for the translation
of government ideas and programmes into targets and funds for local authorities. These
are generally coordinated by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), which is
the main link between central government and local authorities. The ODPM is
responsible for policies on housing, planning, devolution, local and regional government,
and the fire service. Due to a multitude of departments and offices in the central
government, funds and targets for ICT-related initiatives might come from different units.
For instance, e-Government Unit (previously the Office of the e-Envoy) is the part of the
Cabinet Office responsible for electronic government standards across the country.
The majority of local projects in Newcastle tend to have their scope strongly centred on
urban regeneration policies for distant poor neighbourhoods and central riverside areas
(previously occupied by the coalmining and ship industries). ICT initiatives are usually
very specific and of secondary importance, often bound by bigger regeneration projects.
The e-government agenda is typical example of initiatives dictated by central government

and strictly followed by local authorities to avoid losing revenues from London. The
targets for electronic government were set up nationally for implementation by 2005, and
Newcastle has re-set its own goals to advance central government’s targets by one year.
This will guarantee to Newcastle its jackpot for e-government awarded by the central
government.
‘There is a central government target for 2005 for all public services to
be made available electronically. In Newcastle, we have what is called
local public service agreement with the government to do that by March
2004. So, we’re going to do that ahead of the central requirements.
There is a strong financial motivation for that. If successful, we catch up
an additional funding. So there are incentives to make sure we do that
by 2004’. (Dyer and Burns, 2002)
Regarding this relationship between central government and local authorities, the agenda
is set by central government. In the British political system there are representatives
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elected to represent Newcastle, and others elected to represent the country as a whole – so
the difference between MPs’ and councillors’ functions and representative obligations is
clear. What is not as clear is how the local authorities are supposed to deliver central
government targets and by what means.
As a result, a reasonable amount of the money for each of the local authorities actually
comes from the central government on an annual basis, which means that its output is
driven by central government as well. If such targets are not met, basically local
government will receive less expenditure the next year, and so on. Thus, there are pots of
money held by the central government which are then distributed to local authorities,
which are basically accountable to central government for that money.
There is thus a chain of dependence between local authorities and central government in
terms of the way services are delivered and targets met. This would eventually block
original initiatives, and even a broader urban-technological strategy developed at the local
level, not allowing the strategy to be autonomous enough in order to freely define its
budgets, targets, etc.
In SCOT terms, apart from the local variety of interpretations for ICTs and related
strategies, there are still extra-local visions with stronger political power. To a certain
extent, the visions set by the central government to what ICT initiatives should deliver,
tend to suppress, or at least limit the local struggle of problematisation, translation and
implementation of local interpretations.
With the devolution process in place, this is going to be one of the points to be redefined
by local authorities and the regional assemblies, together with the assistance of the
regional development agencies. Geoff Walker, for instance, believes that a more
autonomous region would be more prepared to deal with its particular problems,
developing its own solutions and meeting its own targets.
‘Presumably in that scenario, instead of the central government saying

you’ve got to deliver so much on transportation, or so much on
infrastructure, they would then have to say here is you part of the
money, you tell us what your targets are, you deliver it in the way you
want to, etc. I think, whether you like it or not, regional government is
the future for delivering services, and it’s not happening at the moment
in the UK’. (Walker, 2002)
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Michael Riley even partially blames such a centralised political system for the
fragmentation at the local level, resulting an approach to ICTs that is also fragmented. He
argues that:
‘This fragmentation has very much to do with the whole British political
system where the central government has an enormous power dictating
what the local authorities have to do’. (Riley, 2003b, former ICTs
Development Officer in the council)
6.3.3.2 The increase of regional competitiveness within the European Union
This factor is just a larger scale version of what already happens between cities in the UK.
Running after investment has become a major preoccupation for cities recently, especially
within the European Union where they can apply for bigger and more visible investments.
Dyer and Burns (2002), for example, argue that ‘things that come from a European level
have bigger impact than what happens in the UK’.
The recent history of the city as regards attempts to rebuild its own image and the way it
is regarded by other cities and market centres as the old industrial capital of the North has
everything to do with the increasing competitiveness between UK and European cities.
Newcastle has been taking part in many European consortia of projects to implement ICT
initiatives, including TeleCities, but lacks the image and power of a city like Antwerp, for
instance, which is seen as one of the most advanced cases in Europe (as we shall see
below).
As an example of this connection between image and competitiveness, the street kiosks
represent a visible symbol of government’s commitment towards innovation to compete
at the regional level. This may be more symbolic than it is effective. Kiosks have a
reputation of increasing the visibility of government’s actions and, at the same time, not
being efficient enough to do the job of information and services delivery. According to
Elliott (2003b), one of those responsible for the project inside the council:
‘The primary motivation for implementing the PATs [Public Access

Terminals] was certainly to make e-government publicly available,
somewhere more visible than PCs in public libraries […] But the main
motivation was to have a visible symbol of e-government as well as the
social inclusion aspect. It is a sort of propaganda […] a key feature of
the PATs is that you’ve got a public demonstration of e-government, so
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people can see it in streets. You can see a sort of demonstration of the
capacity and commitment [of the council] to doing this sort of thing’.
As the ‘teleport’ used to represent cities’ insertion in the information age (Graham, 2000)
– and perhaps still representing in a small scale, together with the science park imperative
–, the sole fact of local authorities promoting ICT projects, have a powerful and symbolic
meaning as economic competitive advantages. No medium-sized European city admits to
being out of this race and totally without any sort of ICT initiative.
The precise risk of this element is that such competition tends to orient local policy-
making towards purely economic goals, when public services, so that public spaces and
the city itself become merchandise to be traded in Europe. As a consequence, there is an
escalation and aggravation of the next exogenous element, the orientation of city’s
policies according to the entrepreneurial imperative. As John Edwards puts it:
‘The City Council together with Gateshead is actively promoting

Newcastle as a European city, through leisure and cultural activities as
part of the regeneration programme. But I suppose the other cities are
doing the same, aren’t they?’ (Edwards, 2002)
6.3.3.3 The entrepreneurial imperative (the city as an enterprise)
Partly as a natural consequence of the influence of these macro-level external factors, it

was clear that Newcastle City Council is constantly trying to make the city administrative
structure to look and act like an enterprise. The jargon, names and even the in-house
proposal for the management reformulation of the council all take into account the
performance of the public sector in terms of private sector standards. This type of
comparison is very clear in many of the interviewees’ arguments.
One simple important thing that this vision does not take into consideration is the fact that
public administration cannot be driven and limited by economic and financial
performance, as its final objective is not making profit but rather the satisfaction of
citizens’ rights. There is therefore some confusion between economic austerity or
responsibility and economic competitive performance with regards to how local
government should function.
This type of analogy together with the concession of fiscal advantages to attract
companies, and the consequent increase in inter- and intra-urban competitiveness is
228
known as the imperative of the entrepreneurial city. The privatisation of public interest
sectors, neo-liberal policies and public-private partnerships are relevant here.
Regarding these new ways of governance, intimately related to how the urban-
technological approach may evolve, Hall and Hubbard (1998: 4) argue that:
While there are some major differences in the interpretations which

leading authors make of the emergence of new forms of urban
governance, there appears to be a broad agreement that urban
entrepreneurialism is essentially characterised by the proactive
promotion of local economic development by local government in
alliance with other private sector agencies.
Newcastle authorities and officers seem to be very determined to transform the city
administration in line with the efficiency of a private sector corporation. This extremely
financial and economic-driven view of the city strongly affects every strategy and
initiative run by the city, including its approach to ICTs.
We have seen that, as a consequence, the ICTs approach is rather separated from the
overall urban strategy, figuring as a group of fragmented and dispersed initiatives without
integration and central coordination. A vision of the public services dominated by the
entrepreneurial imperative tends to be even more detrimental to a broader implementation
of ICTs and the comprehension of the phenomenon of social construction of these new
technologies at the local level.
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6.4 CONCLUSIONS
The first question to arise out of this detailed account of the dilemmas on building an
urban-technological strategy, is how these three major elements come together to shape
the actual approach of local authorities to ICTs and urban issues in Newcastle. After all,
what is this approach?
ICT initiatives in the city are fragmented into individual projects. These projects are
conceived, planned, and implemented independently, through different administrative
divisions. They rarely come to be developed interactively involving a synergy between
two or more departments.
The most inter- and multi-disciplinary part of their development is when they are assessed
and discussed by the E-Services Panel. But again, the panel meets to oversee the projects,
and not to promote integration or even coordination. Their main concern is to evaluate
levels of interest and the potential success of each project. In this way, the structure of
development in terms of ICT projects could be represented as very closely related to the
council management structure, where the ‘silo’ or ‘pigeon-holing’ system is responsible
for canalising budgets and responsibility for the projects (Figure 6.2, p.185).
However, do interpretative flexibility, endogenous and exogenous influential elements

contribute to this structure?
By virtue on their own nature and their close interconnection, it seems that these three
elements play an important role in defining the overall approach to urban technology in
the city. This relation varies between cause and effect. Some of the elements can be seen
as important parts of what defines the fragmented structure, while others tend to figure as
possible effects of fragmentation and dispersion.
As mentioned above, interpretative flexibility is an inherent and necessary part of any

socio-technical development. We have seen that this is the case for individual projects as
well as for the entire approach to ICTs. In this particular case, interpretative flexibility
does not have a cause-effect relation with fragmentation. However, it does have a very
intimate connection to it.
230
In the way the management structure currently works at the local government level,
visions and interpretations from different divisions and directorates tend to be developed
into initiatives independently and with no integration to other developments. In this case,
there is no dominant vision for the whole City Council that incorporates the directorate or
division’s own vision of a single integrative strategy. If, on one the hand, individual
visions have a better chance of being implemented, on the other, this may lead to a high
risk of duplication and waste of public money, for instance.
Thus, to illustrate the cause-effect relation, the fragmented approach of the council to
ICTs and the possibility of not taking all divisions’ interpretations into account may
represent an increased involvement on the part of the private sector in public businesses
(as the case of street kiosks suggested). This would be a consequence of not coordinating
and integrating for individual initiatives.
Another sort of relation between the elements discussed earlier works the other way
around. An example would be the exogenous influential elements of regional
competitiveness and the entrepreneurial imperative contributing to strengthen the
dominant aspect of propaganda among actors’ interpretations for ICT initiatives.
This can also be related to the phenomenon of projects being strongly driven by economic
development and urban regeneration goals, which has its roots in the city’s recent history
of rebuilding its image. It was in evidence on various occasions when the use of ICTs was
heralded as the all-powerful factor that could attract more inward investments, improve
the external image of Newcastle and the North East, and bring employment and quality of
life back to the region.
Mainly centred on the historical aspiration to rebuild the image of the city in the light of
an innovative region and, at the same time giving exaggerated priority to the economic
development agenda, ICTs are considered a secondary issue in this context – although the
discourses praise the supposedly proactive way in which the city addresses them.
This basically exposes a contrasting scenario. On the one hand, officers and authorities
seem very keen on the adoption of policies and initiatives that integrate ICTs with the
traditional urban agenda. On the other, reality shows through in the way projects are
implemented and managed across the fragmented structure and methods inside the city
administration, which clearly indicates that ICTs are in fact subordinated to broader
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regeneration projects. ICTs are thus, in fact, regarded as sources of economic, competitive
advantage in the cycle of attracting inward investment.
The case of Newcastle, as we have seen, represents a typical case of a medium-sized city
in Europe struggling to reshape its image and to get rid of the old industrial stigmas. The
familiar network of factors that characterises cities like Newcastle dominates the way
ICTs are understood in the first place and also, consequently, the way they are adopted
and incorporated as part of the urban agenda, being seen basically as another economic
competitive advantage.
‘We, as a region, need to start competing in that environment, and we

need to be much more competitive than we are at the moment. How do
we become more competitive? At the centre of that it’s participating in
the so-called “e-revolution”’. (Hyslop, 2003b)
It is important to remark that the cause-effect relation between one or more elements or
dilemmas separately, can only be used as examples and illustration of the whole approach
taken by local government. In reality, all the elements interact at the same time
dialectically, making it almost impossible to separate from one another.
Therefore, from the point-of-view of this study, interpretative flexibility – and the way
interpretations converge or diverge into different initiatives – endogenous and exogenous
influential elements all contribute together to give the current shape of Newcastle urban-
technological development, marked by a fragmented structure.
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CHAPTER 7 - IDENTIFYING URBAN-TECHNOLOGICAL STRATEGIES II:
ANTWERP, AN INTEGRATED STRATEGY
7.1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................234

7.2 ANTWERP AS A VIRTUAL CITY: THE ELEMENTS OF AN INTEGRATED AND
CENTRALISED STRATEGY ................................................................................................................236
7.2.1 The historical conditions and general aspects of local government’s interest on ICTs..............236
7.2.1.1 Political and administrative decentralisation .................................................................237
7.2.1.2 Centralising ICTs development........................................................................................238
7.2.1.3 Other elements of early development...............................................................................240
7.2.1.4 Building a strategy ...........................................................................................................241
7.2.2 Antwerp virtual city: actors; interests; virtual and physical manifestations ...............................244
strategy ............................................................................................................................244
7.2.2.2 Virtual and immaterial representations of Antwerp as a virtual city .............................247
7.2.2.3 Physical and material manifestations of Antwerp as a virtual city ................................251
7.3.1 A multitude of visions: interpretative flexibility and ICTs in Antwerp......................................256
city ...................................................................................................................................259
7.3.1.2 Deconstructing interpretative flexibility: identifying the dominant aspects
within actor’s discourses ................................................................................................262
and initiatives ..................................................................................................................272
7.4 CONCLUSIONS ......................................................................................................................................281
Rodrigo J. Firmino Chapter 7 - Antwerp: integrated urban-technological strategy
7.1 INTRODUCTION
Antwerp, at the heart of Flanders, is one of the biggest cities in Belgium, with one quarter
of the Flemish population, and is strategically positioned at one of the corners of the so-
called Flemish Diamond.1
In terms of its approach to ICTs, the city represents a dramatic contrast to the case
previously reported of the fragmented approach taken in Newcastle upon Tyne. The two
cities are about the same size in terms of population, but that is the only strong similarity
between the two. Occupying a strategic position close to the mouth of the river Scheldt,
part of Antwerp’s reputation stems from the huge economic importance of its port, the
second biggest in Europe and fourth worldwide (responsible for a cargo traffic of nearly
116 million tonnes in 1999). At least two other sectors can also be regarded as economic
anchors for Antwerp: the petrochemical industry and the diamond trade (it is estimated
that about 56% of the international diamond trade is carried out in Antwerp).
Apart from its economic importance for Flanders and Belgium (Antwerp is responsible
for 40% of Belgian exports), the city has also become synonymous in Europe with
innovation, and with the successful implementation of ICTs, being a founder member of
the steering committee of TeleCities. It is undoubtedly the most advanced city in Belgium
to make extensive use of ICTs for public administration.
Unlike Newcastle, local authorities in Antwerp regard ICTs as a central issue for the
future of the city, and have created a specialist agency dedicated to ICTs, Telepolis.2 This
semi-independent agency is responsible for the coordination, use and implementation of
ICT initiatives in the city, the modernisation of the city administration, the management
of infrastructure and contracts related to ICTs, and for urban-technological policy-making.
In this chapter, we will be covering the type of approach that Antwerp’s authorities have
to ICT issues and the way the initiatives integrate to form the virtual city of Antwerp,
1
The Flemish Diamond is a territory defined by the Strategic Plan for the Flemish region as the area
between the cities of Antwerp, Brussels, Leuven and Ghent. The name refers to the shape of the region
delimited by the plan, and recalls one of region’s important economic activities (see Albrechts, 1998;
Albrechts 1999 and Albrechts 2001c).
2
In October 2003 a merger between Telepolis and the IT department of the city of Ghent created Digipolis.
The two biggest cities in Flanders joined forces for the constitution of an inter-municipal agency. As this
happened after data collection and analyses were already finalised, the discussions presented in this thesis
concentrate on the role of Telepolis as a municipal semi-independent agency.
234
with its infrastructure, virtual and physical manifestations, actors, interests and
motivations. As with Newcastle, the model proposed for virtual cities in Chapter 3 will be
used to list and describe the main characteristics of Antwerp as a virtual city. Before this
description, though, we address the historical and particular conditions that contributed to
the early adoption of ICTs as a crucial element in the city administration.
Again in parallel with the narrative about Newcastle, we look for clues to how different
visions are considered within the urban-technological strategy as a whole, and the chapter
is structured to emphasise the parallel with the analysis of Newcastle provided in Chapter
6.
One difference however is that, in this case, we will be looking at the way interpretative
flexibility is dealt with by the ICTs central agency. After a brief description of Antwerp’s
historical conditions, strategy and the main projects, the discussion will try and shed some
light on the interpretations to the urban-technological strategy in Antwerp.
The following sections concentrate respectively on:
♦ Antwerp as a virtual city in which the historical conditions are revealed as well as
the elements of the virtual city.
♦ The dilemmas involved in building an urban-technological strategy. This

discussion draws on the local characteristics of interpretative flexibility, the
endogenous and the exogenous influences.
235
7.2 ANTWERP AS A VIRTUAL CITY: THE ELEMENTS OF AN INTEGRATED

AND CENTRALISED STRATEGY
In order to pinpoint the main characteristics of Antwerp as a virtual city, we need first to
explain the origins of ICTs development in the city. First of all then, the generalities of
the Antwerp case are sketched, and its elements explained, with an emphasis on how the
particular situation in Antwerp was historically set up and settled as it is now.
It is hoped that reflecting upon these particular elements will help us to understand some
of the social and political circumstances of this second case study. Particular features of
the local situation have, on the one hand, led to the way Antwerp’s local authorities have
adopted, implemented and used ICTs for the past 20 years; and on the other, they
determine the framework of Antwerp’s urban-technological strategy vis-à-vis local
authorities, civil servants and policy-makers’ perceptions of telematics.
Apart from the particular national and local scenario as a complex political and social
milieu, there is also Antwerp’s local urban-technological strategy to be taken into account
as ‘catalyser’ of ICT developments. This strategy, as we shall see, centralises the
management of different actors’ interests and visions in the city on the basis of political
motivations.
Therefore, after addressing the historical conditions and particular elements of urban-
technological strategy in Antwerp, we also consider the different people behind the
strategy, and what kind of virtual and physical manifestations are involved in the
initiatives headed by local authorities.
7.2.1 The historical conditions and general aspects of local government’s interest on
ICTs
The early development of ICT initiatives in Antwerp – particularly infrastructure – was

heavily influenced by the political and administrative restructuring of local authorities in
Belgium. The regional devolution process of the early 1980s triggered a process of
intensive introduction of ICTs by the city administration in Antwerp. This was mainly
due to a merger of nine neighbouring localities into a sole municipality, Antwerp.
236
7.2.1.1 Political and administrative decentralisation
In the late 1970s, the Belgian government decided in favour of the amalgamation of cities
with less than 5,000 inhabitants, reducing the number of municipalities in Belgium from
2,359 to only 596. Because of its much larger size compared to other Belgian cities,
Antwerp managed to postpone the amalgamation until 1983.
With this urban amalgamation finally in place, the political strategy immediately adopted
by the local authorities was the decentralisation of public services and administration
across the nine city-districts, namely Antwerpen, Berchem, Bezali, Borgerhout, Deume,
Ekeren, Hoboken, Merksem, and Wilrijk. The argument was that one city council alone
could not deal with a newly-created municipality that had grown overnight from about
150,000 to about 500,000 inhabitants, with few new resources added.
According to Van Assche (2002: 2), from the beginning ‘politicians argued that the size
of the city was too big to ensure a democratic and efficient government’. The democratic
parties were arguing that a bigger city would imply a wider gap between city
administration and citizens, and consequently a democratic deficit.
Behind this argument were concerns over the growth locally of the extreme right wing
party, the Vlaams Blok, which increased its percentage of votes from 17.7% in 1988 to
33% in 2002. This situation, apart from justifying the political decentralisation, also
forced the democratic parties to form a coalition in the city council and districts to ensure
a strong opposition against the Vlaams Blok, which was called the cordon sanitaire (Van
Assche, 2002).
Decentralisation was thus the only way around political and financial problems that had
arisen over night, and was envisaged by local authorities as an adjunct to the
establishment of the cordon sanitaire.
However, such decentralisation extended only to the adoption of informal district councils
appointed by the city; the new councils had no formal power. A directly-elected council
could not be officially recognised without an amendment to the country’s constitution,
demanding a slow political struggle that finally ended in 2000 with the direct election of
each one of the nine district councils.
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From the beginning, ICTs were seen as an enabler for the profound administrative
changes involved in decentralisation. Bruno Peeters, the Alderman for Communication,
Governmental Organisation and Decentralisation at that time, argues that:
‘Without ICT we would never have been able to have [accomplished the
political and administrative reform]. It was done in six months; the
decision was made in only two days by the city council, and was
accepted by the ministries and by the union within three months
[referring to the creation of the informal councils]’. (Peeters, 2001,
former Alderman for Communication, Governmental Organisation and
Decentralisation and Chairman of Telepolis)
There is a dual relationship between the political decentralisation process in Belgium

(particularly in Antwerp) and the adoption of a more proactive strategy towards the
implementation and use of ICTs by the local authorities. The new political structure
required empowered information and communication systems to allow more remote
integration between different levels of government nationally, regionally, and especially
locally. On the other hand, it is only advanced ICT tools and infrastructure that have
made this political process technically and materially possible.
7.2.1.2 Centralising ICTs development
A parallel to the situation in Antwerp is the experience of the Public Electronic Network
(PEN) of Santa Monica in the USA, which also arose an outcome of a complex ecology
of games between local actors and dominant social groups, and was also subject to strong
political influence. According to Dutton and Guthrie (1991: 284):
In the early 1980s, the political landscape of Santa Monica shifted when
a liberal coalition won elections to the city council and vowed to
reorient city policy. A new city management team soon centralized data
processing in a department of information services, which upgraded
information technology, purchasing minicomputers, and broadened its
mission to serve all city departments rather than focusing on financial
applications.
In the same way, ICTs worked for Antwerp as an integrative instrument because of their
capacity to improve communication between different departments of the city and
between ‘district houses’ (the political and administrative headquarters for a given
district). Telepolis is the physical and institutional result of the evolution process of
Antwerp’s urban-technological approach, and it is Telepolis that provides Antwerp’s
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differential in terms of strategy.3 It is a unique case of a strong and relatively independent

public body being created to deal exclusively with ICT issues. Telepolis is in fact the
basis for the current political structure in Antwerp. As Philip Heylen defines it,
‘Telepolis is the organisation that connects one another [district houses];

that makes sure the administration in the different districts works
smoothly, and that connects the districts to the city administration and
vice-versa’. (Heylen, 2002, City Councillor and Member of the Board
of Telepolis)
Antwerp was the only municipality lobbying in the federal government for the
constitutional amendment. It was thus in Antwerp’s interest that the adoption of smaller
district councils was formalised by law. It is clear that political and administrative aspects
of the situation in Antwerp during the 1980s and 1990s led to the early adoption of a
more aggressive and risky strategy towards ICTs policy.
Because of this factor, there was huge pressure on the city council to make
communication and integration between departments and districts work as smoothly as
possible. With the creation of Telepolis, even the alderman responsible for
decentralisation was appointed to be its chairman, an informal symbol of the close
relationship between political decentralisation and the urban-technological strategy. The
creation of a central agency like Telepolis is not a common phenomenon in the recent
history of urban-technological developments in Europe, although it is being emulated
here and there on a small scale. Regarding this phenomenon, in a report for the European
Digital Cities Project, Cornford and Naylor (1998: 8) argue that:
For many of the case study cities, telematics strategies have been
developed in the context of a specialist telematics institute, unit, office
or committee that can provide an institutional driver for telematics
within the administration. Such an organisation can provide the critical
mass of expertise and thinking necessary to develop and carry through
policy, while providing an overview of the range of telematics activity
in the city or region.
3
The expansion of Telepolis to become the inter-municipal body Digipolis proves the important role of this
agency for the city in managing ICT development.
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7.2.1.3 Other elements of early development
Other particular historical elements also contributed to early ICT developments in

Antwerp. For instance, in terms of infrastructure, MANAP (Metropolitan Area Network
for Antwerp) is considered to be one of the most important achievements of Antwerp’s
proactive approach (it is, in fact, one of the first and biggest city cable networks in
Europe). MANAP’s physical deployment was largely facilitated by the urban
infrastructure developments put in place for the occasion of the European Capital of
Culture 1993. At the same time as digging up the roads for urban design changes, workers
were laying down the fibre optic cables that constitute MANAP.
The centralisation of Antwerp’s urban-technological strategy on Telepolis enabled the

spatial, political and administrative decentralisation of the city departments and districts.
For this crucial role, Telepolis has been said, by some interviewees, to perform a logistic
function for Antwerp. At the beginning, Telepolis was not delivering services directly to
the citizens, and according to Paul Van der Cruyssen, Public Relations Officer and
European Projects Coordinator for Telepolis, their logistic function for the city still
represents 80% or 90% of everything they do.
It should be stressed that the specific political and social configuration in Belgium and
Antwerp contributed a crucial element to Antwerp’s proactive approach to urban-
technological strategy. This is not to say that the devolution and the subsequent local
political decentralisation processes were the only influences on Antwerp’s history as
regards ICTs development. However, these particular facts played a significant role in the
constitution of the current integrative strategy.
These developments in Antwerp’s recent history have also influenced the way planning is
considered by citizens, civil servants, planners and local authorities. The political arena
(together with regional and supra-regional planning strategies like the concept of the
Flemish diamond, mentioned earlier) was responsible for developing and spreading ideas
of strategic planning and integration between city departments and district houses. In a
report about Antwerp for Interact (Interact, 2002), Lambrechts (2002: 2) argues that:
The decentralization of political decision-making, where the city

districts get more independence in order to be closer to the citizens, only
increases the need for a common strategic planning and consensus
building process.
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In this report, Lambrechts goes even further, and describes how Antwerp developed its
strategic planning approach by attempting to improve the relationship between the
political decentralisation and its roots. According to her, Antwerp’s approach was
implemented following three phases, being:
♦ The definition of a generic planning framework in the first phase.
♦ A whole scale project (defining the core tasks for the city) in the second phase.
♦ A third phase focused on the implementation of better follow-up systems for the
strategy.
At this period of Antwerp’s history, the political structural reform seems to have started
with visible changes in the political system, planning strategies, policy-making, and
consequently the adoption of ICTs to improve processes and as a logistic instrument.4
This appropriation of ICTs as part of an urban strategy has been an inherent part of
Antwerp during the last two decades. It has never been a stand-alone factor.
7.2.1.4 Building a strategy
The fore-going description highlights some of the particular social and political
arrangements that might define the Antwerp local authorities’ approach to urban-
technological strategy.
Some social groups have tended to envisage ICTs functions and capacities as a means to
enable the ongoing political reforms of the region and the country. Thus tremendous
efforts have been and are still being made to establish a solid and integrated urban-
technological strategy – together with its physical and institutional enabler, Telepolis – in
order to facilitate the settlement and absorption of the new political structure.
Politicians and civil servants in favour of more in-depth use of ICTs in public
administration set out to sell their idea by organising an ICT strategy incorporated by a
public ICTs agency. The idea was to integrate as much of the city administration as
possible in order to facilitate political decentralisation. In theory, the more ‘solid’ and
efficient the services delivered could, and the smoother their operation through a remote
4
For further reference on the devolution process, regional governance and the planning system in Belgium
see also Albrechts, 2001a.
241
and decentralised administrative structure, the more satisfied citizens and upper political
authorities (regional, national) would be.
The strategy resulting from these twenty-year social and political changes was the
establishment of the ICT-agency (Telepolis) and a mutual commitment from the city
administration and this agency in terms of budget and services. Telepolis delivers services
to three main clients in exchange of part of their budgets. The major ‘client’ is the city
administration itself (departments and civil servants). It is followed by the PCSW (Public
Centre for Social Welfare) and the port authority, being all subordinated to the City
Council, the Mayor and the College of Aldermen (Figure 7.1).
Figure 7.1 - Telepolis and the city of Antwerp.
Antwerp’s budget for ICTs is the biggest in Belgium and said to be, proportionally, one
of the biggest in Europe. In 2002, the budget for Telepolis was €22.7 million of a total
city budget of €1.15 billion; a ratio of 1.98% exclusively earmarked for Telepolis and the
ICTs strategy.
Figure 7.1 shows the structure put in place by the local authorities to allow Telepolis a
great deal of flexibility and relative independence from the other departments in the city.
That is the structure responsible for the very existence of Telepolis and the urban-
technological strategy. In other words, this figure illustrates the organisation chart for the
ICTs strategy in Antwerp, in which a dominant group (politicians and policy-makers in
favour of such strategy) guarantee the maintenance of Telepolis (which is the key for the
political decentralisation).
In order to maintain this structure and therefore stabilise the urban-technological strategy,
every six years (the period for local elections) a political agreement is discussed by the
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councillors, aldermen and mayor, to establish general functions and missions for
Telepolis. One alderman is designated to deal with Telepolis and the political agreement,
while the college of aldermen tracks accomplishment of the general goals established by
the agreement. Internally, Telepolis also produces an annual operational plan that is
meant to match the requirements agreed politically (defining projects, initiatives and
priorities for the entire year).
This process illustrates the dialectic exercise that is the merger between traditional policy-
making and ICTs policy-making. In this sense, the annual operational plan of Telepolis
and the six-year political agreement with the city administration represent the material
evidence for Antwerp’s recombinant planning. Showing awareness of the importance of
such process, Paul Van der Cruyssen describes it as:
‘An exercise where we [Telepolis] try to match the political goals for
Antwerp with our own goals each year. So, I think it is very important
the way we are putting together general policy with ICT policy’. (Van
der Cruyssen, 2001, Public Relations Officer and European Projects
Coordinator for Telepolis)
Finally, going even further and relating this managerial and political structure with
projects and services delivery, Telepolis becomes the sole coordinator of every initiative
conceived and implemented in the city (Figure 7.2).
Figure 7.2 - The centralised ICTs development in Antwerp.
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Bearing in mind the historical context of Antwerp and the particular shape of its ICTs
development, we now move on to discuss the three major elements of the virtual city:
initiatives, interests, and related physical spaces.
7.2.2 Antwerp virtual city: actors; interests; virtual and physical manifestations
We now turn to the major elements of the virtual city, also in turn part of the local urban-
technological strategy, namely the interests and the people involved, and the main
projects related to virtual representations and physical manifestations related to ICT
initiatives. Most of the initiatives which we will now describe were originally conceived
and developed from a brochure and CD-ROM produced by Telepolis called Antwerp, an
Intelligent City? Some of the ideas pictured in this brochure did not develop into real
projects. Such initiatives nevertheless show the proactivity of Antwerp and Telepolis
regarding the urban-technological development.
With respect to the basic elements of the virtual city, Antwerp presents a well defined
structure due to its highly integrated and integrative approach centralised on Telepolis.
This also explains the major characteristics that apply specifically to the local level of
politics and policy-making in the city: integration, coordination and centralisation.
As we have seen, the political restructuring of the country and the regions in Belgium
played a very particular role in settling the basis for the local development of ICTs. As a
result, the early interest of Antwerp’s actors in the topic is intimately related to the way
this political reform has progressed both nationally and locally. The urban-technological
strategy was initially motivated mainly by a political momentum in the country as a
whole. These historical conditions are also evident throughout the next sub-sections,
describing respectively the three main elements of Antwerp virtual city.
strategy
The evidence gathered by this project indicates that it was mainly political interests that
led to a more intense implementation of ICT initiatives at the local level. Local authorities
were reacting to upper-level decisions to reformulate the power structure across the whole
country, having cites as the starting point.
244
As discussed above, to create a balance in a dispute between democratic and extreme

right wing parties, local authorities (mainly through the cordon sanitaire) decided that the
city should be organised by a more decentralised government split into districts. The
intense use of ICTs and a reformulation of the local administration were crucial for this
ambitious project. In this sense, almost behind the scenes, an urban-technological strategy
was seen by the people in power as the only way to setup the conditions for the political
reform.
In this way, the main interests behind today’s configuration of the virtual city of Antwerp
were focused on a more balanced situation between the two major political sides in the
council which, in turn, form the major actors (people/institutions) heading the whole
movement.
On the one hand, the extreme right wing party was increasingly gaining power election
after election. On the other, a strong coalition between the democratic parties was
functioning as a counterbalance. The latter in fact were and are still the majority of the
representatives in the city council (thanks to the coalition).
The decision to reformulate the political and management structures, and the integration
of local decentralisation by means of ICTs was crucial to the creation in 1996 of Telepolis,
which is still at the core of the city’s urban-technological initiatives.
With respect to the evolution and management and implementation of ICTs in Antwerp
prior to the emergence of Telepolis, it is possible to identify four key moments.
♦ 1988 was marked by the creation of what was called Informatics Centre Antwerp
(ICA), which was done by merging the computing departments of the city and the
Public Centre for Social Welfare (PCSW). This can be considered the first attempt
at integration of the systems, applications and networks in the city. Before that,
the city departments were running almost independently with separate systems,
databases and networks, a state of affairs that was reported to be expensive to
maintain, slow and prone to many technical problems.
♦ In 1992, the telephony management was transferred to ICA. This was also when
the Metropolitan Area Network for Antwerp (MANAP) started to be physically
deployed underground in the city, a development that made the city administration
much more independent from private sector providers.
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♦ The following year, 1993, was marked by the creation of a second independent
agency called Informatics Centre Harbour (ICH). It was responsible for the ICTs
implementation specifically within the vicinities of the port of Antwerp, due to its
importance to the city and region’s economy.
♦ Finally, in 1996, Telepolis was set up in a different building from the former ICA
to become the network manager and informatics/telematics supplier for the city,
the PCSW and the port authority. (See Figure 7.3)
Figure 7.3 - Telepolis: telematics supplier (Telepolis, 1998).
From that moment on, Telepolis assumed the lead on the decisions made about initiatives
and projects integrating traditional urban and ICT strategies. This has always been bound
by the political constitution of the city council and districts, which means that the two
main powers in the council and the college of mayor and aldermen also share the
responsibility for shaping ICT initiatives. Officials and civil servants are also directly
involved as actors.
Things have generally been done fairly independently from the regional and national
government, in the sense that, due to the decentralised nature of the political system, the
two upper levels of government do not interfere with local decisions about ICTs
implementation. This, of course, generates other problems such as micro- and macro-
regional conflicts that occur when two or more initiatives by different governmental
agencies overlap. This issue will be addressed later as one of the exogenous or extra-local
influential elements.
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7.2.2.2 Virtual and immaterial representations of Antwerp as a virtual city
In cyberspace, two major elements stand out as representative of Antwerp in terms of

public sector initiatives: the Antwerp.be Digital Metropolis web-site and MANAP.
Antwerp.be Digital Metropolis (Figure 7.4) is the official representation of the city on the
Internet. Nowadays it provides information and little interaction. The reason for this
unbalanced provision of information and participation was, according to Van der
Cruyssen (2001), limited availability of up-to-date technologies for online integration
with back-office and authentication. Van der Cruyssen argues that inadequate use could
jeopardise the functionalities meant for the web-site and the services online:
‘Our web-site is a very good one, with lots of information, well

structured, but this is common now in other cities. The reason is
because when cities are offering interactive services, it is just one
service and there is a lack of functionality’. (Van der Cruyssen, 2001)
Figure 7.4 - The ‘standard’ Antwerp web-site. Source: Antwerpen.Be, 1994.
In fact, this is a deliberate ‘back off’ on the part of Telepolis with regard to an Internet
initiative, owing to lack of confidence in the current technologies. In the past however,
Antwerp’s attitude to its web-site was one of starting everything proactively to try and
make as much as possible available in terms of services and information, with the most
sophisticated technologies available at that time.
Antwerp was the first city in Belgium to appear officially online on the Internet. The
result is that Telepolis still has many projects involving the web-site such as integrating it
247
to a network of kiosks on the streets, or deploying more interactive services online

directly linked to department in the city, and so on.
However what is up and running so far is a very standard public web-site with basic
services and a wide range of information for citizens, tourists and visitors. The main
language of the web-site, which gives access to most services and information, is Flemish.
The English version is very limited and restricted. No services are available in English.
There is no version available in French or German (the other two main languages in
Belgium).
According to Aurigi and Graham’s (2000) model, Antwerp’s official web-site would be a
‘grounded virtual city’ standing somewhere between an information desk and an
electronic place, equating to a ‘civic database’ or a ‘cyber-square’, but still far from being
an ideal ‘holistic virtual city’.
MANAP has obviously been the most important initiative for the kicking off of the
overall strategy in Antwerp, not only in terms of infrastructure, but for constituting and
symbolising the electronic integration of departments and public services across the city.
Besides integration, the public Intranet of Antwerp also provided a relative independence
when the telephony management was incorporated by the city administration through its
fibre optics cables.
MANAP was one of the first and biggest public fibre optics networks in Europe. In fact,
in 1994 MANAP became the world’s first glass fibre connection using ATM technology
(Asynchronous Transfer Mode). In 1997 it was awarded the Global Bangemann
Challenge, a competitive global telematics award launched in Sweden.
This public Intranet interconnects all city departments, universities, hospitals, and
libraries for data, voice and image transmission. MANAP constitutes the basis for the
integration between the city departments, and is the symbolic and technical enabler of the
urban-technological strategy and Telepolis itself.
In terms of strategy, the Intranet is even more important than the city’s web-site: there are
plans to connect future street kiosks to this network which is getting larger every year (in
1998 it was already 70Km of fibre optics cables).
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The following services are examples of the types of facilities currently available in and
enabled by MANAP (internally for the city administration) and Antwerp’s web-site (open
for citizens).
♦ VILA or Virtual Learning Antwerp (Figure 7.5): a learning and training

programme especially designed for the civil servants. Currently, it runs only
through the Intranet, and includes training via videoconference, software for self-
study on IT skills, etc. The central idea of this project is its expansion in a near
future for teachers in the elementary school and for the general public.
♦ Digital patrimony: an electronic archive in which every relevant document about

arts and architecture in Antwerp is being prepared for access via a single global
database, using sophisticated search engines including image and photo
recognition by similarities.
♦ GIS integration for the use of all city departments, using the municipal network
(MANAP). Already being developed and implemented by Telepolis, in
collaboration with the planning department, this project aims to make GIS
applications and databases available for all other departments in the city.
Figure 7.5 - VILA, training for civil servants (Telepolis, 1998).
♦ Forum (Figure 7.6): it was to be an online public consultation system applied to

projects by the city council for the city such as bridges, tunnels, parks,
development plans, housing sites etc. The consultations were planned to be
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organised in the form of online polls where, introducing username and password,
citizens could vote on the project of their preference.
Although the project appears to be a symbol of great involvement of the planning

department in ICT issues, planners never played a major role in implementing
Forum. The project was totally envisaged and planned by an internal division of
Telepolis especially created to analyse future initiatives for the city. This division
was called High Committee for Long-term Strategy and was responsible for the
development of brochure and CD-ROM Antwerp, an Intelligent City?.
The role of the planning department was that of a user of the project. Yet more
interestingly, during the long interviews with planning officers, information about
Forum was never provided, even when directly required. The initiative seems to
have never been fully developed by Telepolis and used by the planning
department.
Figure 7.6 - Forum: public consultation on planning initiatives (Telepolis, 1998).
♦ The distributed call centre: run through MANAP, this service is a symbol of the
independence of the public administration from the private sector due to publicly
owned telephony management. Apart from the internal telephony system being
run through MANAP, the city has also a call centre which redistributes all
enquiries through to the exact specialist department across the city. A central
unique number (2211333) is used by everyone in Antwerp for enquiries to the city
administration.
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7.2.2.3 Physical and material manifestations of Antwerp as a virtual city
In terms of projects and initiatives promoted through the overall urban-technological

strategy in Antwerp, physical manifestations are the most important visual symbols of
Antwerp’s proactivity. This function of the physical elements in making visible the
commitment of local authorities to ICTs will be discussed later as a crucial factor in
determining the implementation of the strategy.
The first obvious major physical manifestation is the infrastructure, mainly represented,
as we have seen, by MANAP. The optic fibre cables that in 1998 were already reaching
70 kilometres, started to be laid in 1992. This process, usually said to be costly and
excessively disturbing in terms of urban design and transportation, took advantage of the
fact that Antwerp was chosen to be the European Capital of Culture for 1993. This
success necessarily generated some revision to the urban form and transportation systems,
and these allowed the cables to be laid at the same time. The process was temporarily
interrupted during 1993, so as not to disturb the events programmed for the capital of
culture project; it was resumed shortly after.
Antwerp thus had in place in 1994 a broadband and network infrastructure to connect all
departments and to run all services. This was needed to administrate the city with a
minimum of integration and independence from the private sector (especially after the
local decentralisation process with districts settled across the metropolitan area).
With this step, the city succeeded in generating good technical conditions for the creation
of an even more ambitious and visible project: the foundation of Telepolis and the
consolidation of the ICT strategy as part of the city’s agenda. MANAP proved to be one
of the material pillars of ICTs infrastructure in Antwerp.
As adaptive spaces – according to the model proposed in Chapter 3 – the local authorities
and Telepolis have also promoted a range of possibilities to access the virtual city through
schools, libraries, museums and other sorts of public buildings.
The municipal network of museums, schools and libraries is connected to MANAP and
can therefore provide quick and free access to the Internet, as well as opportunities of
learning and training facilities on IT skills.
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In libraries and schools, access is gained through the computers regularly used by these
institutions for other activities, while in museums access is gained through the so-called
‘information pillars’ – computer screens placed usually at the main lobby to provide
direct access to the Internet and local exhibitions.
The adaptation of these places to accommodate the new technologies is commonplace in

Antwerp. In one of the libraries visited as part of the course of this research project, the
Openbare Centrale Bibliotheek (the Central Public Library at Lange Nieuwstraat 105), the
public cyber-café was placed at the access hall for one of the floors, following a circular
layout, and provided with the support of a separate help desk.
Access to the Internet as well as to MANAP (by civil servants) is also gained through
what are called ‘Customer Services Centres’. This is another way of adapting existing
buildings with traditional existing functions to work as an extension of the public services
through telematics contact with citizens. They are usually situated at key strategic spots in
the city, mainly in the district houses.
These district houses are, in a way, the materialisation of the political decentralisation
process. They work as the headquarters for each one of the districts, also functioning as
an extension of the city council to distant communities.
The first transformative spaces emerged in the city in a small-scale as street kiosks. The
Multimedia kiosks (Figure 7.7) were a type of urban equipment used to provide on-street
access to the Internet and local Intranet. Common functionalities of these kiosks included
general and specific information about the city, events, places of public and tourist
interest, and direct communication to the city administration for consultations, help and
problems’ report.
The experimental kiosks have been withdrawn from the streets due to operational
problems with the private sector partner.5 However, Telepolis have plans to resume the
project even with more sophisticated technologies, this time involving other partners.
5
This topic will also be addressed later under the theme of the private sector involvement with the
provision of public services, which may figure as a dilemma or barrier for urban-technological strategies.
252
Figure 7.7 - The street kioks as transformative spaces (Telepolis, 1998).
The Telepolis building itself is another example of a transformative space, and is a very
strong symbol of the ICTs strategy in Antwerp. In 1996, the former ICA department
moved to a very new building put up at a well located business district in the city to house
Telepolis. The building reflects a very strong belief in the ICTs strategy on the part of the
local authorities. Due to the volatility of information and communication technologies
and their fast evolution, the risk of building something that the next administration could
destroy was too high.
The success of Telepolis, not only as an agency coordinator of the city’s ICT initiatives,
but also as a physical symbol of such a strategy proved itself through its projects. A
second building called the Antwerpen.be Centre has already been built, with plans to
build a third one which would be dedicated to the creation and incubation of new and
innovative businesses.
The first building acted as part of the infrastructure for Antwerp as a virtual city, due to
its administrative role as Telepolis’ headquarters. It also played an important part in
communicating what was being done and in promoting (admittedly limited) free access to
the Internet on its ground floor. This building acts then partly as infrastructure and partly
as a transformative space, a transformative access point.
A bigger step was taken with the creation of the Antwerpen.be Centre (Figure 7.8), as its
main function was to tackle ICTs illiteracy and provide public access to the local virtual
253
city. This building enables Telepolis to provide free access to the Internet through its
public cyber-cafés, to give free courses in IT-skills, and to provide enough space for
exhibitions and meetings. Officially opened in 2001, the centre has already enrolled over
10,000 citizens on its IT courses. Although both buildings do not stand out for their
external physical form in terms of accessibility (they look like conventional office blocks),
the courses and services are well advertised across the city. The interiors adopt an
architectural language of innovative design with computers and networks integrated to
traditional elements.
It is evident from the various projects and initiatives in infrastructure, virtual

representations, and adaptive and transformative spaces which together form the virtual
city of Antwerp, that authorities and some key actors have arranged a solid, integrative
strategy to support political and administrative changes in the city.
Figure 7.8 - Antwerpen.be Centre: making ICTs more accessible.
A main concern remaining for this study is to identify the different visions and
interpretations of the various actors, and trace the way Telepolis deals with them,
translating them into a single strategy. In other words, how does Telepolis incorporate
actors’ visions of ICTs and the virtual city into the multitude of projects described above?
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7.3 BARRIERS TO BUILDING AN URBAN-TECHNOLOGICAL STRATEGY
Throughout this chapter, we have been noting the ways in which, for reasons that are
largely historical and political-economic, Antwerp presents a privileged situation in terms
of urban-technological strategy.
It is also important, however, to explain and discuss some key factors that determine the
shape of such a strategy in terms of the actors’ interpretations and expectations. Cities
such as Antwerp represent the most proactive and prolific approaches to urban-telematics
developments in Europe. Antwerp has long been described as a leading European city in
the creation and management of ICT initiatives. Its success is widely documented and
publicised within European institutions, as in the final report about good practices on
telematics applications by the European Digital Cities Project (Cornford and Naylor, 1998:
vi-vii), which lists the critical success factors of the Antwerp case as:
♦ Clear vision (coalition building and the establishment of virtuous circles).
♦ Effective leadership (at the political and the administrative levels).
♦ Clear focus (in policy terms, and because of the role of Telepolis as an
institutional focus).
♦ Close integration of telematics into wider organisational strategies.
♦ Critical mass of users.
♦ ‘First mover’ and ‘test-bed’ advantages.
The results of this study confirm this view. The whole object of this project is
nevertheless to point out the voids of such urban-technological strategies, represented by
hidden dilemmas which sometimes create real barriers to understanding and
implementing the overall initiatives (or to obtain the expected success from them).
Additionally, we would like to identify dominant aspects of the visions of different

groups, and how they are taken into consideration (if at all) by Telepolis as a central
coordinator. Intra- and extra-local factors also need to be highlighted because of their
constant influence on the final shape of the local urban-technological approach.
As was the case with the Newcastle, case study given in Chapter 6, this chapter also uses
actors’ discourses and official documents to reveal how interpretative flexibility is
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dominated by a few common aspects, and how interpretations interact with each other to
become a strategy.
The final part of this section also explains some endogenous and exogenous influences
which affect and are affected by interpretative flexibility and the urban-technological
approach by Telepolis.
7.3.1 A multitude of visions: interpretative flexibility and ICTs in Antwerp
Once again, interpretations and the subsequent ways in which the local authorities and
policy-makers address issues related to ICTs play an important role in defining how these
new technologies are socially constructed in the city, and even regionally and nationally.
As with Newcastle, the local society in Antwerp has different perceptions of how the set
of technologies that form ICTs might be defined, let alone an urban-technological
strategy itself. The search for a common basis for interpretations is inherent to the
strategy. Once more, everything – the urban-technological strategy, Telepolis’ integrative
recombinant planning, and the construction of Antwerp as a virtual city – is part of the
complex local socio-technical development of ICTs. This implies the existence of groups,
actors, interests, coalitions, dominant visions, initiatives, and strategies which interact to
form local government’s current approach to ICTs, which is both integrative and centrally
coordinated.
Some of these elements have already been described in the early sections of this chapter.
But how are actors’ visions characterised within Telepolis, and within the local
government as a whole? What are their major characteristics? Have they been translated
into actions and initiatives? In this section we look for clues regarding these questions.
Following the same methods as in the case of Newcastle, interpretative flexibility is

central to understanding the arguments of local authorities, civil servants and other key
actors in Antwerp’s urban-technological strategy. Here too, interviewees’ discourses are
used to show different interpretations from the actors’ own points of view.
In Antwerp, as in Newcastle, the economic and entrepreneurial imperatives of

technological systems are significant. The difference between the two cases resides in the
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cities’ relative positions in the race for inward investment: Antwerp is naturally a better
competitor due to a long-established reputation as an innovative city.
Despite having a strategy with broad impacts upon different urban and governmental
sectors, actors in Antwerp still show signs of technological determinism and a lack of
comprehensive vision however. Although Cornford and Naylor (1998: 7) argue that
‘success [among the leading cities in Europe, like Antwerp] has been associated with
avoiding the view that telematics alone can provide a “technical fix”’, the majority of
interviews carried out in the course of this study between 2001 and 2003 reveal
something less definite. We expect the dominant aspects of actors’ visions to confirm this
general impression.
Before turning our attention to the discourses and the actors’ visions, though, it is worth
noting the role of Telepolis as a ‘material’ personification of the Antwerp’s urban-
technological strategy. In the end, it is up to Telepolis to aggregate and incorporate all the
actors’ visions and expectations into the final strategy.
Telepolis has been an important element for the local authorities’ attempt to overcome the
problem of invisibility of ICTs. Telepolis and the Antwerpen.be Centre are physical and
visible results of the impacts of ICTs upon public administration in the city, a fact that is
well-known and exploited by the promoters of the urban-technological strategy.
The invisibility of ICTs usually generates open complaints from politicians about the
difficulties of demonstrating benefits, financial gains, and achievements of Telepolis and
other local authority ICTs investments. Speaking about these difficulties, Bruno Peeters
argues that it is ‘still very difficult to objectively list what concretely means ICT
applications for the citizens’. Yet, speaking about the demanding efforts to transform ICT
investments into real material advantages that can be demonstrated to the council and the
population, Erwin Pairon, the current Alderman for Communication, Governmental
Organisation and Decentralisation, remarks that:
‘In the beginning there was some resistance to create Telepolis and to
go ahead with other ICT initiatives because of the huge investments this
requires. We needed to show that after a few years, the investment
would return. We are still discussing every year the budget for Telepolis
and people argue that it’s enormous. So, we need to explain a lot, again
and again about the importance of those investments in new
technologies. So, every year there is a big discussion and resistance
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about the budget dedicated to Telepolis and the development of new

technologies. Most aldermen are in favour of it. But sometimes it’s very
hard to pass it through the councillors’. (Pairon, 2002, Alderman for
Communication, Governmental Organisation and Decentralisation)
We can see clear evidence of the efforts to materialise and give shape to ICT initiatives in
the following statement by Telepolis, defending the development and importance of
MANAP for the city:
The ‘ring around Antwerp’ immediately calls up the image of the

highway embracing the city in a broad curve. The ‘new ring’, however,
is invisible: it is the city’s glass-fibre network, MANAP (Telepolis,
1998: 9)
Clearly, the visibility of ICTs and its realisation in Telepolis is also economically
reflected when the interviewees argue that the structure in place in Antwerp, centralised
upon Telepolis, makes it easier to demonstrate costs and financial achievements. As
Telepolis represents the whole urban-technological strategy and, consequently, receives
the entire budget destined for ICTs, its financial planning will also be the ICTs financial
planning for the city. This is said by the interviewees to be a huge advantage to the
promoters of the strategy as they seek to demonstrate its efficiency to ‘outsiders’. As for
this financial visibility of ICTs, Patrick Janssens suggests that:
‘Another good fact is that you can easily see what Telepolis costs or
what ICT costs. You can make clearer cost-benefit analyses. We’re
much more professional and transparent than any other organisation
within the city administration’. (Janssens, 2002, City Councillor and the
Chairman of Telepolis)
This quotation reveals clearly the immense importance of Telepolis as the strategy’s
representative, enabler and coordinator, controlled by local authorities and policy-makers
in the city council. Our main concern, though, is to look for clues to how this powerful
structure considers the multitude of visions within local government and translates them
into integrated initiatives on the ground.
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city
Interpretative flexibility is also very much in evidence within actors’ discourses in

Antwerp, exposing the fact that even a centrally coordinated case can present a wide
variety of interpretations among its groups and actors.
Antwerp is characterised by an apparent contradiction between a well defined urban-

technological strategy and a multitude of internal visions and interpretations. While
initiatives are developed single-handed and delivered by Telepolis, it is noticeable that
politicians, officers, civil servants and Telepolis employees have their own expectations
regarding the results of such initiatives.
There does seem to be some sort of cohesion amid the flexibility, and this seems to be
strong enough to resist the different sorts of barriers and dilemmas it comes up against.
As Peeters (2001) suggests, talking about disputes within the various levels of
administration (local, regional and national):
‘Perhaps we are now so strong that Antwerp’s system cannot be

replaced and they will have to take the same programme. Antwerp case
is so important (all the important things are here), so well worked out,
so efficient, so effective, that they cannot go around it anymore’.
Following the methods already described, some dominant aspects were recognised within
actors’ interpretations. Basically, the same aspects found in Newcastle repeat themselves,
with the addition of one I have identified as ‘tackling the digital divide’ aspect, which
replaces what in Newcastle was called the aspect of substitution (or physical replacement).
The four most evident aspects for Antwerp are thus:
a. The organisational aspect. The e-government agenda is prominent here, as is a

strong vision of the administration as a corporation, mainly because of the
constitution of Telepolis as a semi-independent agency. Client-oriented language
is common. Considering the political background of Antwerp’s strategy, the
organisational aspect has been reasonably strong. The downsizing of the city
administration and cuts on bureaucracy and paperwork have also been significant
in this regard.
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b. Tackling the digital divide. Here, as with the organisational aspect, ICTs are used
to modernise practices and methods primarily in education, with the discourse of
solving problems like ICTs illiteracy, and tackling the digital divide. This aspect
has been widely used in relation to the health and educational systems. It has not
appeared with the same intensity in Newcastle, although this aspect is always
present in politicians’ and civil servants’ discourses about the beneficiaries of ICT
developments.
c. The aspect of planning involvement. This is particularly noticed where the

planning department participates on the process of incorporation and
implementation of ICTs policy-making only marginally. Again, the vision from
planning officers has proved to be limited in terms of spatial impacts of ICTs upon
the urban environment.
d. The propaganda aspect. Perhaps not as widely used as in Newcastle, due to these
two cities’ different historical trajectories. The exploitation of ICTs as a myth of
clean, modern, high-level technologies is also identified in Antwerp. This appears
especially with the use of its very physical symbols of ICTs development:
Telepolis and the Antwerpen.be Centre. Again, the science park paradigm
influences the way people talk about ICT initiatives as an attractor of social,
cultural and economic developments and quality of life.
Actors very rarely showed a vision integrating all these aspects as part of an entire
strategy. Although in Antwerp the ICTs strategy is more visible than in cities like
Newcastle, and despite the high level of integration between initiatives coordinated by
Telepolis, interpretative flexibility is still very visible too. People inside the agency, as
well as people from the city’s departments and district houses, politicians and so on, tend
to have very divergent and contradictory opinions about what the ICTs strategy might be.
Convergence (through Telepolis’s central role as coordinator) and divergence (of actors’
perceptions) seem to coexist. Telepolis applies its own institutional vision to the entire
strategy and single initiatives, just as, at the same time, other visions are competing and
interplaying within the government, the council and the agency.
The way this coexistence goes on depends on the internal coalitions among city
departments, powers in the council, and officers in Telepolis. The agency maintains
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weekly meetings with each department in the city, and gives voice to its own employees
when developing new projects. The council keeps tracking Telepolis’s performance every
year, and through the six-year political agreement. The board of Telepolis is also made up
of city councillors. In this way the agency tries to incorporate as many different visions as
possible in the development of its projects. This also means that the balance within this
coexistence is determined by the political and social struggles of the dominant social
group to maintain its set of technologies (Bijker and Law, 1997).
Although sometimes one single interviewee reveals all the four aspects of perceptions,
these tend to represent isolated initiatives detailing some technical use of ICTs rather than
a strategy. The initiatives related to ICTs or even Telepolis itself were never brought
together to define a possible urban-technological strategy for Antwerp within one
interviewee’s discourse. Vague and broad notions of ICTs effects and functionality are
more common among interviewees:
‘Integrated infrastructure: one global and seamless city network with

standardised equipment’. (Van der Cruyssen, 2003, Public Relations
Officer and European Projects Coordinator for Telepolis)
‘Antwerp’s urban ICT strategy is a CRM strategy, the so called

‘customer relationship management’. Our customers are the citizens of
our city. A customer-friendly approach is our general point of view; we
prefer that it would be the starting point of each ICT-project’. (Verhaert,
2003, Secretary for Information and District Houses)
Defining the strategy was a question of describing isolated projects or possible aims of
the city administration or Telepolis, rather than talking about policy orientation or the
position of the city administration and Telepolis as regards the development of ICTs as
part of a traditional urban strategy:
‘The administration should give an optimal service to all citizens

through an advanced electronic system, where and when the applicant
needs it. On long term at one single point, total information from all
levels of government for any and every case’. (Peeters, 2003, former
Alderman for Communication, Governmental Organisation and
Decentralisation and Chairman of Telepolis)
‘Offering services to the employees of the Town and its Public Centre
of Social Health, consisting in hardware, software, programming and
maintenance, so that they can do their work as efficient as possible’.
(Verhoeven, 2003, Senior Planning Officer, Planning Department)
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‘This should be structured in such a way that they [government agencies

and the private sector] find clear answers to all basic
questions easily (‘3 clicks to service’, well, maybe 4) from multiple
sites of entry (lots of links, good navigation), and that the needs for
comprehensive information, databases, personal e-mail assistance and
other services (GIS, clickable maps) are also addressed – for those who
want it’. (De Gersem, 2003, Director of GOM, the Regional
Development Authority for the Province of Antwerp)
The technological-deterministic way of looking at these projects, initiatives and goals is

also very noticeable. Here too, ICTs are commonly seen by officials as a ‘clean and
aseptic’ tool to improve current practices and processes.
We now turn to the dominant aspects to show the common issues raised by different
interpretations. Most of these aspects are used by the interviewees to justify actions and
projects developed by Telepolis.
7.3.1.2 Deconstructing interpretative flexibility: identifying the dominant aspects within

actor’s discourses
As with the Newcastle case study discussed in Chapter 6, the following narratives
represent explanations for each one of the four dominant aspects of actors’ discourses.
They are all supported by exemplary statements from interviewees themselves.
It is worth pointing out immediately that among the description of the four dominant
aspects of the actors’ perceptions, two interviewees stand out among the others, namely
Bruno Peeters and Paul Van der Cruyssen. This does not mean, though, that we have had
more contact with them than the others, or that more time was spent with them in
interview.
Their increased representation in the quotations that follow is nevertheless far from
surprising. Bruno Peeters acted as the case study’s main gatekeeper, and is a remarkable
figure both in the history of Telepolis, and in Antwerp’s early involvement with ICT
initiatives. Although he was not the introducer and creator of this approach, he was one of
the leading enthusiasts as regards both the establishment of Telepolis and ICTs in general.
He was the city Alderman for Communication, Governmental Organisation and
Decentralisation during the critical early period of political decentralisation and the
foundation of Telepolis, and also the Chairman of Telepolis.
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Paul Van der Cruyssen is the public relations officer and European projects coordinator
for Telepolis, which means that he knows the agency and the overall ICTs approach very
well. Thus, among all the various actors, these two men have the most complete vision of
ICT initiatives, in terms of the four dominant aspects identified. This does not necessarily
mean that they clearly express an integrated notion as a cohesive urban-technological
strategy. The symbolism of ICTs is also just as present in their discourses as in those of
any other actor interviewed for this research.
a. The organisational aspect
A few common characteristics identify the organisational aspect in Antwerp, namely: the
performance of the public administration, the client-oriented vision for public services,
and the financial effect of ICTs as cost-saver tools.
First, there is a vision for public administration centred on the idea that an urban-
technological strategy is something that should be applied to improve intra-organisational
processes. The main feature of discourses based on this kind of perception is the constant
comparison of the government body with commercial companies in the private sector.
This vision is prevalent in Antwerp, for example in the way that departments are referred
to by the local authorities as ‘business units’:
‘It was ICT that permitted us to […] reduce the city administration from
over seventy departments down to only nine business units’. (Peeters,
2001)
Telepolis itself was established as an independent agency whose success, according to the
interviewees, depends on the fact that it works as a private company. Flexibility,
professionalism, and high wages are said to be the advantages of such structure. Van der
Cruyssen (2001) argues that:
‘The biggest advantage that we [Telepolis] have is the fact that we’re
much more competitive on the labour market […] We have much more
flexibility in the labour market which means that we can hire or fire the
right people, and this is very difficult within the city administration’.
Even in the private sector, companies seem to recognise this distinct structure of Telepolis,
insisting that it is easier to do business with the agency because it is an organisation
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practically detached from the city administration, even though they know it represents the
local government. Negotiations between Telepolis and the private sector are regarded as
‘a sort of company-to-company contact’ (Roes, 2002, Projects Coordinator for Belgacom).
Thus, it is not surprising that e-government is the major flagship of urban-technological

strategies in Antwerp, just as in Newcastle. Common arguments such as e-democracy,
participation, improvement of back-office processes, flexibility, integration, just to name
a few, are involved with the creation and maintenance of Telepolis as well as the
centralised structure that makes Antwerp’s urban-technological strategy.
Secondly, client-oriented vision prevails over public services visions. The general belief
about ICTs relates e-government and back-office reforms to a new governance approach
in which public services consider citizens as clients. Again, this represents another way of
comparing the public and private sectors in terms of efficiency, flexibility, and objectivity.
This is clear from the following statements, from the current and the former chairmen of
Telepolis respectively, about the importance of ICTs for Antwerp:
‘I think that, globally, the city administration in Antwerp is pretty

bureaucratic, old-fashioned, not very client-focused, and not very up-to-
date in general. […] We have here the usual use of ICT as a tool
(replacing typewriter machines by computers basically), but we have
also here the great opportunity of, while installing ICT, we create a
spark to re-engineer the whole organisation. […] As in many other
service organisations and in the private sector as well, the real
importance of ICT for the administration of Antwerp can be the
strategic tool that makes us think about the totality of our organisation’.
(Janssens, 2002)
‘For instance, up to now, following the design of public services, people

have to go to public departments and need to find out where they have
to go in order to have a certificate or a new passport, etc. It was so that
you have a structure with director, civil servants and so on, where the
citizen was the last on this chain. Now, we have changed our offices,
which are open for the public who are the most important player’.
(Peeters, 2001)
Thirdly, the cost-saver effect of ICTs is also commonly used to justify high initial
investments in technological initiatives. As most ICTs impacts are invisible, cutting costs,
reducing bureaucracy and reducing administration personnel are the most obvious
arguments. Peeters (2001) clearly states that every year Telepolis risks having its budget
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cut because local authorities ‘do not know what the value of Telepolis is’. Yet, according
to him, the money spent with Telepolis is:
‘An enormous added value […] This is, for me, the best money machine
to the whole city. […] And there are so many examples of that, when
you can save about 3 civil servants a year in each municipality just by
implementing a programme with a small investment’. (Peeters, 2001)
It seems natural, then, that a common interpretation for ICTs and urban-technological
strategy is that they are somehow a ‘magic’ solution for the financial problems of the city.
b. Tackling the digital divide
This aspect also plays a significant part within actors’ visions of ICTs, through the health
and educational systems. The health system, especially in Antwerp, is said to be a big
beneficiary of the evolution of ICTs.
Shortening the distance between doctors and patients as well as between clinics and
hospitals through the use of advanced information and communication systems is one of
the first things to be mentioned by the interviewees when asked about the importance of
ICTs for Antwerp:
‘Talking about direct delivery of services, the citizens can have it out
from the hospital system. Being sick does not mean anymore that you
have to be transported from one hospital to another’. (Peeters, 2001)
Van der Cruyssen (2001) also goes on to argue in favour of the dissemination of ICTs
throughout the health system as, according to him, these new technologies could be used,
for instance, in terms of:
‘Medical images for patients who have not to be transported to the

medical centre when the exams could be done in the local hospital with
the pictures being sent to the central specialist and the diagnosis being
sent back’.
It is possible to see a very close relation between this aspect and the one observed in
Newcastle and labelled the aspect of substitution. In both cases, there is a strong
incidence of physical dislocation being replaced by information flows.
‘This is a far bigger influence of ICT in spatial aspects as a kind of

travel substitution’. (Van der Cruyssen, 2001)
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In terms of education, the most common approach is to use technology as a way to ‘tackle
the digital divide’. In most cases, the educational role of ICTs was quoted when the
interviewees were asked about the physical effects of ICTs on cities. Schools and libraries
are allegedly the most common ways of ICTs literacy dissemination, and public access to
new technologies. Antwerp is no different in this aspect.
Furthermore, Telepolis provides free courses in basic information and communication

skills at the Antwerpen.be Centre. Public cyber-cafés are also in place at the centre. It is
therefore not surprising that part of the actors’ arguments in favour of ICTs rely on the
dissemination of such centres and other public cyber-cafés across the libraries and schools
network. As mentioned above (section 7.2.2.3) these free courses are very popular, and
have succeed to enrol over 10,000 citizens in the first two year of existence.
Talking about physical access to technologies, Herman Callens of the Flemish

Association of Cities and Municipalities argues that it is important to provide access
through libraries, schools and other public buildings, but that ‘it’s not enough. I think that
it’s important to have buildings like this one where we are now [Antwerpen.be Centre]’.
Speaking about the importance on using education combined with ICTs, and their
relationship to the problems of social exclusion (the digital divide), Van der Cruyssen
(2001), maintains that:
‘School is another thing, because there is an educational factor. […] The

role of the city is, especially in the beginning of these new technologies,
to look for early adopters and then to look for those people who are left
behind’.
The discussions of education are perhaps the closest that the actors’ arguments get to
identifying a social meaning or impact of ICTs. In this sense, together with e-government,
the educational role of ICTs is also well advertised.
c. The aspect of planning involvement
As regards the planning aspect, in common with Newcastle and indeed most cities,
Antwerp is marked by a marginal involvement of planners, policy-makers and the
planning department with the development of ICT initiatives. Neither the planning
department nor Telepolis seems interested in forging a closer relationship. The following
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statement by two Senior Planning Officers, Verhoeven and Leemans (2002), describes
well the relationship between Telepolis and the planning department:
‘The relation with the planning department is that if they [Telepolis]

want to dig up some roads for cables for example, they need to ask
permission to the planning department, like any other company. If the
planning department wants for example, a new programme to monitor
building permits, they ask Telepolis’.
Peeters (2001) goes even further, declaring that ‘the relationship between Telepolis and
the planning department isn’t closer than any other department in the city. For instance,
the finance department is even closer to Telepolis’.
Another indicator of this distant involvement is that, during the interviews, people from
the planning department revealed that they knew nearly nothing about physical initiatives
related to ICTs apart from the most obvious projects like the Antwerpen.be centre. They
even mentioned that some on-street kiosks were to be implemented when, in fact,
according to people from Telepolis, there was no current plan for implementations of this
kind.
The interviews with people from the planning department in Antwerp were by far the
longest of the whole research, taking a meeting of three hours plus. A fair amount of this
time was used for a demonstration of the GIS (Geographic Information System)
applications developed by Telepolis, which were about to kick-off in the planning
department (connected to other departments). This same application was officially
launched in an event the same week, where people from other departments, other cities
and from upper government agencies were shown the possibilities of the system.
According to the planners, GIS is the best thing ICTs can do for the planning department
and vice-versa. No further involvement is needed, according to them. One could assume
that this means that planners should not trouble to assess and reflect upon what new
spatial patterns or behaviours might represent for the city as a whole. Or perhaps that city
plans do not need to reflect this preoccupation and address these spatial changes in any
deeper way than representing the territory through a complex chain of databases and
computer-aided systems.
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So, what does that mean? Once again, this distant involvement of planning and ICTs
development may be an indicator of two situations, already described in the last chapter
about Newcastle: planning not being regarded as an important issue by local authorities
and Telepolis; and/or planners and the planning department not being interested in
understanding the physical effects of ICTs on the city. As argued in the last chapter, there
may be a causal relation between the two situations, where the latter may give a negative
impression of ICT-related planning to local authorities.
d. The propaganda aspect
This last aspect is a popular use of the symbolism of ICTs by most actors. It is evident
that the supposed economic power of ICTs, and the competitive advantage that they
represent, are used by local authorities and Telepolis to promote the city.
As mentioned before, we know that with the current circumstances within the European
Union, the competition for inward investment is creating a highly competitive
environment for cities of this size. The following statement illustrates the way ICTs,
propaganda, city image, and city economy are related to each other in Antwerp:
‘Every year when we have the discussions about the budget, people
raise the question of cutting the ICT budget and I always say that there
are 2 things we shouldn’t cut too fast: ICT and Public Relations’.
(Heylen, 2002)
As this competition is strongly characterised by investments in so-called ‘clean industry’

and ‘high-quality services’ (call centres, business centres, research centres, and so on),
ICTs play a central role. Antwerp’s actors know this and mention this relative competitive
advantage all the time. This entrepreneurial imperative will also be further explained
independently as part of the exogenous influences.
There is thus an argument common to the propaganda aspect of perceptions that is to try
and sell the city in order to attract inward investment from the so-called third-sector.
By improving the use of information dissemination systems like the Internet (public web-
sites for economic development), De Gersem (2002) believes that there is a better chance
‘to be in the short-list of a company that wants to invest abroad’.
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Easy access to high-quality services such as broadband cable infrastructure, satellite links,
a reasonable transportation network, and so on, are said to be advantages for today’s
competitive urban economies. The science park paradigm is also the dream of any local
authority, where universities, research centres, high-quality service provision and quality
of life could attract not only new investments, but also critical mass to retro-fit this type
of environment.
ICTs are a basic step in the direction of this sort of urban paradigm, and are marketed as
such. Because of its very different historical conditions, we saw that Newcastle tends to
be more prolific than Antwerp in the use of this type of boosterism, but the difference is
really one of degree.
7.3.2 Endogenous influences
Recalling what was found in Newcastle, with reference to intra-local factors, Antwerp has
presented symptoms of all three major elements, namely: internal administrative and
political disputes within local government; integration, coordination and control over the
implementation of projects and initiatives related to ICT; and private sector influence on
the public administration. Obviously, these elements were found to occur in different
proportions, and to react differently in terms of the overall picture of ICT initiatives, their
management and interpretation across local government.
Next, we present a brief discussion of these three endogenous influences on the urban-
technological strategy in Antwerp.
It is important to remember that these elements are not seen by this study as negative or
positive. They are being considered because of their conspicuous influence on the final
shape of the approach of local authorities to ICTs. Any association with positive or
negative impacts must depend on the type of influence they exercise. Each element is
therefore described according to its effect on the particular integrative and centrally-
coordinated approach taken in Antwerp.
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7.3.2.1 Internal administrative and political disputes within local government
In terms of internal organisation, civil servants and some politicians tend in certain cases
to be reluctant to implement some initiatives related to ICTs, due to the comprehensive
reformulations imposed by the adoption of new technologies, methods and praxis.
Politicians, civil servants and Telepolis employees reported this as a serious barrier to the
progression and success of the local strategy. Everything that may spark some sort of
resistance from within the city administration is seen by Telepolis as a potential threat to
the whole strategy. This is seen as problematic because the strategy is extremely
dependant on integration and synergy among the different units of the organisation. A
major conflict could destabilise the way Telepolis deals with divergent visions across city
departments and within its own organisational structure.
As a result of rapid, wholesale change along with the introduction of a new political
system and new technologies in the past twenty years, technical operational problems
have sometimes been an obstacle in the way of Telepolis. Civil servants who cannot
operate their new systems efficiently because of unfamiliarity or a technical problem may
represent a small area of resistance, but multiplication of this phenomenon across the
organisation may mean big problems for the strategy at the macro-level.
In terms of technical limitations, Telepolis has deployed a support system with

specialised and highly qualified personnel as one of its actions to try and diminish any
potential negative impact of ICTs on daily activities within the administrative structure.
This system is divided into two categories: the ‘blue tornadoes’ and the ‘red tornadoes’.
The former look after small, quick-to-fix problems related to all different activities
involving the use of ICTs. The latter are responsible for more serious and complicated
tasks. According to the interviewees from Telepolis, this system has been reducing civil
servants’ resistance to the introduction of new technologies, and even encouraging them
to work more closely with Telepolis.
There remains another difficult side of this endogenous influential element, which relates
to the privileged position in the city management structure enjoyed by Telepolis. Being a
semi-independent public agency, Telepolis even pays its employees at different rates than
the rest of the administration. Other departments and politicians excluded from Telepolis
tend to be quite resistant to accepting Telepolis, its actions and its budgets. The following
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statements from interviewees stress this resistance from the point of view of an
administrative hesitation from the city council and the city departments:
‘There’s a pretty strong resistance to change the administrative

organisation, in general. Secondly, even more resistance to change ways
of work (especially from the older part of the personnel), due to a
certain old ‘clientelism’ culture. […] The public administration is a very
conservative organisation […] I think that, in general, the vision that
they have about Telepolis is that we are a very expensive organisation
with fancy people who have advantages that other people in the city
administration don’t have. They probably think we’re a waste of
money’. (Janssens, 2002)
‘I think if you divide the government (at least at the regional level) into
administration and politicians, the resistance to accept ICT is more from
the administration, as they have become used to traditional methods and
processes that ICT is now challenging to change’. (De Graeve, 2002,
Manager for e-government, Flemish Community)
‘Yes, it’s absolutely true that politicians offer resistance on looking at

ICT in depth. They are reluctant to invest on better ways to run ICT-
based initiatives’. (Callens, 2002, Flemish Association of Cities and
Municipalities)
The majority of the interviewees also agreed that this sort of conflict and resistance tends
to be bigger at the beginning of implementation of a new strategy, or when a particular
controversial project is being initiated.
All agreed that, after all these years, and despite divergent opinions of what ICTs
represent to the city, there is in general a positive acceptance regarding Telepolis’s
authority over ICT matter and, increasingly, respect for its actions. Interviewees also
explain that recently, in spite of the city’s financial problems, it has been easier to sustain
Telepolis’s budgets or, at least, to refrain from huge cuts in ICTs.
Telepolis may have been introduced as a by-product of political decentralisation with the
intention of maintaining a balance of power between parties of the left and right, but there
is no doubting its status as crucial engine for the administration of the city these days.
During the interviews, politicians never questioned the current importance of Telepolis
for ICTs development in Antwerp.
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and initiatives
This chapter has shown that integration, through the central coordination of Telepolis, is
one of the most visible characteristics of the urban-technological strategy in Antwerp.
Central coordination seems crucial to the attempts of local authorities to converge

different visions into one strategy. This was made clear at the beginning, when we
highlighted the local historical conditions.
In order to implement the administrative and political changes in the 1980s and 1990s and
slow down the expansion of the far right wing party, the democratic coalition in power
had to have a well controlled ICTs strategy - ICTs were, after all, considered the motor
for political and administrative decentralisation in Antwerp.
In other words, integration and coordination were the way found by local authorities to
increase investments in ICTs, as a means of implementing the decentralising process.
For this very reason, local government in Antwerp had long ago started its struggle to
integrate all ICT initiatives, a fact which puts their efforts at integration way ahead of the
attempts made in Newcastle.
Telepolis is, by political and legislative decree, a public body in charge of every action
and decision related to ICTs. As regards ICT initiatives, there is no authority higher than
Telepolis in Antwerp.
This is due to this central role played by Telepolis in directing every single initiative
regarding ICTs, a feature that ensure that, overall, there is much more control over what is
going on in the city. Every ICTs project, without exception, is proposed and run by
Telepolis, which creates no dispersion, and ensures a good level of awareness about the
whole of the initiatives.
Finally, this characteristic of having integrated projects and having Telepolis as a central
agency seems to directly affect the third endogenous element in the way it is dealt with.
This also means that integration and coordination do not represent a negative impact for
urban-technological strategy in Antwerp. On the contrary, the central coordination of
Telepolis enables the integrative strategy.
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7.3.2.3 Private sector influence on public administration
Perhaps as a consequence of being strongly tied to integration and coordination standards,

besides being the core of the urban-technological strategy in Antwerp, Telepolis
represents means of maintaining a high level of public interest within the arena of public-
private partnerships and private involvement with public services. In connection with this,
it is interesting to remark the position of Telepolis in between the public and private
sectors (though it is controlled by public interests).
In general, the interviewees from the public sector (politicians and civil servants) as well
as from Telepolis itself tend to argue that the agency was created to be a public body
competitive enough to deal with the private sector. That is why Telepolis is said to be
relatively independent from the city administration.
Telepolis is an agency rather than a city department, and serves all the public departments
in the city together with the district houses. As a body it is almost external to the city. In
addition, Telepolis employees are not Antwerp civil servants, as are the employees from
the city departments. They are even paid differently due to the high standard wages of the
competitive IT labour market (normally formed by highly-qualified personnel).
This unusual situation of Telepolis as an intermediary or mediator between public and

private interests is described by Bruno Peeters as ‘a bridge between the private sector (not
being part of the private sector) and the public sector (not being entirely part of the public
sector)’. Following this structure, besides overseeing all the ICT initiatives, Telepolis is
the major ICTs-enabler and the direct contact in the city for the private sector.
Partnerships, contracts and agreements are all made with Telepolis rather than the city
administration. Regarding this facilitated access, Danny Roes agues that:
‘For me, to have a company like Telepolis working for a city is an

important thing, as it was very clear since the beginning the person who
was my contact to discuss the projects. I didn’t have to look for
someone inside the city administration. […] It’s important to have this
kind of independence from political limitations. It’s much easier to deal
with Antwerp than any other city in Belgium’. (Roes, 2002)
To a certain extent, this initiative of creating a semi-independent agency is being

emulated in other cities in Europe. Commenting on cases similar to that of Telepolis,
Cornford and Naylor (1998: v) suggest that:
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‘These new institutions are often semi-autonomous from the municipal

administration, enabling them to bring in new skills and attitudes, to
break with the bureaucratic traditions of public administrations and thus
to form effective partnerships with the private sector’.
The information kiosks initiative in Antwerp are a good example of the relationship
between the public and the private sector, where the private partner tries to pass the risks
of a business involving a new technology on to the public partner (just as we saw in
Newcastle).
The info kiosks were implemented across the streets of busy or touristically interesting
spots of the city. Not more than ten were put in place as part of a pilot project run by
Telepolis and its private sector partner, Belgacom. These were mounted on a sort of
expanded telephone booth with the telephone itself on one side, and the touch-screen on
the other. The application included basic touristic information about the city and local
events, a free limited-length email, and a connection to the city central line for reporting
problems and complaints.
The agreement between the partners envisaged that Telepolis should be responsible for
software and the updating of the applications, while Belgacom should physically maintain
the kiosk, the hardware and the ADSL connection (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line,
which offers faster and more reliable connections through traditional copper networks).
The design of the Kiosk was imposed by Belgacom, and Telepolis had no option but to
accept it, to continue with the project. There was no prediction as to the financial return
for partners at the beginning.
After a while, many of these kiosks started to present normal problems like dirty screens,
defective hardware, lack of paper for the printers, and so on. Telepolis has started to look
after these problems also, because it was its reputation that was at stake. After realising
that Belgacom would not bother to keep its part of the agreement, and that the company
had lost interest due to delayed profit, Telepolis has cancelled the agreement and started
to withdraw the kiosks.
The private sector partner responsible for the installation and maintenance of the kiosks
has admitted using this partnership with Telepolis to trial the ADSL technology, and to
pass most of the risks on to Telepolis. Danny Roes admitted that ‘it was a good
opportunity to use the city as a laboratory for a new technology’. Asked to speak more
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about the non-success of this project, and whose fault it was, Roes adds the following to
his previous comments:
‘The money was running out and we had to invest again. Regarding our
expectations, it started as a kind of goodwill action from Belgacom to
Telepolis, to participate and improve new technologies (ADSL), but I
don’t know if Belgacom was expecting some sort of revenue afterwards;
that wasn’t my job to look into that. I suppose they were expecting
some revenue back […] It’s too sensitive. I can’t talk about that. I’ll
keep it ‘in house’. We didn’t get what we were expecting but whose
fault it was, I’ll keep it inside’. (Roes, 2002)
Indeed, after the project was considered a failure – allegedly because of a lack of
maintenance – Telepolis was blamed as responsible in the eyes of the general public and
politicians, as Bruno Peeters points out:
‘Who was then the responsible for the failure when the updating was
not correct? Telepolis’.
The interviewees from Telepolis have argued that having one central agency coordinating
all the initiatives facilitates control over potential unwanted partnerships and giving them
more autonomy for negotiations like the one with Belgacom. They argue that the city can
learn from experiences like this one much more easily if an agency is behind everything.
‘We learned a lot from the ‘Belgacom experience’, especially from the
point of view of maintenance. Belgacom wasn’t fulfilling its obligations
by contract, but the fault in case of a broken kiosk was always
Telepolis’. (Scheyltjens and Beukeleirs, 2002, Project Leaders in
Telepolis)
Once again, it is important to remark that integration and coordination does not
necessarily mean a better management of public-private partnerships, but better
possibilities to envisage and build mechanisms to allow the safeguard of public interests.
Obviously, the greater the involvement of other departments and administrative divisions
with the central agency, the better the chance for a broader and more comprehensive
strategy. In SCOT terms, we believe this is directly related to the number of voices and
visions incorporated by a central strategy.
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7.3.3 Exogenous influences
As a Flemish and Belgian city, and part of the European Union – thus, within a particular
set of political, economic, social and cultural conditions – Antwerp is exposed to very
specific circumstances in terms of actions and decisions which are far from the influence
of the local authorities. So, according to the three extra-local influences that can interfere
with the implementation of the urban-technological strategy in Antwerp, the current
conditions are as follows:6
7.3.3.1 Political and administrative conflicts with upper level governmental stances
This is reportedly a common factor involving multi-level negotiations in the government.

The established political system dictates the general framework for this relationship. Once
again, a cross-national study like this one puts together different contexts in which local
strategies are set. These, as we have seen, are dependent on the particular processes and
contexts in which they originated.
Multi-level conflict in policy-making is particularly strong in Antwerp. The complicated

Belgian political system certainly contributes to these tensions between local, regional
and national authorities.
With the initiation of the process of political devolution, the diversity within such a small
country became conspicuous. Belgium is a Federal State made of three institutional
regions, namely the Flanders, Walloon, and the Brussels Capital Regions. Each region has
a degree of autonomy in matters of spatial planning, transport and environmental policy,
and some aspects of economic and agricultural policy.
In terms of ICT-related initiatives, for instance, Antwerp and Telepolis receive regional
support from the IWT-Flanders, or Institute for the Promotion of Innovation by Science
and Technology in Flanders. At the level of the federal government, the city and Telepolis
are supported by the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (previously known as the
Federal Office for Scientific, Technical and Cultural Affairs – OSTC).
As a result of this complicated political structure, according to Albrechts (2001b: 167),
6
Again, the elements were taken into account, primarily for their influence, rather than for any benefit or
disadvantage.
276
The politics of the three political regions have diverged in these matters
and provided an opportunity for building a regional identity.
On the top of this federal/regional/municipal structure, language differences also feature

as a strong identity factor. The consequence is a very complicated system in which local
authorities need to consider the federal government, the community level, the regional
authorities, and language differences in their processes of policy making (Figure 7.9). In
the planning arena, the result is a complex hierarchical structure of national plan, regional
plan, sub-regional plan, and local plans.
Figure 7.9 - Institutional structure of federal Belgium. Source: Albrecht, 2001b.
Interviewees reported that Antwerp’s innovative ICT initiatives were sometimes impeded
by this complex structure, particularly when similar projects were planned by different
governmental stances. At the local level, as we saw, everything is coordinated by
Telepolis. However, initiatives and projects run by this local agency have no influence at
the upper levels, despite their relative success and competence. Bruno Peeters claims that
Telepolis has sometimes had to back out of promising or apparently superior projects due
to clashes with upper level initiatives.
Callens (2002) quotes ID cards as an example of these conflicts. The federal government
has plans to implement an identity card across the entire country. In Antwerp, Telepolis
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has a similar project being implemented, and tried to persuade the federal and regional
authorities to launch it as a national pilot for the card.
Antwerp’s local authorities argue that all levels could benefit from an integrated initiative,
while still taking advantage of Telepolis ability to deal with ICTs. Antwerp was rejected
as a pilot. Callens (2002) gives the following explanation for this refusal:
‘They wanted to pilot that in smaller cities rather than in Antwerp. One
of the reasons is that the IT department in Antwerp is in fact bigger than
the IT department in the regional level, and they were scared of being
overruled by the knowledge acquired by Antwerp’.
Many interviewees, especially the ones from Telepolis, maintained that the agency feels
restricted when trying to develop some sorts of projects, especially those involving other
cities, the region or even the federal government. In this sense, conflicts generated by the
complexity of the Belgian political and institutional structure can be obstructive of local
proactivity.
7.3.3.2 The increase of regional competitiveness within the European Union
Again as in Newcastle, Antwerp is always on the look-out for inward investment,

especially from European Union funding schemes. Antwerp is well known player in
arenas and forums for discussion such as TeleCities, POLIS and Car Free Cities, and is, in
fact, one of the founding members of TeleCities.
The city became a symbol of innovation in Europe largely because of these consortia
where other cities from all over Europe come together, supposedly to exchange
experiences. As discussed before, this fierce competition between European cities
contributes to the shallowness of discussions and exchange of experiences at the regional
level, resulting in the members of these consortia focusing mainly on the dissemination of
success factors, avoiding the disclosure of problems and barriers. Bruno Peeters, one of
the main promoters of Antwerp’s participation in TeleCities, has admitted that ICTs are
widely used for boosterism in the competition to attract external revenue.
Although this situation seems to be less influential in Antwerp, strategies blindly centred
or focused on competitiveness and economic parameters of performance have been a risk.
They tend to disregard the whole range of other aspects that affect the socio-technical
development of cities and ICTs. Antwerp is well ahead of many other cities, like
278
Newcastle, for example. The local actors nevertheless know very well that they need to
keep the pace to avoid losing ground in a competitive Europe:
‘For the future, we have a great chance to be able to continue

developing this job because the fundamental things have already been
done in the past. We have just to continue it’. (Peeters, 2001)
7.3.3.3 The entrepreneurial imperative (the city as an enterprise)
Once again as a consequence of the influence of these macro-level external factors,

Antwerp is also very active in presenting itself through the analogy of the city as an
enterprise, drawing on comparison with private sector performance, a policy profoundly
driven by economic performance.
Interviewees’ discourses from this case study exhibit a constant preoccupation with
defending ICTs initiatives from the economic and financial point of view.
The attempts to make the city behave as an enterprise are enormous, and cross all
segments of the administration. In the end, they have to ‘sell’ the city, as they say.
Apart from its involvement with the political system, and the attempts to decentralise the
local administration, Telepolis is also part of an effort to turn ICTs into a competitive
advantage for the city. Their aim is to implement ICT initiatives as a set of very efficient
cost-saver tools for the city, and to set up the physical conditions to form business parks.
The city has become a company from which the government wants to have a performance
comparable to the private sector. The science park or ‘technopolis’ paradigm is again
represented by Silicon Valley, when the local authorities and Telepolis join forces in
providing minimal conditions to attract clean high-tech industries (despite Antwerp’s
reputation for port activities and the chemical industry). In this way, Heylen (2002)
argues that:
‘ICT is central for the city administration in Antwerp. That’s why we

have these buildings (Telepolis and the Antwerpen.be Centre) built
straightaway, because there we are now helping people, new
entrepreneurs, and others who can come together there. We have even
plans to build a third building which would be completely for
businesses that could rent small offices there but that could also use the
information and the technology we are developing, like a small Silicon
Valley’.
279
Local authorities like the ones in Antwerp know the importance of the fact of having ICT
initiatives and projects for boosting local economies. In this case, the myth behind ICTs
and their adoption is exploited when MANAP or Telepolis, symbols of Antwerp’s
proactivity, are widely advertised as local advantages. The entrepreneurial city is an
imperative here. Cities like Antwerp are trying and take advantage of well-established
infrastructures and communication links to diversify their industrial park.
Antwerp seems to be less affected by the downside of this phenomenon than Newcastle.
Again, this may well be due to its already good position relative to other European cities.
Although the entrepreneurial imperative is explicitly present in the way Telepolis is
structured and the city administration works, this agency and its central role in
coordinating the urban-technological strategy still represent a huge advantage in the
preservation of public interests in an increasingly economic-centred and competitive
scenario for cities.
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7.4 CONCLUSIONS
This completes the description and analysis of the case study of Antwerp and its very
particular approach to the integration between ICTs and a broader urban agenda.
The historical and technical conditions, together with the three circumstances that
represent possible dilemmas and barriers, form the basis for the particular social and
political relations that give the current shape of urban-technological strategies in Antwerp.
As with Newcastle, we have seen that there is a certain relation of cause-effect between
these elements.
Based mainly on political motivations – such as the reformulation of structures of

management and political power nationwide and in the city –, local authorities and civil
servants in Antwerp have managed to enforce the use and implementation of a series of
ICT initiatives.
These include the overall integration of the ICT-dedicated department into a major and
powerful semi-autonomous public agency called Telepolis to be the responsible for the
city’s vision on the future relationship between traditional urban issues and the new
telematics technologies.
We have seen that the creation of Telepolis was the most significant step forward towards
an integrative and centrally coordinated strategy, allowing the central power in the city,
based in the city council, to spread its services and administrative decisions through the
nine districts that form the city of Antwerp. According to some key actors, in fact, these
changes, and the management of this decentralised local government, would not have
been possible without Telepolis and the aggressive and risky early use of ICTs for public
administration.
Telepolis represents the key to understanding the way a wide number of visions from
different actors can be incorporated and converged into a single city-wide strategy.
Unlike the Newcastle case, coordination ties these divergent interpretations together
instead of letting them evolve into separate and fragmented initiatives.
As it was presented to us, Telepolis gives voice to many sectors of the local government,
including city departments, the city council and its own employees, to form its political
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and technical agenda. Constant meetings with officers of city departments and the
political agreement with the city council seem to be the major factors enabling Telepolis
to translate interpretative flexibility into actions on the ground.
Regardless of the details and particularities of the whole range of projects run nowadays
by Telepolis, the most important fact about its strategy is based on a tripod of
coordination, centralisation and integration. Being centrally coordinated, every project is
internally articulated within Telepolis and is developed with total knowledge of the
organisation. This fact hugely facilitates the tasks of making sure that duplication is kept
to a minimum, projects can eventually complement each other, and can be integrated with
other issues more traditionally dealt with by the city administration (such as urban
planning issues).
Even more important though, is the fact that, despite being way ahead other cities like
Newcastle, the approach in Antwerp does not escape the common characteristics that
affect other cases. Similar dilemmas have been found, especially those regarding the wide
variety of visions and interpretative flexibility regarding ICTs and their possible impacts
on cities. The dominant aspects all show an interesting similarity to the ones found in the
case of Newcastle.
The major difference then is the way these aspects and the visions that give rise to them
are articulated and incorporated by groups inside local government for transformation
into actions.
To complement this and the previous case study, in the next chapter, we focus on their
similarities and contrasts in terms of structure, approach, and the way interpretative
flexibility influences their final shape through a comparative analysis.
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CHAPTER 8 - PREPARING THE FIELD FOR RECOMBINANT PLANNING:
NEWCASTLE AND ANTWERP, A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
8.1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................284

8.2 TOWARDS AN EXPLANATION-BUILDING PERSPECTIVE..........................................................287
8.2.1 The importance of interpretative flexibility.................................................................................287
8.2.2 Intra and extra-local elements as additional dilemmas................................................................289
8.2.3 The virtual city as a ‘parallel’ city ...............................................................................................295
8.2.4 Recombinant ideas breaking down paradigm barriers ................................................................297
8.2.5 Public places and the interaction between virtual and physical spaces.......................................298
8.2.6 The possibility of improving public participation .......................................................................301
8.2.7 Urban-technological strategies as a secondary element ..............................................................303
8.3 SIDE BY SIDE: COMPARING INITIATIVES, STRUCTURE AND CONDITIONS IN
NEWCASTLE AND ANTWERP ...........................................................................................................304
8.3.1 Initial circumstances.....................................................................................................................304
8.3.2 Contrasting structures...................................................................................................................305
8.3.3 Developing similar projects .........................................................................................................306
8.3.4 The power of a particular context ................................................................................................308
8.3.5 Similar initiatives, different approaches ......................................................................................309
DEVELOPMENT ....................................................................................................................................311
8.4.1 Analysing similarities...................................................................................................................311
8.4.1.1 Relating planning to urban-technological issues ............................................................312
8.4.2 Interpretative flexibility and urban-technological strategies.......................................................314
8.5 CONCLUSIONS ......................................................................................................................................317
Rodrigo J. Firmino Chapter 8 - Newcastle and Antwerp: a comparative analysis
8.1 INTRODUCTION
Having described the two case studies and analysed the phenomenon of interpretative
flexibility in the development of ICTs and local government in Newcastle and Antwerp,
we are now in a position to critically compare these two cases.
Drawing on theoretical and empirical principles outlined above, this comparison is

divided in three steps. First, the two case studies are analysed according to the group of
seven hypotheses developed in Chapter 4 above. The empirical work and the discussions
which stemmed from it are compared with each research proposition in order to try and
provide elements for possible answers to the research questions. This part also focuses on
the dilemmas and perceptions encountered during the interviews.
This first step tends to be broader than the following ones, in order to pinpoint major
aspects to be further discussed into more detailed analyses.
The second type of analysis puts the two cities’ approaches to ICTs side by side in order
to provide a summary and comparison of the main characteristics of the two cases. Both
cases are described exclusively in the light of the socio-political structure in which ICT
initiatives are conceived and implemented.
Finally, in the third step, we try and develop an analysis prioritising a comparison
between the cases according to interpretative flexibility and the type of urban-
technological strategy adopted. In each case, we try to provide clues for questions such as:
how is interpretative flexibility influencing the shape of local authorities’ approaches to
ICTs? Are the high levels of interpretative flexibility associated with ICT initiatives
tending to lead to limited projects in terms of long-term and successful recombinant
approaches? How do key dilemmas relate to each other to produce such effects?
The two case studies provide a glaring contrast in terms of the management and
development of ICT implementations by local authorities. There were also similarities
however. What is interesting to note is that, although the individual projects and
initiatives present very similar characteristics regarding technical issues and even results,
the way they are managed according to their relative importance and proximity to the
urban issues in the city seem to be very distinct. In general, we will be focusing here on
two levels of similarities and two other levels of contrasts.
284
With respect to similarities, the outsider is not aware of great differences between the two
cases from the point of view of initiatives. Both sets of actors also tended to produce
similar discourses, with each marked by a trace of technological determinism.
Conversely however, while discourses point to very similar types of vision, on the ground
actions and policies have developed very differently.
In the one case, fragmentation and dispersion are the imperatives for the structure in
which ICTs are developed by local authorities. In the other, integration and centralisation
have given rise to a visible strategy aimed at producing cohesion between ICTs and
traditional urban policy-making. A second dissimilarity, which perhaps reflects each
case’s approach, refers to also different historical conditions and particular circumstances
under which they evolved.
In order to compare these similarities and contrasts, this chapter therefore presents a
three-fold analysis for the cases’ perceptions and adoption of urban-technological
strategies. The first stage is to verify the compatibility of previously predicted or expected
patterns with the ones found in the field to build the basis of what Yin (1994) calls
explanation-building strategy of analysis.
We then move on to the specificities of the cases in terms of their own projects and
initiatives, historical and particular geographical conditions, which will provide the
conditions for the last step of comparison, where interpretative flexibility is discussed in
terms of its influence on the overall result in terms of policies, approaches and strategies.
After all, interpretative flexibility is always at the core of the analyses and descriptions
along this chapter.
The following sections are thus driven by comparative descriptions and analyses in the
light of the main characteristics of the case studies of Newcastle and Antwerp. Table 8.1
shows a summarised description of these main characteristics.
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Table 8.1 - Newcastle and Antwerp: general comparisons.

Newcastle Antwerp
Political and National/Regional: highly centralised. National/Regional: highly decentralised.
administrative Local: fragmented and dispersed. Uses a ‘silo’ Complex structure with different regions and
structure structure with directorates and divisions. communities overlapping each other.
Local: Divided into Business Units,
decentralised in terms of general decision-
making and centralised in terms of ICTs
decision-making.
Motivations Essentially economy-driven. Successive plans Essentially politics-driven. The division of
to re-image the city and the region – most political power has motivated a proactive use of
recently with the use of ICTs. ICTs to allow decentralisation.
ICTs strategy There is no cohesion. Initiatives are extremely Highly centralised and integrated in terms of
dispersed and fragmented across the individual projects and in terms of the way they
administrative structure of the council. The ICT interplay and correspond to the city
initiatives are supported by a panel, which administration. A centralised Urban-
oversees them individually. Technological Strategy is supported by a public
Institutional Supervisor for ICTs: E-Services ICTs agency.
Panel. Semi-Independent Public Agency: Telepolis.
Planning Planners distanced from ICTs. No involvement Planners distanced from ICTs. Little
involvement with the strategy. involvement with the strategy (mainly on GIS).
Other divisions avoid involving planning on Other divisions avoid involving planning on
ICT initiatives. ICT initiatives.
Recombinant Presents mainly adaptive spaces. Presents mainly adaptive spaces.
public spaces Transformative spaces are no more than access Transformative spaces are no more than access
points. points.
No examples of deep gateways recombinant No examples of deep gateways recombinant
spaces. spaces.
Main examples: Street Kiosks and City Main examples: Antwerpen.be Centre,
Libraries. Telepolis, and City Libraries.
Dilemmas Interpretative Flexibility. Dominant Aspects: Interpretative Flexibility. Dominant Aspects:
organisational aspect, aspect of substitution, organisational aspect, aspect of ‘tackling the
aspect of planning involvement, and digital divide’, aspect of planning involvement,
propaganda aspect. and propaganda aspect.
Striking dominance of E-government and Entrepreneurial approach to projects and
initiatives that contribute to re-image the city as initiatives. Emphasis on the ‘customer
innovative. relationship management’.
Endogenous and Exogenous influences: Endogenous and Exogenous influences:
internal disputes, integration/coordination, internal disputes, integration/coordination,
private sector’s involvement; conflicts with private sector involvement; conflicts with upper
upper governmental levels, regional governmental levels, regional competitiveness,
competitiveness, and the entrepreneurial and the entrepreneurial imperative.
imperative.
Interpretative Not taken into account in terms of strategy. Different visions incorporated into a single
flexibility Visions are independently developed into strategy by Telepolis. Projects consider the
projects. expectations of many different actors in the
The existence of a range of interpretations does local government.
not prevent projects of being implemented. The existence of a range of interpretations does
No direct influence on recombinant spaces. not prevent projects of being implemented.
No direct influence on recombinant spaces.
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8.2 TOWARDS AN EXPLANATION-BUILDING PERSPECTIVE
As we saw in Chapter 4 above, explanation-building analysis has been selected as the

most appropriate method for comparing these case studies. Following this idea, we have
reviewed the seven hypotheses during the period of data collection and individual
analysis, trying to match them with the findings and interpretations of the cases, and vice-
versa.
What follows is, to a certain extent, an expansion of table 4.1 (Chapter 4, p.112), where
propositions, research questions, and theory are related to one another; but this time with
the support of evidence.
8.2.1 The importance of interpretative flexibility
Research Proposition 1 states that interpretative flexibility represents the most influential
dilemma confronting local authorities as they attempt to develop an urban-technological
strategy. While a plurality of visions may be beneficial for a democratic construction of
initiatives, it may prove difficult to handle and translate into strategy.
This proposition was developed basically on the theory of the Social Construction of
Technologies (SCOT), explained in Chapter 2. Yet, it takes into consideration the fact
that the development of ICT initiatives by local authorities is a complex social and
political phenomenon involving a number of parties and variables, which is a crucial
aspect of our study.
The proposition presupposes that in such a complex environment, the wide variety of
visions of ICT initiatives by the different sectors involved in the development of public
policies is crucial in defining the local approach.
We can thus see an interesting contradiction between the cases of Newcastle and Antwerp.
On one hand, both sets of actors’ discourses presented virtually the same patterns of
dominant aspects related to interpretative flexibility, in a number of divergent visions to
ICTs. On the other, looking at the structure in which the initiatives are developed from
the early stages of negotiation, Newcastle and Antwerp are very different from each other.
As we saw, fragmentation dominates the scene in Newcastle, while in Antwerp, a highly
integrated approach prevails.
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Based on the narratives provided in Chapters 6 and 7, the reason for this contrast clearly
seems to relate to the way ICTs are incorporated into a broader urban agenda.
In Newcastle, projects are generally conceived, planned, funded, implemented and

managed virtually independently in terms of the internal division of the city council. This
means that a directorate or its respective division can run an ICT project without
interacting with other directorates or divisions. Depending on the nature of the project,
interaction will eventually take place, only when the original unit needs further
relationship with others.
In Antwerp, such interaction happens compulsorily. A central agency, and most

importantly, the political agreement and operational plan described in Chapter 7,
necessitate the integration of visions. This means that every ICT initiative will be
developed according to the interests of actors in the city administration, the council and
Telepolis itself.
While not necessarily meaning that every interpretation and expectation will be taken into
account, the integrated approach in Antwerp seems to have greater chances of handling
interpretative flexibility than the Newcastle structure.
This of course does not necessarily mean that projects and initiatives developed in
Antwerp will be more successful than ones in Newcastle: such differences in terms of
projects also depend on the way they are further developed and implemented.
An alternative implication for cases with strong central coordination such as in Antwerp,
is for the coordinator to suppress the multiplicity of visions with an ‘authoritarian’
implementation of initiatives.
According to the interviews carried out in Antwerp, this does not seem to be the case.
Officers and civil servants from different departments (or Business Units as they are
called locally) identify participation as a strength of the strategy headed by Telepolis.
As regards the approach and strategy for the two cases, two clear patterns stand out. First,
bearing in mind the diagram for local ICTs development showed in figure 6.2 (p.183),
visions for a particular initiative are dealt with on a small scale, in terms of directorates
and divisions. Interpretations representing different units tend not to collide on their way
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to becoming an action or policy. They are ‘canalised’ from the early moments inside the
responsible unit, through to implementation, usually by the same unit. So, once a project
is defined by a certain unit responsible for its implementation, it tends not to be
influenced by other units’ visions, as there is little interaction between them.
Second, in Antwerp, as seen in figure 7.2 (p.241), demand and ideas for initiatives are the
sole responsibility of Telepolis. The local government and city departments need to report
to Telepolis in case of a certain demand or problem related to ICTs. Telepolis will then,
through its officers and technicians, study the case and promote further development. ICT
initiatives are discussed between Telepolis representatives and the city departments on a
weekly basis. Political agreement and Telepolis’s operational plan are the formal motors
for this centralised and integrative strategy.
Interpretative flexibility is thus a clear challenge for local governments’ urban-

technological development of ICTs. According to the cases studied, managing the
diversity of visions for ICTs, produces different results in terms of ways that actions are
structured and put in place. This is not to say that high levels of interpretative flexibility
will prevent local authorities deploying ICT initiatives.
However, from the perspective of an integrative strategy, interpretative flexibility is a

major dilemma. In order to create integration within local government for ICTs
development, interpretative flexibility would have to be incorporated into a single
strategy.
8.2.2 Intra and extra-local elements as additional dilemmas
According to our Research Proposition 2, apart from interpretative flexibility, there are
other dilemmas for the development of urban-technological integrative strategies, which
can be related to a range of intra and extra-local aspects.
Interestingly, both cases seem to be influenced, on different levels, by three major

endogenous and three exogenous elements. In general, both types of influence combine
with interpretative flexibility and the historical conditions for each case to shape their
respective approach. More specifically, each one of the endogenous and exogenous
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elements relate differently to the others within each case study. It is thus worth spending a
few words comparing their influence in each case.
a. Internal administrative and political disputes within local government
This particular aspect was found to be more influential in Antwerp than in Newcastle.
This is due to the level of integration needed in Antwerp in order to keep the strategy
working smoothly. We saw that even relatively small technical problems are considered a
threat by officers in Telepolis because of a potential risk of sparking pockets of resistance
to new technologies.
Politically, the existence and functioning of Telepolis was questioned only because of its
high costs. Telepolis’ competence in improving administrative and governance practices
was never put into trial during this study.
On the other hand, because of the high levels of fragmentation within the management
structure in Newcastle, internal disputes seem to obstruct the implementation of new ICT
initiatives by divisions and directorates far less. As the units do not interact in the
development of projects, they also do not dispute these issues.
Looking at the two cases in terms of urban-technological development then, internal

disputes seemed to be proportional to the levels of integration and centralisation in the
management structure. At the same time, interviews in Antwerp showed that these
disputes tended to diminish or disappear with increased importance and stabilisation of
the central strategy.
A correlation to interpretative flexibility could be suggested. Looking at the evidence, the

case of Newcastle seems to show that the less visions and interpretations ‘collide’, the
less the possibility for internal disputes (in this case, as we saw, projects are guaranteed
by the relative independence of each unit in developing its own initiatives). In Antwerp,
managing and incorporating divergent visions also seems to have an effect on diminishing
internal disputes (which tended to be bigger at the beginning of the implementation of the
strategy).
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b. Integration, coordination and control over the implementation of ICT initiatives
In direct connection with the previous element, integration and coordination present the
major difference between Newcastle’s and Antwerp’s approaches to ICTs development.
While in Antwerp, these two factors were used together to speed up the implementation
of ICT initiatives and to put in place a central strategy with political motivations, in
Newcastle we could find no evidence of integration and central coordination.
In the latter case, attempts to promote integration (such as Virtual Newcastle or the E-
services Panel) were described, but with no direct influence as coordinators. Attempts at
integration were mainly led by the fear of duplicated projects and waste of public money.
Integration and coordination seem to be a major differential in terms of interpretative

flexibility too. With these two characteristics, Telepolis is able to take into consideration
the different expectations and visions from the other governmental units in the city.
According to the interviewees, voices are given to every major participant in local
government. As we mentioned before, the risk of this approach is the one of suppressing
other units’ visions in an authoritative way, but this does not seem to have happened in
Antwerp.
On the other hand, in Newcastle, visions for the development of ICT initiatives are not
combined, at the level of divisions and directorates. The major tendency is that
interpretations evolve directly into projects. As we saw, the risk is of having contradictory
or duplicated initiatives on the ground, and finding out only when they are already
operating.
Finally, it is important to remark that, although resulting on different approaches for

urban-technological development, interpretative flexibility does not seem to prevent
projects to be implemented on the ground. However, it does seem to interfere in the way
ICTs are considered in the urban agenda. We will discuss this particular issue later in this
chapter.
c. Private sector influence on public administration
This element has proved to be a constant issue for ICTs development in Newcastle and
Antwerp, in both cases showing a close relationship with integration and coordination.
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For the latter case, the central coordination of Telepolis is allegedly an advantage in
possible negotiations with the private sector. Even interviewees from the private sector
argued that Telepolis had a major role in supervising public-private partnerships.
Additionally, we found that every kind of contract involving ICTs with the private sector
was headed by Telepolis. The indication was that this sort of relation tends to diminish
the risk of private involvement in public issues. The case of the initial street kiosks
showed also that Telepolis seemed to be constantly learning from its own previous
experiences with the private sector.
In Newcastle, fragmentation in the structure of project implementation seemed to open up

the ‘doors’ of the city council to private partnerships. This was constantly referred to by
the interviewees as a productive way of funding public initiatives.
However, again, the case of the street kiosks showed how vulnerable the public sector is
to the influence of private interests.
An alternative supervision for such cases was created in the council with the constitution
of the E-services Panel. This was allegedly created because of a few major procurements
involving a fair amount of public money started without any upper supervision in the
council. So, in a way, it could be said that the E-services Panel also works to try and
safeguard public interests in public-private partnerships. As mentioned before, the case of
the ITRS being developed ‘in-house’ supports such a view.
d. Political and administrative conflicts with upper level governmental stances
In terms of exogenous influences, the relations with upper levels of governmental stances
always represent an important factor. The regional and national political and
administrative structures have a direct impact on the way ICTs could operate locally.
This element has a similar influence on both cases, though in different ways. Political
centralisation and decentralisation seem to invert their roles in terms of local and national
influence: as we saw before, in the local level, ICT initiatives are centrally coordinated in
Antwerp and dispersedly developed in Newcastle.
However, in terms of the national political structure, things seem to be organised in the
other way around. While the Belgian federal government has historically promoted a
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gradual process of decentralisation, delegating power to regional and local authorities, the
British central government determines the major targets and is responsible for distributing
the main pots of money.
In Antwerp, interviewees commonly address the relationship with upper governmental

stances as difficult due to the extreme complexity of the political and administrative
divisions in terms of regions and federation. Different languages, communities and
regions, each enjoying relative autonomy, are reported by local authorities as an obstacle
to the integration of ICT initiatives regionally and nationally.
In Newcastle, by contrast, local authorities endeavour to fulfil central government’s main

targets, specifically for electronic government. In this case, a common complaint is that
local authorities should have more autonomy to develop projects directed by their own
targets.
Unlike in Antwerp, initiatives in Newcastle look very similar to other projects across the
UK, probably due to this strong influence of the central government on local development.
If we refer back to the typological study on TeleCities, for instance, it is clear that
Newcastle presents similar kinds of projects to those developed in Bristol or Lewisham.
These two cities, however, were classified as relatively advanced cases of ICTs
implementation, and according to the interplay between physical and virtual spaces (types
4 and 5, respectively, of the degree of interplay). This raises the question: how can
apparently different cases of urban-technological development present such similar
initiatives. The influence of the central government in the UK is certainly one of the
possible answers, as local authorities are required to follow some standards (like the
Implementing Electronic Government Statement – IEG).
However, certain similarities between Newcastle’s and Antwerp’s initiatives could also
be observed. In this case, similarities between projects are more likely to be caused by the
symbolism of ICTs as a booster for economic development and an increase of urban
competitiveness within the European Union.
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e. The increase of regional competitiveness within the European Union
As we saw from the exploratory typology of TeleCities outlined in Chapter 5, regional

competitiveness, especially among European Union members, represents in most cases an
indirect motivation for the creation of ICT initiatives.
Although urban-technological development in Antwerp was initially motivated by a

political reorganisation, it is evident that ICTs are seen by local authorities as a
competitive advantage in the European context. The involvement of Telepolis and
Antwerp in major European consortia and projects indicates that they are keen to be seen
as an important player. Many projects are funded by the European Union, and politicians
and officers in Telepolis seem very proud of their position within TeleCities.
Economic competitiveness also plays a major role in defining the approach in Newcastle,
as was clear from almost every interview. A common argument was that the city needed
to acquire the image of an innovative and intelligent city. This includes an extensive use
of ICTs to attract companies and people to the region. The historical project of re-imaging
the city thus has its roots in the attempt to repositioning Newcastle economically within
the competitive environment of cities investing in ICTs.
In both cases, the approach to ICTs is clearly intrinsically affected by the increasing
economic competitiveness among European cities. Even when not explicitly and directly
referred to, this element seems to be an inherent part of any major project related to ICTs
in Newcastle or Antwerp.
f. The entrepreneurial imperative
The entrepreneurial imperative, or vision of the city as an enterprise, is equally influential

in both cities. In Newcastle as well as in Antwerp, politicians, officers and civil servants
have evoked the image of the city administration as the one of a private company.
This element is directly connected to the previous one, the economic competitiveness in
Europe. By chasing a more competitive shape for the local economy, authorities usually
look at the private sector performance as a reference. Place-marketing and urban
strategies over-concentrated on economic performance are possible consequences in this
case.
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An example of such an approach is the mushrooming of business centres to try and attract
high-tech, clean companies. This has been so in the case of recent urban developments in
both cities. ICTs play an important part, especially in terms of infrastructure. As we saw,
broadband is instanced by interviewees as a crucial development for setting the basis for
renewed economic activities in the city.
8.2.3 The virtual city as a ‘parallel’ city
Research Proposition 3 states that there is a ‘parallel’ city made up of transactions,

communication, information, services, feeling, interpretations, exclusions, expectations,
and ‘bits and bytes’ called the virtual (digital) city, which is interacting with the
traditional city and its citizens.
This point could not have been tested in its entirety as this task would probably demand
another full-scale research project, and this is only one of the main issues that make up
the background for the present study. However, we have found some correspondence with
the reality of Newcastle and Antwerp, from the point of view of an urban-technological
strategy and its origins.
In general, the two case studies show intensive use of ICTs to improve communication
and the provision of information and services delivery, though related in different ways to
a broader urban strategy.
In Antwerp, for instance, we saw that local authorities and Telepolis have been trying to
improve citizens’ participation in decision-making through initiatives like the
Antwerpen.be Centre and Forum. Even though the latter has not been fully developed, the
intention and the steps taken to envisage Forum were quite a symbol for all efforts made
to improve public participation.
In terms of intentions and proposals (usually represented by green papers), Newcastle

seems to be following the same way. Two factors could be used to explain the relative
advancement of Antwerp in the constitution of its virtual city compared with Newcastle:
the first is obviously related to the period of time the two strategies have been evolving as
local government initiatives; the second, concerns the distinct directions that the strategies
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have taken so far, being Newcastle represented by a fragmented approach and Antwerp
by an integrated strategy.
Time seems to be important for the set of technologies represented by ICTs to stabilise
following a defined strategy of implementation and deployment. Social, political,
economic, cultural and spatial aspects are constantly influencing this ‘stabilisation’ and
surely demand a certain level of maturity to occur. As we saw, Antwerp started dealing
with ICTs very early due to specific historical and political conditions, while Newcastle
joined the race to attract investment through the development of ICTs much later.
The two distinct initial motivations for the approach to an ICT strategy have also
influenced the way the virtual city, and the relations and interpretations between virtual
and physical spaces, have evolved in Newcastle and Antwerp. On one hand, actors in
Newcastle were preoccupied with the industrial decline and the economic development of
the city, together with its image to outsiders and possible investors. On the other hand,
people in Antwerp were concerned with the new divisions of power and the political
changes in the federation and especially within the city council. In this case then, this
initial motive had triggered actions towards political decentralisation at the local level –
that ultimately has encouraged a more proactive consideration of ICTs.
Together, these two factors explain the different stages of development of the two cities
as virtual cities and, subsequently, with respect to the interplay between physical and
virtual spaces (at least in terms of local government’s actions). So it seems correct to
affirm that a certain group of elements related to ICTs and virtual interactions (labelled
here virtual city; see Chapter 3) coexist with the traditional elements of the city. This
coexistence happens in different ways in both cases, due to particular circumstances.
Despite the realisation of a parallel city made up of immateriality and virtuality in both
cases, the integrated and centrally coordinated strategy based on Telepolis in Antwerp
was capable to produce more directly related cases of physical manifestation like
MANAP (the public owned metropolitan area network), the buildings of Telepolis itself
and Antwerpen.be Centre. As a general result, virtual cities seem to be on their way to
maturation and further development as a parallel and supportive city. The type of urban-
technological strategy or approach adopted by local government seems to be crucial in
defining the shape of the virtual city.
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8.2.4 Recombinant ideas breaking down paradigm barriers
Research Proposition 4 suggests that virtual cities have predominantly been developed
without adequate reference to the ‘real’ physical city, but this is starting to change as
recombinant ideas start to break down paradigm barriers between traditional urban policy
and ICTs policy.
The previous proposition also corroborates to this statement.
Considered in its entirety, the urban-technological strategy in Antwerp can be linked to

recombinant ideas of policy-making. As we saw, the model in place in Antwerp
represents a unique case of central coordination for ICT issues, in that a public agency has
responsibility for integrating ICTs with traditional urban policy matters. Such urban-
technological centralisation is in place to allow the decentralised public administration to
work as smoothly as possible. The discussions which result in the 6-year political
agreement between Telepolis and the city council, and the annual operational plan of
Telepolis itself represent just such a combination of traditional urban and ICTs policy-
making.
Based on the evidence for the two case studies, it could be said that this relationship
between planning and ICT major strategies has been virtually non-existent in the two
cities looked at. Recombinant spaces were rarely planned in accordance with virtual
initiatives, and vice versa. The number of interpretations for ICT initiatives was thus
dominated by a separation between virtual and physical issues.
As regards urban planning itself, what stands out from these two case studies is chiefly
planning divisions’ lack of interest in broader involvement with ICTs, and also that of
other relevant departments. Planning divisions have showed virtually no role in the
development of ICT initiatives. In both Antwerp and Newcastle, traditional methods to
manage and control land use and new urban developments were verified, where GIS, for
example, has been seen as a symbol for innovativeness in a possible marriage between
ICTs and urban planning.
Two initiatives represent the closest relation between ICTs and planning divisions in both
cities: the development of an integrated GIS application by the planning department and
Telepolis in Antwerp; and the efforts by the planning and transportation division in
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Newcastle to ensure the use of the area of the Newcastle Great Park for business
development.
Despite the generally proactive attitude in Antwerp regarding technological development,

in terms of planning, the city is very similar to Newcastle where, as we saw, the
respective divisions adopt a rather defensive approach in dealing with these issues
(reacting to specific circumstances rather than being proactive).
Both actions and perceptions from the planning divisions have showed a superficial
understanding of the spatial impacts and implications of the use of new telematics
technologies to planning issues.
There was in fact some evidence pointing to a more recombinant movement of local
governments towards the use of ICTs as part of the urban agenda. These efforts have not
however been translated into planning initiatives. The result is two-fold: planning
divisions do not take part in the effective development of ICTs; and ICTs seem not to
interest members of such divisions – who tend not to look at ICTs as a challenge to the
way urban spaces (physical or not) are managed and controlled.
As ICTs seem to relate more closely to governance than planning, it seems safe to look at
the case studies from the point of view of recombinant governance rather than
recombinant planning.
8.2.5 Public places and the interaction between virtual and physical spaces
Research proposition 5, identifies different sorts of space and new urban places, in which
the interplay between physical and virtual cities is taking place.
Just as the whole urban-technological approach is gradually evolving as a strategy, so are

the public spaces that attempt to bridge virtual and physical cities. In this way,
recombinant adaptive spaces tend to be a provisional and temporary, although necessary,
solution to the incorporation of new telematics technologies into the architecture of public
places. They are characterised by the newer designs and architectural solutions typical of
transformative spaces (Horan, 2000; Firmino, 2003b).
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The way the strategies in Newcastle and in Antwerp evolve in terms of public access to
new technologies also tells this story. In both cases, we noticed that the initial initiatives
involving public spaces for access to information and communication tended to be
adaptive spaces in libraries, schools and museums.
Both cases presented widely developed projects of public cyber-cafés across these public
places. In Newcastle, however, access has been promoted through community centres via
the project called Use IT@centres supported by the Virtual Newcastle initiative by the
city council.
Progressively, with the relative success of these initiatives, the cities have been trying to
promote new types of access, especially by means of street kiosks. We have seen that in
both cities, projects were or are still being developed in order to provide public access on
the streets through the use of totems or kiosks.
This is also, according to Firmino (2003a and 2003b), an intermediary stage of

development for more comprehensive transformative spaces. Meanwhile, projects that
comprehensively evoke a seamless interaction between virtual and physical elements (like
the transarchitecture works of Lars Spuybroek, illustrated in Chapter 3) are a distant
reality in both cases.
The most advanced cases in this direction are buildings dedicated to promoting access to
networks and the Internet. In terms of architecture, the virtual city is mainly represented
by the invisible infrastructure of cables, optic fibres, and radio signals. They do not seem
to ‘interact’ with the physical environment at any time, in terms of seamless connections.
Because of these characteristics, the advanced projects in Antwerp and in Newcastle are
hardly classified as more than ‘adaptive totally integrated’ or ‘transformative access
points’ recombinant spaces (according to the model presented in Chapter 3).
The best evidence for this comes with the establishment of Telepolis as an independent
organisation with its own building and, most importantly, with its annexe building, the
Antwerpen.be Centre. This building seems to represent the features discussed in the last
two paragraphs.
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Apart from the difficulties involved in local authorities acquiring a more comprehensive
understanding of seamless transformative recombinant spaces and the slow pace of such
development, other factors may delay or even interrupt further progress of this type of
physical manifestation. The rapid development of mobile and wireless technologies has
partially drawn the attention of city administrations to the field of ICT implementations.
These technologies have been challenging the real need for a physical place as a support
to access the virtual cities.
Obviously, physical spaces will always support the very existence of virtual cities due to
the basic necessity for infrastructure. Mobile technologies also question the need for
dedicated buildings for entering cyberspace however. Actors in Newcastle and Antwerp
are yet to show significant interest in these issues from the point of view of physical
impacts. ‘Just in case’, kiosks in Newcastle are equipped with a transmitter that enables
mobile computers in the vicinity to download the content of the application.
Finally, regarding the initial proposition, we can say that the cities have indeed been
spending efforts on establishing a progressive development of spaces coming from
adaptive to transformative public spaces. An additional concern is that mobile and
wireless (‘wi-fi’ for wireless fidelity) technologies have been rapidly adopted and are
evolving towards the ‘replacement’ of such intermediary adaptive and transformative
spaces.
Ultimately, spaces containing wireless networks or providing mobile communications

would also be classified as transformative recombinant spaces, validating the concept
anyway. The differences between adaptive and transformative spaces would tend to fade,
as invisible technologies and virtual spaces are increasingly becoming elements of our
physical and traditional world.
As we saw, the two case studies have not been indicating remarkable advance regarding
the implementation of wireless technologies and transformative recombinant spaces.
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8.2.6 The possibility of improving public participation
Research Proposition 6 states that, when planned and used as a civic public space, the
virtual city phenomenon and its elements can help urban planners and city-makers to
realise possibilities of improving citizen participation in the decision-making process.
Both case studies revealed an uncommon concentration of the efforts of local authorities
towards the development of ICT initiatives which privilege the improvement of public
services provision. Electronic government, as we saw, embraces most projects and
processes of change within public administration in both cities, being slightly stronger in
Newcastle due to a national programme supported by central government.
In a sense, both cities are thus using their parallel virtual cities represented by the urban-
technological strategies and their projects to try and improve the services delivered to the
public, especially those through the means of an online delivery.
On the other hand, boosterism has been a constant aspect in both cases, most
conspicuously in Newcastle where the city image has been constantly challenged. It was
clear through the analyses of the two cases that participation through telematics is indeed
very weak in terms of public services so far, despite some efforts from the government.
We can thus see that government’s commitment to delivering services and information
online does not necessarily correspond to an increase in participation. The sole fact of
making official documents accessible on the Internet does not mean that services are
being made available online.
In the case of Newcastle, specifically, there have been yet more controversial opinions as
regards local government to approaching the handling information, making it available,
and improving communications. During the interviews, a former collaborator on council’s
ICT projects (such as Newnet), Michael Riley, has even come out with a conspiracy
theory stating that the real motivations for a possible strategy by the government would
stem from control over information and communications. Riley shows a very cynical
attitude regarding the city council, being extremely pessimistic when asked about future
scenarios involving ICTs and the city:
‘The political structure that is in place now and the ICT strategy of the
council now, are about controlling information. For me, it’s not about
putting all the processes in place (software, hardware, bandwidth,
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kiosks, and stuff like that). You can do that fairly easily. The whole
thing is about the control of bandwidth, technologies, kiosks, gateways;
the control of the information […] For me, from the council’s point of
view, all of this discourse of ICT is about manipulating the power,
keeping control of the power’. (Riley, 2003b)
We have not investigated these allegations any further, although further evidence was
indeed asked for, with no response. This issue would in fact have been difficult to
pinpoint due to the strong influence of political opinions and speculation. In fact, Riley’s
opinion seems to be part of a growing number of protests by cyber-activists against any
kind of control over the development of information and communication technologies.
This highly conspiratorial type of politics has been especially prominent in the USA.
This indicates, however, some concern regarding the real motivations of local
government in developing its ICT projects. In addition, we have seen that the
entrepreneurial imperative also plays an important part in the definition of government’s
approach to ICTs.
These things together only leave, in both cases, less ground for public participation and
improvement of service delivery as being the intentions of local authorities in promoting
the local technological development.
It is very hard to question such intentions. The projects being developed do not seem to
tally perfectly with the discourses and interpretations of the main actors. There is a fine
line between project, intentions and implementations in terms of information and services
delivery; let alone public participation through electronic means.
As we saw, even the interpretation of what online service delivery means can lead to
controversy. Local government is generally vague about it. The provision of static
information and one-way channels of communication are widely publicised by the
interviewees from local authorities as a means of increasing public participation.
Although these features could improve communication between citizens and city-makers,
meaningful public participation would need to involve two-way communication (Aurigi,
2000).
In terms of potential therefore, both cases demonstrated that electronic spaces combined
with physical places could evolve into public participation. This however is not
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dependent only on the initiatives and strategies themselves, but also on local
government’s willingness to share its decision-making powers.
8.2.7 Urban-technological strategies as a secondary element
According to Proposition 7, only a few cities are dealing consciously with the relationship
between physical and virtual urban spaces aimed at evolving a democratic construction of
the virtual city and a closer interaction with public places.
Although it is hard to generalise from the two case studies to cities in Europe and around
the world, we believe it is worthwhile sketching a brief description based on the two case
studies.
There have been improvements in the way local actors understand ICTs, their influence,
their challenges to traditional concepts about space and time, and the importance of
considering them as part of the urban agenda. The pioneering efforts of Antwerp have
favoured such a positive development of an integrative strategy and increased levels of
awareness about the importance of ICTs among authorities and civil servants.
However, the general picture shows that officers and local authorities are confused about
backing up extensive use of ICTs in cities. They tend to seem as if they are blindly betting
on the success of ICTs development. In fact, as Chapters 2 and 3 indicated, uncertainty is
a major characteristic of ICTs. They represent a set of technologies in constant technical
development; changes happen every moment.
It would thus seem to be natural that, in general, the use and impacts of ICTs on cities are
not being deeply discussed in the sphere of local government. As a result, seamless
recombinant initiatives such as the ones discussed in Chapter 3 are rarely started or
implemented by local authorities.
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8.3 SIDE BY SIDE: COMPARING INITIATIVES, STRUCTURE AND

CONDITIONS IN NEWCASTLE AND ANTWERP
We also need to add to this discussion, the wide number of visions and interpretations of
ICTs within the public administration. In both case studies, every unit, division, and
directorate showed its own expectations as to what problems the initiatives should be
‘designed’ to tackle.
The result of projects and initiatives on the ground could thus differ widely from what
was originally planned, a fact that sometimes proved frustrating. In this sense, to have
recombinant ideas embedded into long-term successful projects, it seems that the very
notion of a seamless recombination would have to be part of the visions from the start.
The dominant aspects of actors’ discourses showed no clues in this direction however.
We have been describing the contrasts between the two approaches to ICTs of Newcastle
and Antwerp, characterised respectively as fragmented and integrated. It is however
difficult to compare the two in terms of the overall strategies, the projects involved, the
structures in which they operate, the organisations that take part and the circumstances
that created the historical and geographical conditions for their existence. We will now
discuss these particular aspects: this section thus provides a summary of comparisons for
the main aspects of each case study.
8.3.1 Initial circumstances
Starting from the historical and geographical conditions, we can say that, although a
number of complex local, regional, national and global elements tended to drive each case
according to the social organisation in place in each situation, two factors stand out for
the development of visions and actions towards the appropriation of ICTs. In the case of
Newcastle, recent developments have clearly been strongly driven by economic aspects,
while in Antwerp, the foundation of Telepolis and the implementation of MANAP (two
cornerstones in this case) reflect political motivations.
Explanations that only took these two aspects into consideration would be obviously
incomplete however. As I have stressed repeatedly, much more in-depth analyses are
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needed to understand the complexity of the social construction of ICTs in the recent
history of urban-technological developments.
Equally crucial are the interplay between these two initial motivations within the local
social structure of institutions, people, government, and the regional and national contexts
in which the cases are immersed. Together they form the basis for a broader
comprehension of each city’s strategy and local tensions, and the dilemmas involved in
marrying ICTs and urban policy-making.
On the other hand, it is well-known that economic and the political aspects play different
roles in each case, as the initial motives for the authorities to have started strategically
considering new telematics technologies.
We have seen that in Newcastle, the rebuilding of the city’s image and destiny through a
broader economic development and urban regeneration strategy has dictated the way
ICTs should play their part as a technical enabler, mainly through e-government
initiatives to restructure the city council.
In Belgium, a national political restructuring process has triggered further changes in the
local political structure – especially in Antwerp, one of the most affected cities. In turn, as
a way to re-balance the power and strengthen the representativeness of the democratic
parties against the far right party, city administration was decentralised in nine districts.
Local authorities, then, delegated to ICTs the central role of promoting integration.
As we have seen, these two scenarios resulted in very distinct structures and visions for
the involvement of ICTs in urban issues.
8.3.2 Contrasting structures
In Newcastle, ICT projects are splintered across the council’s management structure and
there is no direct central coordination of them. The council recently created the E-services
Panel to oversee the progress of such projects and endorse their initiation in the first place.
This panel has been created in response to internal requirements for integration and
cohesion, and has been working to avoid duplication and potential problematic contracts
with the private sector. It has, nevertheless, been over-concentrated on economic
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performance of the initiatives, with little concern for what they may represent in terms of
urban planning, the shape of the public physical space, and so on. Dispersion and
fragmentation dominate this approach, so that it cannot be classified as a cohesive urban-
technological strategy (see Figure 6.2, p.183).
By contrast, in Antwerp, the entirety of the strategy is centred and coordinated by the
public semi-independent agency Telepolis. There is no direct interference from the other
divisions in the city in the way Telepolis deals with the strategy. This gives power to the
agency (limited to its general budget) to deploy projects and initiatives independently
from the wishes and interests of particular departments (although evidence seems to
indicate that the different visions are taken into consideration by Telepolis).
In order to define the scope of its actions, Telepolis has to specify projects and tendencies
through an annual operational plan which, in turn, has to match the points of a 6-year
political agreement with the city council. Political and economic interests should be
previously defined in order to be considered in one of these agreements. This bureaucratic
process guarantees that ICTs will be considered as a serious matter and within the overall
urban agenda, formalising the urban-technological strategy as recombinant planning.
As a consequence, budget and demand for ICT initiatives are canalised through Telepolis
to be considered and transformed in real projects and actions on the ground (See Figure
7.2, p.241). Following this structure, ICTs receive premium treatment from local
authorities, increasing their visibility and the relative awareness about it. In this sense also,
Telepolis stays in a privileged position to control and manage the overall strategy in the
interests of public policy. And in addition, the agency is in a more comfortable situation
to foresee and reflect upon further actions and consequences.
8.3.3 Developing similar projects
To understand the way a project can be initiated and managed regarding these two distinct
structures, the street kiosks can be used as example, as they present very similar
initiatives that had to be turned into action through these two strategies.
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In Newcastle, the project is headed by the Cityworks Directorate through one of its
managers, Richard Elliot, and depends on various forms of funding inside the council
which does not have a dedicated budget for ICTs.
The negotiation with the private sector partner and all related issues are thus the
responsibility of one particular directorate (sometimes, depending on the project, it is
even up to sub-divisions of the directorates to run and manage the projects). In turn, this
unit has its own budget, specific interests and, most importantly, a partial vision of the
whole organisation. Following the directorate-managed initiative in Newcastle, projects
tend to work more in isolation from other projects and divisions, where civil servants and
officers from this unit rarely get to know what others are doing. In these circumstances, it
becomes difficult in terms of strategy to envisage further projects and possible
consequences involving the implementation of ICTs.
In Antwerp, the entire project was dealt with by an internal cluster of Telepolis where the
local part of the funding also came from (the part that corresponds to the public
administration as this project had three main funding sources, namely Telepolis, the
European Union and the private sector partner). Telepolis directly managed the project
and, as sole enabler, was in a position to integrate this project to others and to know
exactly what was being developed for the city at the same period and in the near future.
In addition, Telepolis itself had the power to terminate the contract without involving the
council or a single department, due to partial fulfilment of the partner’s part of the
agreement. In this way, we can say the city of Antwerp, through Telepolis, has more
control over the global implementation of ICTs across the whole city and the whole
public administration.
Meanwhile in Newcastle, partial views and partial management in a fragmented structure

mean that departments fail to be aware of initiatives from the beginning. The E-services
Panel and the Virtual Newcastle initiative are trying to improve integration, but without
central coordination by a dedicated organisation.
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8.3.4 The power of a particular context
Another influential factor said by interviewees to be directly involved with the current
shape of these structures is the regional and national context of which these two cities are
part. This of course makes a cross-national study more complicated but also very valuable
for analysis and comparison.
The British and the Belgian political and managerial systems are roughly, the opposite of
each other in terms of centralisation and decentralisation or, in other words, in terms of
autonomy delegated to local authorities.
As we have seen, the British system is highly centralised, with central government
deciding targets, general policies and the mainstream funding to be allocated.
It was clear that in order to keep a reasonable flow of inward investments from the central
government – which represents the major income – local authorities have no option but to
follow the strict agenda set by Downing Street. Little flexibility and autonomy is allowed,
with the result that local authorities tend to function as no more than representatives of
the central government. Local authorities and their strategies are strongly tied to what
London judges best for them.
In the case of Antwerp, we saw that the reforms established in Belgium in the 1970s and
1980s, giving cities and regions more autonomy, have actually fostered the intensive use
of ICTs at the local level.
The city of Antwerp has been autonomous enough – even in the context of the Flemish
region – to decide about its own territorial, administrative and political configuration with
little interference from upper levels of the government. The planning system in Belgium
and in Flanders allows local authorities to decide about targets and policies as long as
these are compatible with the very general plans established for each territorial unit of the
country.
Telepolis thus has sufficient power to deliberate upon its own plans, projects and actions.
We saw, obviously, that there is a proper bureaucratic apparatus to ensure that the
responsibilities of each public stance starting from Telepolis are fulfilled. Thus, the
operational plan, the political agreement and other legal or planning instruments
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guarantee Telepolis and the local authorities autonomy in planning and running an
independent urban-technological strategy. In short, the upper governmental levels do not
interfere in the means local authorities use and the targets they pursue, as long as they are
in accordance with the strategic plans for the region and the country.
8.3.5 Similar initiatives, different approaches
As regards the approaches and strategies adopted by Newcastle and Antwerp, what is
evident is that they have both developed or are still developing very similar projects when
seen in isolation. These include the street kiosks, access to the Internet and computers
through public places, social inclusion schemes through free or subsidised courses,
modernisation of the administrative and managerial structures, a public body to oversee
the ICT projects, and so on.
However, looking at the initiatives in isolation is not in itself a sufficient basis for
understanding each city’s approach, which is better achieved by looking at the way they
integrate the projects and manage all these things together, as well as their vision for ICTs.
This area reveals remarkable distinctions between the two cases, and a contradiction that
is present in both.
On one hand, there is a strongly centralised structure at the national level in the UK, while
the structure of actions and budget distribution is extremely fragmented and dispersed at
the local level in Newcastle. The result is a vague, indeed barely discernable urban-
technological integrative strategy characterised by the reactive and defensive attitude of
the local authority.
On the other hand, though, we face a dispersed, decentralised and very complicated
general government structure in Belgium, with different and complex levels of territorial
and cultural distinctions in a country with three main languages (Flemish, French and
German) and three active cultural communities (Flanders, Walloon and Brussels). At the
same time, a highly centralised and integrated structure defines the strategy towards the
coordination of ICTs and urban policy-making – even though the local government itself
is decentralised in nine districts. The consequence is an integrated strategy with a
proactive attitude from local authorities and the public agency.
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Finally, it is evident that these two cities represent exemplary cases of two distinct ways
of approaching and understanding ICTs as part of the urban agenda. These cases also
represent two different ways in which the social construction of ICTs or the absorption
and stabilisation of a set of information and communication technologies takes place at
the local level, vis-à-vis the existent social structure, the political and administrative
systems, the economic basis, the historical and circumstantial conditions, and key actors’
interpretations and aspirations regarding these issues.
The latter aspect is particularly interesting due to profound similarities between the two
cities, which leads us to believe that interpretative flexibility plays a special part in
relation to ICTs that may be independent of implementations on the ground. We will
move on to this special aspect to construct the last strand of our comparative analysis.
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DEVELOPMENT
The most remarkable fact that catches our attention at first sight is that, despite the
contrasted approaches adopted by local authorities in Newcastle and Antwerp and the
circumstances which have contributed to the present shape of their strategies, the two
cases have showed an interesting similarity in terms of dominant aspects of the actors’
visions for ICTs initiatives.
To complete the present comparative analysis, we also need to look at these similarities,
which means going beyond the strategies and their structure to address basically two
major themes related to the phenomenon of interpretative flexibility. First, how can we
characterise such similarities, and what is the influence of such dominant aspects?
Secondly, how is interpretative flexibility linked to the shape of the urban-technological
strategies? And how is this phenomenon related to the implementation of ICT initiatives?
8.4.1 Analysing similarities
Overlapping the findings from interviews in the two cases, it is difficult to distinguish
from one city to another when actors are talking in general ways. For example, speaking
about the definitions for an urban-technological strategy, the following statements by key
actors can easily be related to both cities at the same time:
‘Antwerp’s urban ICT strategy is a CRM strategy, the so called

‘customer relationship management’. Our customers are the citizens of
our city. A customer-friendly approach is our general point of view; we
prefer that it would be the starting point of each ICT-project’. (Verhaert,
2003, Secretary for Information and District Houses, Antwerp)
‘My first thoughts are that the urban ICT strategy is two-fold. Firstly,
ICT is key to modernising local government internally within the
Council to improve customer service (whether those customers are
citizens, businesses, voluntary organisations, etc) and provide staff with
access to information. This also includes the use of ICT to automate
routine business processes and to develop new channels for access to
council services and those of other public agencies. Externally the
strategy is to provide opportunities for development of ICT skills in the
city in order to equip the population with the ability to get jobs and to
promote the area as one that is attractive to the technology industries’.
(Brown, K. 2003, Principal Consultant for IT in the council, Newcastle)
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Obviously, the two cities can be identified from these statements by the language used
and the context involved. Nevertheless, swapping them around would not dramatically
change the perceptions of the interviewees, which means that both statements can refer to
both cities, from the point of view of their actors.
The client-oriented approach to public services, and the organisational aspect of ICTs
upon public administration seem together to represent a general trend in public
administrations.
A number of other statements also apply, by using the same sort of language and same
type of visions for ICTs, typically dominated by linear and clean cause-effect arguments,
indicative of technological determinism.
In fact, the interpretations provided by interviewees in the two cases are so close to each
other that we would be able to compare most of them without finding significant
distinctions in terms of the way these perceptions represent ICTs within actors’ minds.
Such a method of comparison would be extremely repetitive and would add little to the
already evident affinity of the cases concerning the dominant aspects of interpretative
flexibility. Instead, I have decided to comment on the aspect that concentrates on distant
connections between planning and ICT strategies, the aspect of planning involvement.
8.4.1.1 Relating planning to urban-technological issues
This aspect of the two strategies is not something new or unknown, from the point of
view of social construction of technologies. Cities and technologies have already been
addressed as a socio-technical phenomenon by Aibar and Bijker (1997) in a very specific
and different account.
They address a unique framework of social construction of technologies to explain the

rival plans for the extension of the urban area in Barcelona in the nineteenth century. This
study, Constructing a City: The Cerdà Plan for the extension of Barcelona, is particularly
interesting in analysing urban planning through the lens of social constructivism.
According to Aibar and Bijker, the issues of cities and technologies started to attract the
attention of urban researchers in 1979 with a special issue of the Journal of Urban
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History. The first striking vision of this phenomenon could not be other rather than one
dominated by technological determinism or, as the authors put it:
Researchers studied the role of technologies like street lighting, sewage,

of the telegraph in the processes of geographical expansion of cities and
of suburbanization. Technology was analyzed as a force that shaped
society and the cities, but its own character and development were
regarded as rather unproblematic and even autonomous. (Aibar and
Bijker, 1997: 5)
By considering the approach of planners and policy-makers to technologies historically,

the authors found evidence of a grotesque dissociation between the social, economic,
spatial and technological spheres.
Space was commonly seen (and still, in many cases) as an aseptic container for social
activities, while technology was taken to have little influence over the shape of local
societies inhabiting these spaces. Space was rarely considered by planners and city-
makers to be a social event itself, complexly interrelated with everything else (including
history); nor was technology itself seen as socially shaped. This created a methodological
and conceptual gap between the development of technologies in cities on one side and
planning interests and activities on the other.
Yet, according to Graham and Marvin (1996), the development of information and
communication technologies has worsened this complicated relationship between
planning and technologies even further because of their invisibility, fast evolution and
novelty in terms of application and consequences for social and territorial configurations.
By the time Graham and Marvin delivered their theory, traditional technologies (water,
sewage, transport etc.) were already part of a more familiar approach within urban studies,
as a socio-technical process.
Telematics technologies have opened the way to further confusion about their relationship
with the urban milieu. As Graham and Marvin state it, ‘urban studies and policy remain
remarkably blind to telecommunications issues’ (Graham and Marvin, 1996: 7).
As we saw with the cases of Newcastle and Antwerp, these difficulties in comprehending,
at least superficially, the complex relations embedded in the development of technologies
for cities potentially compromise further actions and policy-making towards a strategic
313
use of these developments as urban issues and part of the urban agenda. Although
particular and historical conditions have generated a strategic vision for technological
development in Antwerp, the city is still missing an urban or spatial component of this
vision by not involving planning with ICTs.
This characteristic is strongly indicated in the two cases by the distant relationship
between the planning department and Telepolis in Antwerp, and between the planning
division and the E-services Panel in Newcastle.
We saw, for instance that the planning division in Newcastle does not take part in the E-
services Panel or in any other decision regarding ICTs. The division’s interest in this
respect is nearly inexistent too.
Accordingly, in Antwerp, the planning department seems to have a particularly strong

interest in GIS which makes planners and officers of this department converge their
perceptions of ICTs and the respective role of planning applications for GIS. At the same
time, Telepolis has no special interest in involving urban planning with its major ICT
issues in the early stages of development.
We can thus see how close the perceptions and their dominant aspects are for both cases,
despite the contrasting nature of their approaches, structures, actions and strategies.
This fact might indicate that while actions on the ground may differ enormously amongst
cities in Europe and elsewhere in the world, the mindset of perceptions about ICTs seems
to be extremely homogenous in the way they are affected by a confusing and varied range
of visions marked by technological determinism.
8.4.2 Interpretative flexibility and urban-technological strategies
If the projects implemented and dominant aspects of actors’ interpretations are so similar,
what makes the difference between one case and another? It may be clear already that this
difference has to do with the way these interpretations are managed up to the final stages
of the implementation of an initiative.
Recalling these most significant characteristics, while the structure in Newcastle does not
consider integration and incorporation of visions, in Antwerp, Telepolis is responsible for
314
this role of a mediator and coordinator. Telepolis, as it is working now, is an organisation

indirectly created to translate interpretative flexibility into strategy. Although working
with a top-down type of strategy, this mechanism does succeed in giving a voice to the
most relevant parts in the public administration, enabling them to consider their own
visions and assessments of problem and solution in the area of ICTs.
So, although we thought in the early stages of this study that we would encounter a direct
relation between interpretative flexibility and the performance of ICT initiatives, this
particular connection cannot in the end be verified. Instead, we saw that different ways of
dealing with interpretative flexibility (even if involuntarily), result in different strategies
for urban-technological issues.
As a consequence, we must conclude that interpretative flexibility seems not to interfere

in the implementation of ICT projects, but in the way they are developed within the local
government structure.
According to what was presented in the case narratives, interpretative flexibility is

inherent to ICTs development no less than to any other urban development. This should
not be seen as a negative aspect however: It seems to be crucial that a bottom-up model of
decision-making process (involving public participation), involve and incorporate a large
number of social groups’ expectations.
This is not to say that Newcastle and Antwerp are experiencing such a construction of
their virtual and physical cities. Evidence has shown that in these cases, decisions are
very well controlled by local authorities, although according to different structures.
In other words, interpretative flexibility is an important ingredient of a possible

democratic shape of public policies.
On the other hand, the implementation of recombinant initiatives seems not to depend on
interpretative flexibility per se but more specifically on the types of interpretations and
visions. In the analysis of both cases’ dominant aspects, no clues of such constitution of
the space were found. No vision could be linked to a seamless use of material and
immaterial elements of the space to build public places.
315
The case of linking interpretative flexibility to the success of long-term recombinant

projects is only a relative one. Such linkage will depend on the types of interpretation
involved and the way these interpretations are managed or incorporated into further
actions. To take an example, if one of the relevant groups or actors considered
recombinant issues as an important part of building public places, and if their vision was
incorporated into the whole of the government strategy, these issues would have a greater
chance of being developed along with other ICT initiatives.
We can thus conclude that interpretative flexibility in itself plays a very relevant part in
building integrative urban-technological strategies. It is nevertheless the way different
interpretations are taken into consideration that will ultimately define the shape of such a
strategy.
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8.5 CONCLUSIONS
This chapter completes the most substantial part of this study, namely the description and
comparative analysis of the two case studies. We are now in a position to identify the
most significant characteristics for both cases, and discuss them in terms of advantages,
disadvantages, considerations for further research, and policy recommendations. This is
carried out in the next chapter.
The comparative analysis was carried out in three different stages: first the predefined
hypotheses for the whole research, with the cases discussed according to the seven
research propositions. Secondly, the structure and historical conditions for the two
strategies were compared. Thirdly, we also related interpretative flexibility to the urban-
technological strategies in the light of what was found in Newcastle and Antwerp.
Through the course of this chapter, the major characteristics of each case study were
summarised and compared. Table 8.1 (p.286) illustrates similarities and differences in the
main features of the approaches and contexts for each city. Interpretative flexibility was
also at the core of our analyses throughout the chapter.
It is interesting on the basis of this comparison to note the similarity of the two cities in
terms of the individual projects and the dominant aspects of actors’ interpretations.
Despite this equivalence, the overall strategies adopted by the respective local authorities
were very different.
Fragmentation on one side and integration in the other were found to be the outcome of
complex relations and elements such as, for example, the political and administrative
context of each case. Another influence was the historical circumstances in which each
strategy was developed. The initial motivations of the two sets of actors were also
influential here.
The most interesting differential between the way these approaches evolved into
initiatives, seems to lie in the way different interpretations, visions and expectations are
managed by the local authority or local power. Incorporating them into a single vision (or
not), integrating them (or not), seems to be the most relevant factor shaping urban-
technological strategies.
317
It is also worth noting the types of connections between interpretative flexibility (or its
absence) and the implementation of projects, especially those related to recombinant
concepts. We recall that this relation could not be entirely verified as projects are
implemented anyway by local authorities.
The nature of these projects in terms of the level of recombination embedded in them
(types of transformative or adaptive space) seems to be related with the nature of the
actors’ interpretations, rather than with the diversity of such interpretations. In both cases,
linking the absence of a recombinant vision among the dominant aspects with the projects
currently being developed, explains the non-existence of seamless recombinant public
places in both cities.
Interpretative flexibility, recombinant spaces and urban-technological strategies in these

cases, showed to have their connections related to the nature of interpretations and the
processes involved with the handling of such interpretations. Together with the
endogenous and exogenous influences, they represent the major obstacles to building an
integrative strategy for urban and electronic spaces.
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CHAPTER 9 - CONCLUSIONS
9.1 CONTRIBUTING TO THE FIELD OF URBAN TECHNOLOGY ......................................................320

9.1.1 The blurriness of ICTs and cities .................................................................................................321
9.1.2 Space, time and technology..........................................................................................................322
9.1.3 The integrated model for the virtual city .....................................................................................323
9.1.4 Understanding the dilemmas of urban-technological strategies..................................................324
9.2 POINTS OF CONSIDERATION FROM TWO CONTRASTING APPROACHES.............................326
9.2.1 Comparing strengths and weaknesses..........................................................................................326
9.2.1.1 Advantages and disadvantages of integrated and coordinated approaches ..................327
9.2.1.2 Advantages and disadvantages of fragmented and uncoordinated approaches ............329
9.2.2 Developing recombinant and symbiotic spaces...........................................................................330
9.2.3 Issues of urban governance ..........................................................................................................333
9.2.4 Policy recommendations: towards an integrative strategy ..........................................................335
9.3 LIMITATIONS OF THIS STUDY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH................337
9.3.1 Cities and urban-technological development as socio-technical artefacts..................................337
9.3.2 ICTs, cities and recombinant spaces ............................................................................................338
9.3.3 Urban-technological strategies and the pervasiveness of ICTs...................................................340
9.3.4 Updating and expanding the findings of this study .....................................................................341
Rodrigo J. Firmino Chapter 9 - Conclusions
9.1 CONTRIBUTING TO THE FIELD OF URBAN TECHNOLOGY
Recently, there has been a growing interest in conceiving and implementing strategies
that embrace the integration of virtual and physical initiatives. It is envisaged that such
strategies will recognise that cities are complex spatial entities being constantly re-
constructed and redefined according to social and political interactions between their
objects, elements and actors.
This interest is related to fostering local urban-technological development, and planning

for such promotion. One of the issues raised during this study was that, while
technologies are created, improved and deployed mainly by the private sector, the public
sector does little to oversee these implementations across the city, and generally fails to
provide alternatives or develop its own initiatives.
At the core of my research project, has been the wish to identify the reasons for this
limited capacity of local authorities to face technological developments. This thesis is
thus intended to complement other studies currently emerging that address the dilemmas
associated with public actions on physical and electronic spaces. The urban planning
discipline was reported as the great absence in this process.
The present study offers a theoretical framework that has proved to be useful and efficient
in the way it covers three major problems involved with public urban-technological
developments, namely:
♦ The blurriness of the relations between ICTs and cities (the paradigm challenge of
relating space, time and telematics technologies).
♦ The challenge of finding a new point of equilibrium between space, time and
technology to explain the immanence of virtual spaces within the traditional
physical urban milieu.
♦ The idea of establishing a more comprehensive typology for what is called the
‘virtual city’, which could also help us better understand urban-technological
strategies and the role of local governments in shaping them.
These three aspects together support the central challenge of this study, which concerns
the dilemmas of integrating strategies for physical and electronic spaces. These three
320
aspects are frequently referred to during the empirical work to establish parameters for
comparison, and to assess the reasons and dilemmas related to the strategies of the cities
of Newcastle and Antwerp.
9.1.1 The blurriness of ICTs and cities
Regarding the blurriness of ICTs and cities, three major aspects were revealed as strongly
influential on the whole process of socially and politically developing the local urban-
technological approaches in Newcastle and Antwerp.
First, the novelty of some characteristics of ICTs when related to space seems to be
responsible for the variety of divergent interpretations and perceptions of what ICTs and
urban-technological strategies mean. Among these characteristics, we might list the
invisibility, pervasiveness, ubiquitousness, and paradoxical complexity and vagueness of
ICTs. As we saw, divergent visions tend to be more difficult to integrate and translate into
initiatives. The way this is done, then, shapes the different structures of project
implementation in both cases.
A second aspect is our particular historical moment, one in which we are still trying to
understand and to live with the faster changing ‘logics’ of the contemporary city.
As we demonstrated in the first theoretical part, in Chapter 2, there is still a lack of

reference points for contemporary space and the post-modern city.
Traditional methods of studying and controlling space, mainly under the influence of
modernist and industrial models of the city are still widely used and applied. This was
evident in both Newcastle and Antwerp, where planners and planning departments are
virtually excluded from the process of planning for the virtual city (urban-technological
strategies). They did not show much interest themselves either.
A third perspective is about the little power of control of the local authorities over the
urban-technological strategies. This aspect was obviously distinct for the two case
studies, due to their different approaches to the issue. Despite this, control over the
strategy and its further developments emerged as a crucial aspect for a possible
democratic approach to integrative urban and technological issues.
321
This also reveals a fragile set of circumstances in which the shape of urban-technological
strategies depend on the way local authorities assume responsibility for adopting either a
defensive or a proactive attitude. In the former, little room for anticipation is allowed, due
to a diminished power of the public sector in overseeing the overall strategy. In the latter,
the public sector has the power to oversee projects and initiatives and foresee possible
long-term impacts of ICTs development in order to take its decisions.
As an amalgam for these three aspects, the Social Construction of Technologies model
(SCOT) works as one of the pillars to sustain that this confusion about the relations
between ICTs and cities configure a social, political and conceptual challenge. The
concept of interpretative flexibility played a central role explaining the different
perceptions about the urban-technological development process.
The analysis of the cases of Newcastle and Antwerp greatly benefited from this concept,
as it helped us to deconstruct and classify actors’ interpretations according to the
dominant technological deterministic aspects present in their discourses.
We saw that the existence of such a phenomenon does not prevent projects being
implemented. We also could not find a direct relation between the existence of
interpretative flexibility and the absence of successful long-term recombinant initiatives.
Instead, we verified that the way local authorities managed and incorporated different
interpretations into ICT initiatives was a differential on the strategic shape of urban
technological development.
9.1.2 Space, time and technology
Ideas of a symbiosis or a recombination between virtual and physical worlds proved

applicable in connection with the second theoretical challenge of this study, that one of
finding a new point of equilibrium between space, time and technology to explain the
immanence of virtual spaces within the traditional physical urban milieu.
Comparing Newcastle to Antwerp, for instance, it was evident that local authorities in
Antwerp could benefit from a much greater level of control over the strategy for ICT
initiatives. This was because of a political and policy system that guarantees some
autonomy for the symbiotic public agency of Telepolis.
322
The legal, political and policy mechanism of integration between traditional urban policy-
making and ICTs policy-making is very representative of this recombinant planning
where space is seen as an amalgam which unites electronic, virtual and digital elements,
among others.
Meanwhile, the fragmented approach in Newcastle still treats ICT initiatives as an alien
phenomenon in terms of public sector strategy, where these initiatives are related to the
economic development and urban regeneration strategies in the city.
According to the theoretical assumptions (outlined in Chapter 3 above), recombinant,

symbiotic and cybernetic spaces are still developing and proliferating, while at the same
time becoming increasingly integrated with physical territory and physical interactions.
Planning and policy-making processes tend to separate these worlds however.
It also became evident that this uncoordinated and divergent evolution of space is not part
of any deliberate action. It seems in fact to be the by-product of many indirectly related
processes and a lack of awareness of officers and local authorities as regards the
importance of integrated urban-technological development. These indirectly related
processes join together to contribute to the social construction of ICTs and virtual cities
(interpreting the virtual city as an artefact which is being introduced and gradually
accepted and absorbed at local contexts).
9.1.3 The integrated model for the virtual city
In terms of the constitution of the virtual city, the three-dimensional structure or typology
proposed was directly influenced by the theoretical discussion put forward in Chapters 2
and 3. Virtual cities were thus considered from the beginning of this study as a complex
conjunct of processes and interactions between actors and interests, virtual
representations and physical manifestations.
This approach adds new elements to the discussion about virtual cities and denies the
restriction of this phenomenon to websites and portals on the Internet. The concepts of a
recombinant or symbiotic city do not allow us to consider cyberspace partially, as merely
an isolated phenomenon. Only with this idea in mind we could realise the importance of
integrative rather than fragmented strategies.
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Again, the case studies showed an evident contrast between the two local virtual cities
constructed, controlled and related to the physical realities of Newcastle and Antwerp.
The interpretations of the two cases according to the three dimensions of actors/interests,
virtuality and physicality were crucial to the process of understanding the strategies as a
whole.
This allowed us to clearly identify the three dimensions for each case according to the
particular development of each strategy and ICT (virtual and physical) initiatives.
Consequently, this approach to the virtual city exposed the two cities’ attitudes towards
urban-technological strategy: a more defensive one for Newcastle, while local authorities
in Antwerp praise themselves for being a model of proactivity and pioneerism in Europe.
9.1.4 Understanding the dilemmas of urban-technological strategies
The three-fold theoretical and two-fold empirical structure of this study made it possible
for us to identify and distinguish different strategies to approaching the constitution of
local virtual cities, and analyse this process according to the recombinant concepts of a
symbiotic and cybernetic space.
SCOT was of paramount importance in establishing and supporting this context. It also
formed a useful tool for explaining the major dilemmas of developing an integrative
methodology aimed at analysing and intervening in the contemporary city, in a way
justified by Castells (1989: 353) as:
If innovative social projects, represented and implemented by renewed

local governments, are able to master the formidable forces unleashed
by the revolution in information technologies, then a new socio spatial
structure could emerge made up of a network of local communes
controlling and shaping a network of productive flows. Maybe then our
historic time and our social space would converge towards the
reintegration of knowledge and meaning into a new Informational City.
Finally, we maintain that the articulation of this particular triad of theoretical values
(SCOT, recombinant spaces and the virtual city) succeeded in supporting the study on the
empirical search for urban-technological strategic and conceptual dilemmas.
This study has also contributed, along with a growing number of publications concerned
with the synergy between physical and electronic spaces, to an emerging sense of the
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contemporary city as a cybernetic or symbiotic entity. Urban space, according to such a

model, is seen as the result of a dialectic process of simultaneous social construction of
physical and virtual places.
At the same time, re-combination is perceived as an ongoing process which is becoming

increasingly embodied, pervasive, ubiquitous and invisible. It is also becoming deeper, in
the sense that telematics technologies are participating ever more intensively in a growing
number of actions, activities and emotions of our daily lives.
In one way or another, these spatial relations will have to emerge in deliberate actions as
well. This study attests to the fact that public interests and civic designs for these actions
are at stake as planners, city-makers and local governments continue to present a blurred
impression about ICTs and the development of the virtual city. As a consequence, there
seems to be an asymmetric knowledge and awareness between the public and the private
sectors regarding the urban and ICTs local development.
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9.2 POINTS OF CONSIDERATION FROM TWO CONTRASTING

APPROACHES
Comparing the two case studies, and taking into consideration their different levels of
maturity in terms of approach to the issues of urban-technological development, certain
advantages and disadvantages can be listed for the models currently in use in Newcastle
and Antwerp. The identification of these advantages and disadvantages will of course
depend on the point of view from which we look at ICTs development.
Obviously, as outlined in Chapters 6, 7 and 8, it is not a question of blindly comparing the

characteristics of each case, and pointing a better or worse scenario: the two cities, after
all, evolved in completely different historical, social, economic and cultural contexts. The
local combinations of social and political aspects played perhaps a highly significant role
in shaping each approach. Moreover, neither represents a finished formal strategy. In the
case of Newcastle, especially, local authorities were seen to be continually seeking deeper
levels of integration and coordination.
We conclude that lessons can be learned if the two cases are put side by side, and
comparisons made in terms of advantages and disadvantages of each model. It is
important to bear in mind however that these comparisons represent a desire to acquire
inspiration for further interventions, rather than to produce a crude measurement of the
difference between the successes and failures of a particular case. It is therefore a
question of taking their strengths and weaknesses into account for further analyses and/or
actions.
9.2.1 Comparing strengths and weaknesses
Bearing in mind the arguments about the recombinant city and recombinant policy-
making across this study, there is a general impression that these notions of space and
governance are favoured by the model of an integrated and centralised strategy, like the
one in Antwerp. It is important to remark thus that this type of comparison is made
bearing in mind an integrative strategy for urban and electronic spaces.
Indeed, after analysing and comparing the cases and interviewing the main actors for
each, there is a noticeable overall advantage to a structured ICTs strategy (not always an
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urban-technological strategy) such as the one coordinated by Telepolis, as against the

unstructured approach in Newcastle. The most visible gains seem to be a general control
over the theme, more successful dissemination of the strategy in terms of integration,
increased general awareness about ICT initiatives, and a more visible relation between
direct costs and benefits of ICT policies and initiatives.
However, it was emphasised that, despite having a more mature configuration and a
highly integrative structure – strongly marked by its own long tradition of technological
pioneerism –, the case of Antwerp is not an exception in terms of the dilemmas and
barriers involved in the social construction of ICTs as a whole.
Uncertainties inherent to the new set of telematics technologies have proved to affect
many of the actors interviewed in Antwerp as well as in Newcastle. The biggest
difference between the two cases, thus, lies in the levels of integration, coordination and
control over their strategies, and also in the way different interpretations are taken into
account.
9.2.1.1 Advantages and disadvantages of integrated and coordinated approaches
Some points regarding the advantages of the integrated model of Antwerp can be
highlighted as follows:
♦ In terms of interpretative flexibility and a possible democratic constitution of the

city strategy for ICTs, integration and coordination increase the chances of taking
into consideration diverse visions, problems and solutions.
♦ The existence of projects and initiatives developed obeying high levels of

integration across the whole city administration and other related institutions. This
allows a better use of ICTs investment, as well as a better interpretation of
technological impacts upon the urban milieu as a whole.
♦ Central coordination by specialised and capable professionals, which can offer

more autonomy and control over ICTs-related decisions (despite the ever-present
risk of a dominance of limited technical-driven visions).
♦ With the constitution of Telepolis, there has been a considerable increase in the
visibility of ICTs, together with their respective initiatives and policies. The
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interests of politicians and of citizens in ICTs, in general, are greater in Antwerp

(in spite of their divergent perceptions and perspectives).
♦ It was also clear that, considering the increasing urban competition for the
stabilisation of local economies through the entrepreneurial city imperative, the
fact of having a central coordination seems to favour the public sector. The
presence of highly qualified and dedicated personnel allows agencies like
Telepolis to constitute a stronger resistance against market forces for the benefit of
public interests, when negotiating public-private partnerships.
♦ Due to a broader awareness of the totality of initiatives, as well as a clear

positioning with regards to a more comprehensive urban-technological strategy,
Telepolis has a better chance in terms of the definition of future activities, new
policies, or even on the comprehension of long-term impacts.
Although presenting many interesting advantages from the point of view of control,
coordination, integration, and diffusion of the strategy, the integrated model is not a
guaranteed success, as it always will depend on the entirety of the social and political
conditions created at the local level. Antwerp also showed some weaknesses, such as:
♦ The implementation of such an integrated strategy always involves a huge

administrative reformulation for the creation of a receptive work environment.
One of the most difficult tasks is the creation of a synergy between city
departments and public institutions.
♦ The speed and depth of the initial impacts or changes can generate internal
conflicts between departments, politicians and civil servants, and a consequent
resistance to the ICTs-dedicated agency.
♦ Every process involved in the implementation and management of such an

influential strategy (which, in fact, involves the re-thinking of urban governance
as a whole) is time-consuming, demands high initial investment and has to be
extremely well planned in order to resist the seasonal political cycles. The initial
investment becomes a big constraint due to the invisibility of immediate benefits.
♦ Finally, perhaps the biggest risk is that of an authoritarian constitution of the

vision for an urban-technological strategy. With such a centralised structure for
ICTs, there is always the risk of different voices in the government and
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interpretative flexibility not being taken into consideration on the implementation

of initiatives. Once again, this does not seem to be the case with Telepolis.
9.2.1.2 Advantages and disadvantages of fragmented and uncoordinated approaches
With reference to the model in use in Newcastle, unlike Antwerp, the number of
weaknesses – again from the point of view of integration, coordination and control over
the technological development – seems to be more noteworthy than the strengths. The
major and relative advantages would be limited to the following:
♦ Different visions and interpretations, at the level of divisions and directorates,

seem to be more likely to be turned into initiatives, although integration with other
visions from different units is lacking.
♦ As it is characterised by a conjunction of more isolated and dispersed changes

across the public administrative structure, changes regarding the modernisation of
the council and the way projects are carried out seem to be more easily accepted
and incorporated into daily activities. It must also be said however that these
transformations were never implemented in the same depth as in Antwerp.
Methods and practices tend to remain the same, with units only having to adapt to
new technological tools. These types of changes seem to happen on a much
smaller scale in Newcastle.
♦ Goals and targets established by the central government tend to be more easily
achieved, although their accomplishment does not necessarily mean that the
initiatives, policies and the entirety of the strategy will succeed and be better
comprehended.
♦ Once again, as the initiatives are mostly developed in relative isolation inside their
original departments, it is easier for the project-leaders and directors to seek
external investment and private sector partners (although there is no guarantee of
better quality of these partnerships because of a lack of overall control).
Finally, with regard to the weaknesses of the approach in use in Newcastle, the following
should be highlighted:
♦ ICTs and related initiatives are only partially comprehended due to a lack of
interest in gaining a deeper understanding. Consequently, the topic is informally
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ranked as secondary or marginal, receiving little attention within the universe of

city council actions and initiatives. Obviously, this creates an inability to deal with
technological changes at different levels. So, projects and initiatives are
misunderstood in terms of their impact, having specific and partial effects against
more complex urban problems.
♦ Absence of a budget entirely dedicated to ICTs and the local strategy. Most of the
funds are independently distributed across the silo structure.
♦ A consequent increase on the risk of duplication of projects and initiatives,

showing a potential misuse of public funds.
♦ As a chain of events and consequences, this also creates a greater dependence on

alternative and external investment, which could result in greater vulnerability to
private sector interests.
♦ Initiatives with wider impacts, eventually dependent on decisions coming from

different departments, tend to delay or be blocked due to a lack of synergy
between the different administrative and governmental units.
♦ As a result, this range of negative aspects makes it more difficult for the public
administration and planners to organise their policies according to long-term
initiatives with influence on different aspects of local communities. The city
therefore has a rather defensive than proactive approach towards ICTs.
9.2.2 Developing recombinant and symbiotic spaces
This study has showed a general tendency of public places to be gradually converted into
spaces made of a combination of new and traditional technologies.
According to some scholars, recombinant spaces are ones that occur where these two
categories of elements intermingle increasingly seamlessly to redefine the way we
conceive, use, plan, and control physical space in cities.
The exploratory typological study of TeleCities (Chapter 5) gave us some clues, and was
complemented by the case studies of Newcastle and Antwerp (Chapters 6 and 7). Both
areas of enquiry suggest that this transformation seems to be taken place, but at a much
slower pace than has sometimes been suggested. We were not able to find in either
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Newcastle or Antwerp, cases of true deep gateways like the ones exemplified in Chapter
3, where the boundaries between physical and virtual space are hard to pinpoint.
The public sector seemed to be always a step behind the private sector and some artistic
experiments in terms of innovations of recombinant space. Comparatively speaking, the
integrated strategy in Antwerp and the greater ability of Telepolis to foresee long-term
projects seems to give its officers more room to think through these new ideas. The
publication Antwerp, an Intelligent City? demonstrates the flexibility that Telepolis
employees have in thinking about future spaces and initiatives.
Further anticipation in terms of projects and initiatives – such as this brochure – may
allow public agencies like Telepolis to catch up with the ideas of spaces built with a
seamless combination of virtual and physical elements.
With regard to interpretative flexibility, it is important to highlight two different types of

connections with the implementation of recombinant spaces, both of which need to be
taken into account in future developments.
First, we saw that the aspect of having a wide range of divergent interpretations inside the
public administration, alone, could not be related to the absence of advanced cases of
recombinant spaces neither in Newcastle or Antwerp. In fact, the existence of such a
variety of visions was not able to prevent ICT initiatives being conceived and developed.
Interpretative flexibility cannot then be treated as a threat to the development of advanced
recombinant projects.
Second, the nature of the interpretations that form this interpretative flexibility seem to
have a more direct impact on the way projects evolve into possible recombinant spaces
than the simply existence of a variety of visions. In this sense, technological determinism
– embedded in most dominant aspects found within actors’ discourses – seemed to be a
bigger barrier than interpretative flexibility per se.
Thus, the blurriness related to the effects of ICTs on cities among actors’ visions is more
problematic for the implementation of recombinant spaces. As we mentioned above, it is
unlikely that advanced initiatives in terms of recombinant concepts would not be
developed if these ideas were part of the visions in the first place. The problem is that
they were not!
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Most of the policy recommendations listed above are probably therefore valid regarding a
potential increase in the awareness around recombinant ideas. But these would need to be
part of the broader urban-technological agenda in each of the points listed. Two further
aspects also need to be taken into account.
First, as we saw, many transformative recombinant projects are developed through the
freedom of artistic experiments. The development of public recombinant initiatives could
thus benefit from the connection between three things: developing cultural and artistic
activities in public areas across the city; increasing knowledge and awareness of
recombinant and symbiotic ideas of space; and developing a test-bed for further initiatives
of this type as part of a broader strategy.
In this way, cultural and artistic installations of transarchitecture could be supported or

commissioned by local authorities in order to spark the synergy between these three
points. First, however, it is necessary that the local authorities themselves become aware
of these trends.
Secondly, special attention has to be paid to the development of wireless and mobile
technologies. These technologies could represent a turning point in the way recombinant
spaces are conceived, planned and implemented. As we mentioned above, there may
come a time when public buildings for accessing the virtual city have become irrelevant,
in a situation where the virtual city could possibly be accessed from anywhere, with no
need for wires.
Finally, we saw that recombinant or symbiotic ideas started to evolve in terms of public
administration and local government. Policy-making, as the case of Antwerp has
demonstrated, may in fact already be exercising new notions of governance.
In the renewing process of paradigms imposed by ICTs to the ideas of space, time and
technology, it is important that planning, architecture and urban design also follow, in
order to make public space compatible with other aspects of contemporary urban life. We
believe that recombinant and symbiotic ideas of space, the broader notion of virtual cities,
and the integrated strategic view of urban-technological development may help the public
sector to catch up with the latest developments in ICTs.
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It is also interesting to notice the similarities between projects once they are implemented,
such as the free access programmes through public buildings, initiatives involving schools
and libraries, street kiosks, e-government agenda, just to name a few. This brings us back
to the typology suggested for the members of TeleCities (reported in Chapter 5).
Similarity in terms of projects is a striking characteristic amongst the mini-cases, even if
compared with Newcastle and Antwerp. This high level of similarities questions the
differentiation of cases in the degree of interplay between physical and virtual spaces.
What then makes these cases different? Do the 6 types of interplay mean an evolutionary
line where type 6 is more advanced than 5 and so on?
As regards the differentiation between the mini-cases, the extension of initiatives and the
level of relationship between virtual and physical projects represent the differences
between the cases. However, perhaps the most important remark about this typological
study is that the types do not represent a rigid hierarchy in terms of evolution of the
initiatives. In this way, each different type ranging from zero to 6, could evolve
differently in terms of implementation, interplay and understanding of physical and
virtual projects. A case type 2, for instance, will not necessarily become a type 3, 4, 5, or
6 in the future, in order to develop successful initiatives of urban technology. There may
be, thus, different trajectories of urban-technological development from one type to
another. These possible diverse trajectories would be directly related to the specific local
conditions, actor-networks, desires and aspirations of each local community.
Therefore, it is even more interesting the way these mini-cases and the case studies
themselves maintain simultaneous similarities and contrasts. Why have different cases
with contrasting contexts, historical and political-economic conditions produced similar
projects on the ground? In the end, it might be a question of urban governance.
9.2.3 Issues of urban governance
We saw that two major similarities coexist with two contrasts in the case studies of
Newcastle and Antwerp, as regards the development of urban-technological strategies.
Similarities refer to the projects implemented and to the dominant aspects of
interpretative flexibility; while contrasts refer to different local conditions and the shape
of the strategies (the way interpretative flexibility is taken into account). We should
therefore ask ourselves what is it that makes that two cases which are differently
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structured and under different local conditions subsequently develop such similarities in
terms of interpretative flexibility and projects.
This seems to be related to urban governance as a whole. In terms of the projects, the
most conspicuous ones are well-known and publicised cases of urban propaganda in the
race for the ‘innovative city’. It is not a surprise that cities try to develop very similar
projects to compete for funds and inward investments against each other.
Economic development and urban competitiveness play an important part on determining

how local authorities will approach and develop certain subjects. In this case, ICTs have
proven to be a golden key ‘to be in the short-list of a company that wants to invest
abroad’, as De Gersem remarks in the case of Antwerp. The discourses then could not be
different, resulting in similar dominant aspects for the interpretative flexibility of both
cases.
So, what would be considered a differentiator for cities in times of economic development
and urban competition? I believe that Antwerp represents a much stronger case in this
sense as this city includes technological development and ICTs in the agenda of urban
development. Integration seems to be a better option to avoid strategies being over-
concentrated on economic development.
For listening to the different departments in the city and being closely related to the city
administration, Telepolis in Antwerp incorporates problems and solutions of other social
groups to its own vision of urban-technological development. Although none of these
groups figures as a major player within the city-wide strategy itself, they feel themselves
represented by the vision of Telepolis. This is the case of the planning department, for
instance. We saw that this department does not relate to the ICTs strategy in any
particular way, but that they said to be considered by Telepolis on what they understand is
their role in urban technology (even if it seems to be restricted to GIS applications).
The strategic model based on integration and centralisation of urban-technological

policies with the support of a dedicated agency appears to offer more possibilities of
realisation for the public interests on the implementation of ICT initiatives.
However, as remarked before, the implementation of such strategy does not, by itself,
guarantee either a successful result or the austerity of the implementation and
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management of ICT policies, let alone real comprehension of the extension of the related
phenomena. Local and historical conditions also play a decisive role in defining the
urban-technological strategy.
The benefits of having an integrated and coordinated approach are summed up in new
possibilities and a certain flexibility in the decision-making process after an initial
traumatic period of implementation. Yet, most importantly, it also means a better
positioning of the local authorities with regard to administrative transparency, public
participation, and reflection upon future actions and impacts.
In SCOT terms, we may go so far as to suggest that this also helps the achievement of a
more even balance of different interpretations for the use and development of ICTs. To a
certain extent, integration and coordination may facilitate the process of incorporation of
divergent visions into a city-wide urban-technological strategy. Ultimately, this could
lead to initiatives which are influenced by many aspects of urban life, rather than being
over-concentrated on economic development, for example.
9.2.4 Policy recommendations: towards an integrative strategy
In order to bring about the implementation of these integrated and coordinated urban-
technological strategies, and also ease the process of social absorption of ICTs by local
communities, a list of policy recommendations could be considered, such as:
♦ First of all, it is extremely important to create a general awareness and

comprehension of all issues related to ICTs policy and strategy. This could be
facilitated by public forums, meetings, and conferences both within and beyond
the city administration. Efforts must be made to overcome the limitations of
visions based on technological determinism. It is to be hoped that these awareness
forums may help to create a more receptive and mature environment for the
acceptance of new paradigms of the virtual city and the network society.
♦ The concepts and impacts linked to the implementation of the urban-technological

initiatives must be analysed on the basis of their strategic and structural relevance,
rather than their immediate and conjectural effects.
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♦ Every aspect of this social construction of information and communication

technologies must be considered (economic, political, social, cultural, spatial or
aesthetic), avoiding partial and limited actions.
♦ A special public body could be created to inspect and coordinate the

implementation of the whole strategy according to the principles of public interest.
♦ It is important to maintain high levels of integration and synergy between

departments and the ICT-dedicated agency (perhaps with some crucial spatial
responsibilities delegated to the planning department).
♦ A clear differentiation must be made between the ‘areas of impact’ (economic,

spatial, cultural etc.) for every initiative. This would increase the visibility of the
effects and results related to ICTs;
♦ A think-tank internal division of the ICT-dedicated body could help to reflect and
give advice on long-term impacts and projects.
♦ Auditions and self-assessments must be carried out and discussed with citizens,
civil servants and decision-makers. This would avoid interpretative flexibility
being reduced to a few dominant visions which do not represent the whole of the
local government and city.
We must make it absolutely clear that this is not and should not be a ‘formula’ or ‘recipe’
for the implementation of a strategy or initiative. The points highlighted above are
considerations to be taken into account during a process of implementation related to an
integrated view of urban and technological issues. Fundamental to all of these points is
the avoidance of technological determinism and separated, isolated, or limited strategies
and visions.
We fundamentally believe in the existence of the virtual city as an artefact socially and
politically constructed by different local societies. In this sense, it is up to each one of
these local spatial, social, political and cultural configurations to dialectically define its
own virtual city, and the way informational cities will be in terms of accessibility,
democracy and public physical and electronic spaces.
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9.3 LIMITATIONS OF THIS STUDY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR FURTHER

RESEARCH
Although this research has shed some light on the field of interplay between urban studies
and new technologies – commonly referred to as urban technology – this phenomenon is
still far from being fully comprehended, especially insofar as it relates to ICTs.
Technological development is a well studied field, just as it is urbanity.
Little progress has been observed in the intersection of these two knowledge areas from
the point of view of critical constructivist approaches. This can be said to be partially due
to the intensity of this novel relationship (technologies have always affected urban life,
but never with the speed and pervasiveness of ICTs).
Therefore, although this study has provided clues to the answers to some initial relevant
questions, it has also unveiled new challenges and new questions which demand further
investigation. Four major aspects could possibly complement the present study and help
identify potential fields of further research.
9.3.1 Cities and urban-technological development as socio-technical artefacts
First, the use of SCOT to investigate urban phenomena is a growing method of approach.
Further studies could investigate the whole range of urban or urban-technological
developments as socially constructed entities. This has been done before, but is still an
open field for Social Sciences. The work of Aibar and Bijker (1997) pioneers such an
approach, with the authors interpreting urban planning as a form of technology, and the
city of Barcelona as an artefact.
Another suitable expansion of this project might thus be one involving more social groups
and exploring more directly the articulations of different interpretations of urban-
technological initiatives. As an example, groups and actors outside the local government
and policy-making sphere could be considered. Citizens could be involved.
Evolving from the dominant aspects identified here, further studies could investigate
more deeply the phenomenon of interpretative flexibility. An important unexplored
approach would be to look through the nets of visions and relationships which form the
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complex structure of finding problems and solutions (problematising) related to urban

technology.
The present study has certainly contributed to a recent body of work stressing the role of
interpretative flexibility within public policy-making directed towards urban-
technological development. We have argued that the way social groups manage
interpretative flexibility is crucial in defining the shape of local strategies relating ICTs
and urban issues. At the same time, we have stressed that the existence of interpretative
flexibility need not and does not serve alone as a limitation in the implementation of ICT
initiatives.
Further studies could benefit from these starting points and deepen the comprehension of
interpretative flexibility further by studying the nature of visions and interpretations in the
social construction of urban technological strategies, as well as the ways they are
negotiated by the relevant social groups.
9.3.2 ICTs, cities and recombinant spaces
A second issue addressed by this study that could be explored further is the different
degrees of relation between ICTs and cities, together with a parallel development of
recombinant spaces. By different degrees of relationship, we mean different levels of
comprehension, interpretations, and actions regarding telematics technologies and urban
issues.
For instance, we saw that in certain aspects, ICTs and policy-making and even
governance relate to one another differently from ICTs and urban planning. More detail
about the relationship between ICTs and cities would certainly add to many points raised
in this research.
We demonstrated that in the two cases studied, ICT initiatives are strongly influenced and
designed within the context of policy-making and governance. In Antwerp, the 6-year
political agreement and operational plan of Telepolis seem to be good examples of an
urban-technological strategy of recombinant governance. Planning did not seem to sustain
a solid and close relation with this type of strategy however.
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Historically, Aibar and Bijker (1997) argue that planning and constructivist studies of
urban technologies maintain only a distant interconnection:
Nevertheless, a particular subject still seems do be left aside: the actual

shape of the city did not receive much attention in most of these studies
[constructivist approaches for urban-technology]. Town planning is not
included among the ‘hard’ technologies worthy of study, and the city
itself remains a mere unproblematic physical/social locus for their
implementation. (Aibar and Bijker, 1997: 6)
This distance between ICTs development and urban planning could be analysed critically
within an approach that considers the different visions from planning officers and from
other ICT entrepreneurs in the city. This could be also related to a kind of recombinant
planning in which conventional methods intermingle with new interpretations of the
contemporary space.
In turn, this could open the door to studies focused on the development of recombinant
public spaces. This research has indicated that recombinant spaces are being developed
and considered as public places, but that these spaces do not yet relate clearly to seamless
transformative recombinant design (such as the art or transarchitecture works of Lars
Spuybroek, discussed in Chapter 3, above).
Reflecting this need for further research in this area, Andrew Gillespie concludes his
paper, Digital Lifestyles and the Future City, arguing:
We are left to conclude that planners have yet to develop the awareness,
let alone the expertise or appropriate policy intervention mechanisms,
that would enable them to influence the spatial development of a digital
society. Somebody might be ‘planning’ the future digital city – the
telecommunications companies perhaps? – but it certainly doesn’t seem
to be planners! (Gillespie, 2002: 71)
Further work is clearly needed in the field of symbiotic and recombinant spaces, their
development as public places, their relation with interpretative flexibility, and the
involvement of possible future recombinant planning with urban-technological
development.
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9.3.3 Urban-technological strategies and the pervasiveness of ICTs
Throughout the course of this thesis, I have repeatedly stressed that ICTs, especially when
related to urban issues, are a phenomenon simultaneously complex and vague. There is
not much certainty about the exact extent to which local authorities are deploying ICTs
alongside traditional urban projects or policies. Politicians, officers and civil servants in
general, seem to be puzzled by the blurred characteristics that the very acronym ICTs
represents. This fact alone lends considerable scope for high levels of interpretative
flexibility. City-makers do not know where exactly to look for inspiration, what they are
going to implement, and what the outcomes of such developments will be.
At the same time, the whole range of technologies called ICTs become increasingly
invisible, intangible, and pervasive. Space is becoming more and more cybernetic, as we
saw in Chapter 3. In the very interesting Immanent Domain, Dana Cuff (2003) discusses a
phenomenon she calls ‘pervasive computing’, but which can actually be related to ICTs
as a whole. Chief among the features of these pervasive technologies, are invisibility,
mobility and power control (in many circumstances like controlling people, controlling
the built environment, controlling devices, etc.).
In addition, notions of the ‘aterritorial city’ (Painter, 2001), the ‘infinite city’ (Skeates,
1997), the ‘transmissible city’ (Crang, 2000), and the ‘networked city’ (Batten, 1995;
Drewe, 1998; Townsend, 2003) relate these features of ICTs to the very idea of urbanity.
Therefore, relating the fast development of such technologies with the uncertainty and
interpretative flexibility about their implementation within an urban agenda, a contrasting
scenario is in formation. The important question is: how can urban-technological
strategies take into consideration characteristics such as fast development, pervasiveness,
invisibility, mobility, and power control, typically associated to ICTs? How do these
characteristics influence the production of public spaces?
This is, to a certain extent, very closely related to the issue raised in the previous sub-
section (‘ICTs, cities and recombinant spaces’). The role of architects and urban planners
is deeply affected by the combined development of ICTs and the production of built
environments. As we saw, this issue has not as yet received adequate attention from the
relevant professionals.
340
Therefore, the future development of space according to the increasing pervasiveness of

new telematics technologies is a theme which deserves more attention and further
research.
The challenges facing local authorities and city-makers may in fact be the same for urban
studies. Besides the preoccupation with keeping pace with the most advanced
technologies, there is a more difficult and important task. Further research will have the
responsibility of analysing the impacts of pervasive technologies upon the production of
urban space and policies, within the context of the Social Construction of Technologies.
Thus, an interesting question to be further investigated would be: what are the
implications of incredibly rapid technological changes – especially wireless, mobile,
ubiquitous computing, and seamless integration of ICTs and urban environments – for
city-wide urban-technological strategies?
9.3.4 Updating and expanding the findings of this study
Finally, although many similarities have been found between the exemplary mini cases
discussed in the exploratory typology and the case studies of Newcastle and Antwerp, we
saw that specific circumstances have a determining role in shaping and motivating each
approach to ICTs and urban issues.
Specific historical or geographical facts were crucial in the process of social construction
of the individual urban-technological strategies in Newcastle and Antwerp. In this way,
urban-technological studies could only benefit from the expansion of this research to
other contexts and realities around the world.
Further research could involve different contexts from the ones used in this project
(represented by Newcastle and Antwerp), where the studies of space, cities and
technology could be improved under the concept of interpretative flexibility and the
theory of SCOT.
For instance, this research critically analysed two different realities and different
circumstances, but within the same broader context: the European Union. So, what would
have happened if a third case from a developing or poor country had also been studied?
Would interpretative flexibility be as a strong player as it is in Newcastle and Antwerp?
341
Could recombinant initiatives be considered in the same way within such a different
context?
These and other similar questions could certainly be put forward to enrich and diversify
the findings of the present study.
Parallel to this expansion, future updates may seem necessary, such as the influence of
mobile and wireless technologies on need for dedicated recombinant building connecting
virtual and traditional cities.
Similarly, the strategies studied are ongoing developments. Their full comprehension may
benefit from further studies. For example, what will the increasing regional
competitiveness in Europe and the increasing number of public-private partnerships mean
for the future of integrative urban-technological strategies? How will the public sector
participate in the social construction of these strategies?
A more general implication, would be further application of the recommendations raised

earlier in this chapter (section 9.2), to ‘real cases’. This would probably represent, as this
study already does, the advance on both the academic fields of urban-technological
studies and the practical fields of urban-technological policy-making and planning.
342
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351

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DECLARATION

CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION: TRACING THE CONNECTION BETWEEN ICTs AND CITIES

CHAPTER 2 - THE BLURRINESS OF ICTs DEVELOPMENT: CHALLENGING TRADITIONAL

CHAPTER 3 - VIRTUAL CITIES OR SYMBIOTIC URBANISATION? DEFINING CRUCIAL

CHAPTER 4 - METHODOLOGY: DESIGNING AN EXPLORATORY RESEARCH

CHAPTER 5 - RECOMBINANT EXPERIENCES IN EUROPE: TOWARDS AN EXPLORATORY

CHAPTER 6 - IDENTIFYING URBAN-TECHNOLOGICAL STRATEGIES I: NEWCASTLE, A

CHAPTER 7 - IDENTIFYING URBAN-TECHNOLOGICAL STRATEGIES II: ANTWERP, AN

CHAPTER 8 - PREPARING THE FIELD FOR RECOMBINANT PLANNING: NEWCASTLE

1.1 CITIES AND THE RAPIDLY-CHANGING WORLD OF ICTs...............................................................2

1.1 CITIES AND THE RAPIDLY-CHANGING WORLD OF ICTs

It is increasingly difficult, if not impossible, for nation states to

The ubiquitousness of ICTs and the parallel development of transportation links

This possibility of a virtual urbanisation, reinforced by physical links, serves to emphasise

As a result, manufacturing activities are now completely decentralised. Splintered across

♦ Deindustrialisation of important regional centres of the modernist industrial era.

♦ Increased growth of urbanised areas, forming complex and fragmented

The approach I have taken is supported by the Theory of Social Construction of

understanding some of the dilemmas presented to local authorities by the socio-technical

1.2 THE AIMS AND STRUCTURE OF THIS STUDY

Secondly, I aim to gain an insight into planning and implementation of ICT-related

Chapter 2 concludes with a comprehensive literature review which introduces some

Chapter 5 is concerned with the exploratory study on TeleCities (a European consortium

Chapters 6 and 7 respectively correspond to the narratives of the case studies of

2.1 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................................11

The massive diffusion of new information and communication technologies – especially

This complex theoretical analysis will be supplemented by Chapter 3, which presents a

2.2 PARADIGM CHALLENGES: UNDERSTANDING ICTs AND SPACE

Systems of objects and systems of actions interplay with each other. On

In addition, and partly as a consequence, there is currently a significant challenge to urban

2.2.1 The ‘slipperiness’ of ICTs

Pragmatically, this sometimes results in local authorities and planners experiencing

2.2.1.1 Invisibility and intangibility

Urban studies and policy tend to be dominated by a concern with the

In contrast to motorization that completely altered the urban scene, IT

In contrast, developments regarding telecommunications are perceived only if they

These challenges directly contribute to city-makers’ lack of awareness about virtually

2.2.1.2 Conflicts between traditional and new infrastructures and services

Many city planners and managers do not even know what

A range of new ‘electronic’ opportunities, from unconventional ways of delivering

A sort of ‘benchmarking’ seems to be a common strategy for public administrations keen

2.2.2 Conceptual complexity and vagueness about ICTs and cities

With no stable reference-point to facilitate understanding of the new conditions of space

Expressions like tele-port, cyber-space, cyber-café, super-highway, web-sites, to name

Too often […] the pervasive reliance on spatial and technological

2.2.2.1 Space, time and cities

increasingly shrinking by the development of more efficient technologies of

Traditionally architecture was place-bound, linked to a condition of

The organisation of urban space is directly affected by the changes in distances.

Paradoxically, it [information technology] appears to centralise as well

The establishment of large urban enclaves, whose evident purpose is

Traditional ideas of discrete cities in hierarchies, with insides and

Many of the above-mentioned tendencies of spatial organisation and spatial paradigms

2.2.2.2 Approaching and understanding ICTs within urban studies

Finally, our survey attempted to elucidate local perceptions on future

a. The perspective of substitution and transcendence.

b. The perspective of co-evolution.

c. The theoretical perspective of recombination.

a. Technological determinism: good or evil?

The technological-determinist discourse forms an attractively simple way to establish the

Two broader hypotheses govern technological determinism. On one side is a discourse

Environmentally, telecommuting is also claimed to offer benefits by