The Internet and the rise of the new network cities, 1969-1999

The recent rapid growth of the Internet has avoided scrutiny from urban pla nners as little information is available from which to assess its impacts o n cities and regions. As a result, explanations of the relationship between telecommunications and urban growth are overly simplistic, forecasting eit her the centralization of decisionmaking in so-called 'global' cities or wh olesale urban dissolution. Based on two measurements of Internet geography- domain name registrations and backbone networks-this study finds that acces s to advanced communications technologies have broadly diffused across a wi de group of medium-sized and large-sized metropolitan areas. Finally, the i mplications of these findings suggest a need to rethink global cities and a practical need to address the growing divide between network cities and th e rest of the urban world.