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Local and Global: Cities in the Network Society 1 LOCAL AND GLOBAL: CITIES IN THE NETWORK SOCIETY 1 MANUEL CASTELLS Department of City and Regional Planning, University of California, Berkeley, 228 Wurster Hall, Berkeley, California 94720. E-mail: [email protected] Received: October 2001 Over the past year or so, I have expanded my networking, but the specific kind of power work in both areas of my current research. networking that works through information I have explored deeper the interaction be- technology. This power networking is chang- tween information technology and society, ing the way we perceive, organise, manage, some outcomes of which have recently been produce, consume, fight and counter-fight – published on the internet (Castells 2001). embracing practically all dimensions of social I have also continued my analysis of spatial life. The interaction between the revolution in transformation through an interdisciplinary information technology, the process of global- approach to the problems of cities and isation, and the emergence of networking as regions. This paper summarises my current the predominant social form of organisation ideas for research on urban transformation. constitutes a new social structure: the network society. As we know, industrial society has had INTRODUCTION: THE NETWORK many different social, cultural and institu- SOCIETY tional manifestations. Likewise, the network society has many different manifestations, To begin I explore two sets of relationships – depending on country, culture, history and that between the local and the global, and that institutions. between certain dimensions of identity and func- However, some basic commonalities emerge tionality as they impinge on spatial forms – when we consider specific features of this and will try to show how they interact in the network society. This paper focuses on one spatial transformation of the information society. of the dimensions of this transformation. To Some people call this the network society – some extent, it may be conceptualised under and I do the same myself, for conceptual and the notion of the network society. The dimen- analytical reasons that are explained below. sion is the spatial transformation. It is a funda- We are indeed living in a period of historical mental dimension – and always has been, all transformation. In my analysis, this process through the world – of the growth process that involves the interaction of three features that, we know as structural change. In that regard, though distinct, are related to each other. The I believe we need a theory of spatial forms and first is the revolution in information technology processes, which can be adapted to the new that started in the 1970s and then expanded social, technological and spatial context in all over the world. The second is the process of which we live. globalisation, which incidentally is not only Here, I formulate some elements of this economic. There has also been globalisation theory. In the main, I build my theories from of the media, as well as cultural and political the bottom up. I try to practice grounded globalisation, etc. The third feature is the theory, thus, I try to build analytical frame- emergence of a new form of organisation that works that could be used as tools for empirical I call networking. This is not just any kind of research. First, I give a brief overview of what Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie – 2002, Vol. 93, No. 5, pp. 548–558. # 2002 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden MA 02148, USA LOCAL AND GLOBAL: CITIES IN THE NETWORK SOCIETY 549 I see as the emerging spatial trends at this space is constantly being remodelled and hesitant beginning of the twenty-first century. reconstructed by the transformation of the Then I offer a tentative theoretical interpreta- communication, transportation and telecom- tion of these spatial trends. Subsequently, munications systems. I will highlight the main issues arising in cities Many years ago, the Dutch invented the and in the theory of cities in the information Randstad. By now, almost everybody believes age. Particular emphasis is placed on the key in the Randstad, everybody except people in theme of this paper, namely the crisis of cities the Netherlands. Maybe they are starting to and of the city as a socio-spatial system of experience a real Randstad now. It may not cultural communication. I conclude by point- necessarily be what it was defined as by spatial ing out some implications of my analysis for planners. Instead, the Randstad is the articu- planning and urban policy. lation of this country in a vast agglomeration As usual in my work, this will be very that is linked to Germany and all the neigh- sketchy. I hope that further discussion will bouring countries. It is linked to an entire provide further enlightenment both for you European network of fast transportation. The and me. area contained within two hours transporta- tion time from Amsterdam, Rotterdam, or KEY SPATIAL PROCESSES Utrecht accommodates a huge population. I would not say that everybody in that area is Let me first identify the key spatial processes functionally linked. But large segments of the of the early twenty-first century. First, I think population are. Many others are linked partly we are rapidly moving in the direction of to this region and partly to an adjacent one. an urbanised world. We are about to cross a Interestingly, what the automobile could not critical threshold: half of the population of entirely accomplish in Europe, the fast train is this planet will soon be living in cities. Reliable doing. Europe is emerging as a set of major projections state that by mid century, between metropolitan regions, which are at the same two-thirds and three-quarters of the total time strongly interlinked. The same phenom- population will be living in ‘some kind’ of enon may be observed all over the world. urban agglomeration. And the critical ques- The work by Scott and other geographers tion is, which kind? Certainly we will not be at the University of California, Los Angeles, living in the countryside as we now know it. shows that there is a new Southern Californian We may be living in urbanised villages, ‘metropolis’, as it is called (Scott 1996). It though. This is one of the most important extends at least 150 miles from north to south, forms of rapid urbanisation, particularly in and goes into Mexico. Tijuana is part of it, developing countries. This process of urban- and so it is a transnational city, although the isation is concentrated disproportionately – largest Mexican city in this conurbation is Los and increasingly so – in metropolitan areas Angeles – LA has four million people who are of a new kind. These urban constellations originally from Mexico. The San Francisco Bay are scattered throughout huge territorial ex- Area is a different kind of animal with other panses. Gottmann’s megalopolis was some- characteristics. In terms of the actual labour what reconstructed (Gottman 1961). Today, market, there are 7.5 million people living and we have not only metropolitan areas but also working in that area. San Francisco is no big ‘metropolitan regions’, and these are very longer the largest city in the Bay Area. This is special indeed. They are a mix of cities, San Jose, with a population of one million, countryside, centre, and periphery – they are versus 750,000 in San Francisco. not necessarily part of one urban continuity. An empirical definition of what a real Some people call them edge cities, others call conurbation is has changed for the USA, at them conurbations. I think all these terms least. It used to be the telephone network, but belie the novelty of the process. And that now, with the internet, it has become global so novelty lies in the ability to connect function- you do not have any specificity. Now, it is the ally a huge number of people and activities television market. What the television station throughout a large expanse of space. That considers as their market, that is the city. But # 2002 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG 550 MANUEL CASTELLS it is not a city, of course; it is a market link to different from physical communities in a world a connection between residential and working in which the internet has become a key com- places. In really big cities – not little European munication mode. We have both online and conurbations – in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, off-line social interaction, creating a hybrid Macau, Zhuhai, and the other cities of the pattern of sociability. Something else that Pearl River delta, all the way to Canton, about should be emphasised – though not a spatial 65 million people work and live in a highly phenomenon, it does have extraordinary con- interrelated functional area. Certainly not sequences for spatial structure and dynamics – everybody does everything in that area, of is the crisis in the patriarchal family. This has course. Take Japan – the conurbation of different manifestations depending on the Tokyo, Yokohama and Nagoya (now function- culture and the level of economic develop- ally extended to include Kobe and Osaka, and ment. This crisis gradually shifts sociability Kyoto to a large extent) is another huge urban from family units, in the traditional sense, to constellation. networks of individualised units. Most often, This is the kind of phenomenon I do not these are made up of women and their call a city; my current term is metropolitan children in relationship to other women with region (which cannot be more than a pro- their children, but these units may also consist visional one until we find a serious empirical of all kinds of individualised cohabitation part- interpretation of what is going on).
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