Networks and neighbourhoods: Household, community and sovereignty in the global economy

New forms of information and communication technology are linking the house hold to an increasingly complex public realm of formal and informal, spatia l and non-spatial relationships. Increasingly, households in both `advanced ' and `developing' regions are simultaneously sites of production and consu mption, exhibiting characteristics of both pre- and post-industrial societi es. A simplistic division between public and private realms is being supers eded by a complex `layering' through class and gender relations. It is not just the unskilled or elite sectors of the labour market who are obliged to trade their labour across regional and national boundaries (whether throug h physical migration or through communication networks). Middle-range playe rs are finding themselves competing in a globalised arena of outsourcing, d ownsizing and home-based self-employment contracting. Melvin Webber's view of `community without propinquity' is used to examine some of the social, p olitical and economic implications of this situation for intelligent urban planning.