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 (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 . 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 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). It is a nerships. This has extraordinary consequences new kind of urbanised agglomeration that we for the uses and forms of housing, neighbour- are generating. These magnets of economic, hoods, public space and transportation systems. cultural, political and urban growth are ab- This crisis coincides with changes in the sorbing more and more of their population business world. Here, we see the emergence and activities in their hinterland. In fact, they of the network enterprise as a new form of become nodes in global networks of cities. economic activity, which is a highly decentral- Indeed, advanced telecommunications, the ised yet co-ordinated form of network. At the internet, and fast computerised transportation same time, we see the emergence of decentral- systems (I remind you that planes, trains, and ised and co-ordinated management patterns. ships are all computerised transportation This network enterprise is not a network of systems) allow for a simultaneous spatial con- enterprises. Rather, it consists of enterprises centration in huge areas and thus for decentral- that are internally organised as networks and isation. Therefore these systems are introducing then connected with other networks of other a new geography of networks and urban nodes enterprises. The network enterprise has very throughout the world, throughout countries, substantial spatial consequences. The most between metropolitan areas and within metro- important is a return to the work-living ar- politanareas.Thisisthenewurbangeography. rangements of the pre-industrial age or of the period of industrial craft work. Interestingly, CURRENT SOCIAL PROCESSES these arrangements for working and living in the same place often take over the old indu- On the social side, there is a trend for social strial spaces, transforming them into infor- relationships to be characterised simultaneously mational production sites. For instance, in San by two processes: individuation (not individual- Francisco’s multi-media gulch, the city’s last isation but the building of meaning vis-a`-vis remaining industrial buildings were trans- the individual project) and communalism. Both formed into spaces for multi-media produc- processes use spatial patterning and online tion sites. What is multi-media? Manufacturing communication. Individuation is both spatial or services? It is both! It is the production and virtual: physical proximity and online of dreams, which is the most powerful form connectivity. The same applies to communal- of manufacturing in our world. It is a very ism: virtual communities and physical com- material production in many ways, but it is munities develop in close interaction. We now software, so it is informational production. It have enough empirical research to go beyond is a different kind of manufacturing. It is a these fantasies about virtual communities being production organised in terms of the people

# 2002 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG LOCAL AND GLOBAL: CITIES IN THE NETWORK SOCIETY 551 living there, working there and socialising principle, because the commercial pressures there. And whether we refer to experiences and the globalisation of tourism and business in London, Tokyo, Beijing, Taipei, Barcelona travel are mimicking urban life in many cities or Helsinki, we find exactly the same kind of rather than actually rebuilding urban space. work-living arrangements in the advanced Many public spaces around the world – and software-based industries. thus in your cities too – are also being trans- Urban areas around the world, another key formed into theme parks, where symbols trend, are becoming increasingly multi-ethnic rather than experience create a life-size urban and multicultural. This is an old theme of the virtual reality. Ultimately it is the next best Chicago School, but I would say it is now thing to being projected in the media and amplified in terms of its extremely diverse then selling the city. In that sense, the Las racial composition. (I will come back to the Vegas phenomenon – building all the greatest analytical implications of this matter later.) cities in the world in Las Vegas – can also Another trend is that the global criminal be reproduced, whereby the greatest cities of economy is local at the same time. It is solidly the world become Las Vegas themselves. It is rooted in the local urban fabric. The cities are a consequence of the commercialisation of being taken over in many ways by this global public space, of the massive diffusion, and of criminal economy. In other words, the global the suburban and exurban sprawl. criminal economy does not start from local- On the other hand, it is a consequence of ities and depressed areas. It is a global the increasing individualisation, whereby, as business that penetrates the urban areas in Galliano has proposed, consumption items different ways. It reaches into the poor ghettos become individually appropriated. Thus, you but at the same time also links up to money- have individualisation of the residential and laundering and other activities. The break- work experience, on the one hand, and indi- down of communication patterns between vidualisation of the consumption of the city, individuals and between cultures is another on the other. All in all, the new urban world major trend. This leads to the emergence of seems to be dominated by a double move- defensive spaces, which are in fact at the root ment: inclusion in trans-territorial networks of the formation of sharply segregated areas: and exclusion by the spatial separation of gated communities for the rich, territorial places. The higher the value of people and turfs for the poor. places, the more they are connected in inter- active networks; the lower their value, the THE CHANGING NATURE OF PUBLIC lower their connectivity. In extreme cases, SPACE some of the places are by-passed by the new geography of networks. This is indeed what At the same time, in reaction to the trends of happens in depressed rural areas around suburban sprawl, major metropolisation and the world, in declining regions, or in urban individualisation of residential patterns, urban shantytowns. Then the infrastructure of these centres and public space become critical ex- networks – not only of communication net- pressions of local life. As I will show later, this works, but also of water, electricity, roads, or is in fact a reaction and an interaction. But for advanced communication systems – reinforces the moment, I am still going down the list of this segregation. The work recently published what we can observe on the surface in terms by Graham and McMahon on splintering of spatial transformation. In other words, urbanism clearly shows how these spatial and public space is really critical. In most planning social trends towards splintering spaces are in projects everywhere in the world, the revital- fact materially articulated and reproduced in isation of urban life and of the city as a com- the design of telecommunication infrastruc- municative space has become paramount. In tures. In this way, the world is not socially fact, it is becoming the most salient selling segregated simply by the market or by people device for private residential development. In moving or not moving. It is also segregated by principle, support for the vitality of public the spatial layering of major communication space is still a major trend. I say only in infrastructures – for example, where you have

# 2002 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG 552 MANUEL CASTELLS fast internet access or not, where you have fibre- able to input the overall process, but with optic cable or not, where you have advanced added value because of their capacity to transportation systems or not. In Europe, the represent citizens at a closer range. localities by-passed by the high-speed trains However, in any case, this is work in are being segregated. progress. For the moment, what we observe is an increasing gap between the actual unit of THE EMERGENCE OF THE NETWORK working and living in the metropolitan region STATE on the one hand, and the mechanism of political representation and public adminis- The constitution of these mega-metropolitan tration on the other. In this context, urban regions without a name, without a culture, and social movements have not disappeared by any without institutions weakens the mechanism means; they have merely mutated, essentially of political accountability, of citizen participa- around two main lines. The first is the defence tion, and of effective management. In other of the local community affirming the right to words, there is increasing contradiction be- live in a particular place and to benefit from tween the actual spatial unit and the institutions adequate housing and urban services in that of political representation and metropolitan place. The second, and I would say probably management. On the other hand, however, the most proactive, is the environmental move- local governments in the age of globalisation ment. It acts on the quality of cities within the emerge as flexible institutional factors that are broader goal of achieving a better quality of able to react, to adapt more quickly to global life. The environmental movement is not simply trends. In fact, the dynamics of globalisation a movement for a better life but for a different do not eliminate local governments. Rather, life. In that sense, it is as much a cultural globalisation enhances their role and the ability movement as it is a traditional urban economy- of local authorities to get closer to the needs of oriented movement. their community. In other words, if you cannot In my view, these are the main spatial control the world, you shrink it to the size of trends. They are based on pure observation your community so you can manage it a little and certainly can be challenged by different bit better. Actually, you cannot control it at observations. But this is what I would distil the national level either. The rebuilding of from my observation of current changes world- networks of co-operation between institutions wide in terms of the spatial transformation. can proceed faster and go deeper on the basis Let me try to make sense of what is going on of legitimacy. As all surveys show around the with the help of some concepts that bring the world, whatever is left of political legitimacy, discussion to a more analytical level. which is not much, is left mainly at the local level. So, a new form of state emerges. AN ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK More and more, I see this to some extent as a confirmation of the very tentative hypoth- I think that the transformation of cities in the esis posed in my trilogy. That is what I call network society can be organised – in terms of the network-state. It does not make the the building blocks of a new theory – around nation-state disappear. Rather, it integrates three bipolar axes. The first relates to func- the supranational institutions that are made tion, the second to meaning, and the third to up of national governments, nation-states, inter- form. Functionally speaking, the network national institutions, regional governments, society is organised around the opposition local governments, and NGOs (which are between the global and the local. Dominant citizen representative organisations). In this processes in the economy, in technology, the particular network configuration, the network- media and authority are organised largely in state becomes the actual institution that is global networks. But day-to-day work, private managing cities and regions in our context. In life, cultural identity, and political participa- that sense, local governments become a node tion are essentially local and territorial. Now, in the chain of institutional representation cities as communication systems that work and management. The local authorities are throughout history are supposed to link up

# 2002 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG LOCAL AND GLOBAL: CITIES IN THE NETWORK SOCIETY 553 the global and the local. But that is exactly The network-state relates to the grassroots, where the problem starts. Cities are in fact to the people themselves. Remember, since being torn by these two conflicting logics that Gramsci onwards, civil society was always seen destroy the city as a sociospatial communica- in relationship to the state. That’s what makes tion system when they try to simultaneously civil society interesting. That’s what organises respond to logic. What does this mean? Well, an autonomous transition from the organis- it means that if you organise your spatial ation of people in society to the institutions planning to create a competitive city in global of the state. So, civil society is not the contrary networks, maybe you are going to put your of a state. It is the complement of a state. It resources – economic, technical, institutional is the bridge towards the state, in the original – where they will trickle down to the popula- Gramscian theory and as it has been devel- tion, the neighbourhood. They may sponsor oped by others from there. But again, in the expression of cultural identity later on; for general, people tend to think the contrary. the moment, they can organise a street party So, in a more modern formulation: the civil once a year. Now, if you simply cater to the society in fact is developed in a sheer public local identity, to the needs of the inhabitants, sphere a` la Habermas. Now, what we observe you will have to ask where the money comes in the formative stage of the network society from. You have to be competitive and you have indicates the increasing tension and distance to be productive. So, while we have to be in between personality and culture, between the networks, we have to be at the same time individuals and communes. In other words, rooted in locality and identity. But in our there are two logics. And in between the observations around the world, we see that institutions of civil society, the political institu- first things come first. And the first thing is tions and the public sphere – as legitimate how to exist in the global networks. There is a institutions of communication and represen- tremendous and increasing distance between tation – seem to fade away. And then we are the locality as an expression of society, on the confronted with the logic of individuals, on one hand, and the functionality and the the one hand, and of communes, on the other. globality as expressions of competition and Therefore, this split between personality and productivity, on the other, whereby they func- commonality puts extraordinary stress upon tion in the creation and appropriation of the social system of cities as communicative wealth. The second thing is how to exist in institutionalising devices. In this sense, the terms of meaning. As mentioned earlier, our problematic of social integration again be- society is characterised by the opposing devel- comes paramount, as it was in the origins of opment of individuation and communalism. urban sociology and urban studies, but now in Now that we have come to the theoretical part, completely new circumstances and in terms we can define some things. By individuation radically different from those of early indus- I mean the enclosure of meaning in the trial cities. Why? Well, social integration is now projects, interests and representations of the problematic because of the urban transfor- individual. That is why the concept of indi- mation represented by a third and major axis vidualisation is not the same as individuation; of opposing trends, this one concerning spatial in the latter, all that matters is enclosed in the forms. individual. By individual I mean a biologically embodied personality system, or – if translated FLOWS AND PLACES from the French – an individual is a person. Communalism refers to the enclosure of mean- We have dealt with function, and we have ing in a sheer identity. That enclosure is based dealt with meaning. Let us now look at the on a system of values and beliefs to which all issue as a question of form. In terms of form, other sources of identity are subordinated. the major bipolar opposition is between what I Society, of course, only exists at the interface call the space of flows and the space of places. of individuals and identities mediated by In the space of flows, separate locations are institutions. This interface and this mediation linked up electronically in an interactive are at the source of the network-state. network that connects people and activities

# 2002 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG 554 MANUEL CASTELLS in different geographical contexts. Now, the networks. So London is not a global city, if you spatial flows – let us say, the financial net- understand global city to mean that the whole works, the international production networks, or the majority of London is integrated in a and the media networks – are not a-territorial. global network. No, London is very local and They consist of territories which are distant, very parochial. If you go around Hampstead, which are linked to different geographic you seem to be in an upper-class village of the hinterlands. But they are electronically con- gentry. And the same thing applies to every nected; their function and their meaning come city. Take New York – New York is very local. from their connections. Thus, they do not exist Queens is a very local area, these days usually separately. In that sense, they are not purely local from the point of view of all kinds of im- electronic networks. The electronic networks migrants from around the world. The global link up the specific places, and it is this hybrid city, therefore, is a network of financial spaces space that is the space of flows. The space when the global city is defined in terms of of places organises experience and activity financial networks. It is a network of the ad- around the confines of locality. What is critical vertising or media industry when it is defined in our society is that cities are structured and in those terms. It is a network of high-tech restructured simultaneously by the competing spaces – along with Silicon Valley, Helsinki logics of the space of flows and the space of and Munich – when defined in those terms. places. Cities do not disappear into the virtual So, there are many global cities. But the many networks. Rather, they are transformed in the global cities are not London, Zurich, New interface between electronic communication York and Frankfurt etc. There are many dif- and physical interaction. They are trans- ferent dimensions of globalisation, of urban formed by the combination in practice of activities, which are connected functionally. All cities, networks, and places but without fully cities, to very different degrees, are to some integrating them. extent under the stress of the connection of Let me give two examples of this rather each key centre, of each key activity in this abstract problematic. One concerns urban global network, while at the same time most of structure, the other urban experience. In the city is engaged in a very local life. It is the urban structure, the example is the notion of tension between the two activities that is global cities. The global city is not a medal critical. From the point of view of the urban of honour given to certain cities that have experience, we are entering a built environ- become important, which would imply that ment that is increasingly incorporating elec- there are also semi-global cities, upcoming tronic communication devices everywhere. In global cities, etc. We already had a concept for fact, our urban life, as Bill Mitchell from MIT that – an old one that Friedmann reinvented, has pointed out, is becoming what he calls an the ‘world city’, which is a hierarchical con- ‘e-topia’ (Mitchell 1995). That is, a new urban cept (Friedmann 1986). If the global city has form in which we constantly interact, either any meaning other than that it is possible to deliberately or automatically, with online in- substitute one by another, it is a different formation systems, which increasingly will be matter. It is the notion that there is a global city in the wireless mode. So, materially speaking, in certain dimensions. For instance, financial the space of flows in terms of the experience networks – which is an easy example to under- is folded into the space of places. But at the stand – are made up of bits and pieces of same time, there is tension between what you different cities across the globe. The financial do and moving, with your head-set, on the districts of New York, London and Tokyo are internet all the time. This tension leads to all part of the same city. They work symbiotic- great difficulty in terms of the social inte- ally. They connect with each other but also gration of cities as communication devices. with Frankfurt and Amsterdam and so on. And Let me now turn to the issue of social inte- to a large extent even La Paz, Bolivia, is part of gration, which is really at the forefront of the it. A little bit of La Paz is in that global city theory of cities in this network society. The because that is how lots of money (they do notion here is that we have a fragmentation of some good trading) circulates in these global meaning in areas that are functionally inte-

# 2002 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG LOCAL AND GLOBAL: CITIES IN THE NETWORK SOCIETY 555 grated. While an urban agglomeration is a people on the planet think they are not functional unit, at the same time it creates a represented by their governments. Without disparity of cultures, systems of representation, pinpointing specific countries, Kofi Annan and systems of meaning. Thus, an agglom- added that this is also the case for the most eration is multicultural but at the same time established and advanced democracies in North multi-meaning. Concretely, if we live in a world America and Europe. Two-thirds of the people of individuals and communes, each commune on the planet! has its own set of values and each individual Under such conditions, we have an individual- has his/her project. Therefore, it is extremely isation of work, an individualisation of the important to see how this multiplicity of metropolis in terms of spaces, and an individual- meanings and of cultural sets can interact isation and communalism in terms of the and communicate. The traditional problem- cultural sets. Communalism is collective indi- atic of social integration – of the origins of vidualisation vis-a`-vis the rest of the society. You cities in the industrial area – was a different can individualise as an individual; that is to say, one. There was a dominant urban culture into ‘Me and my group, and my culture, and I do which rural migrants or migrants from other not know anything about the rest.’ Multiple parts of the world had to be integrated, assim- fragmentation creates a crisis of the city as a ilated. There is no way to assimilate anything communicative device, which is in fact the now because there is no dominant culture. original and historical function of the city. This The dominant culture, if there is one through- is not the same thing as the traditional crises – out the world, is represented by the mass those of integration of migrants and the urban media and by the hypertexts that this media anomie of the early industrial age. It is a frag- contains. But this dominant culture is, in fact, mentation that reproduces itself at the spatial very malleable, because it is a market-oriented level, the work level, the cultural level and the culture. It follows. It is not a culture with values political level. In that sense, we could be living that everybody has to believe – that was the old in the paradox of an urbanised world without industrial culture. It is a culture that follows cities. The key challenge is how to live together. whatever happens in the market; it identifies It is as simple as that: how to live together if we niches. Well, so rap is the thing. I create MTV do not share communication codes, not only if and we will rap. This is not the dominant we do not agree – it is a matter of being able to culture; it is a market-oriented culture. Rather speak some kind of language to each other. If than unifying the diversity of cultural messages, the working class opposes capital and fights, it amplifies this diversity by transforming dif- that is class struggle, and that can be bloody. ferent cultures and sets of mind into market That is a language; they know what they are niches, thereby enhancing and deepening the talking about. Communication can be conflict- fragmentation. So, we have a fragmentation of ive communication, as it has been throughout the spatial configuration of the metropolis, we history. This is different. This is fragmentation have an individualisation of communication, and alienation. You are an alien. I cannot talk and we have a constellation of cultural subsets. to you, I do not understand what you are saying, Under such conditions, the notion of public and it is not a matter of language. It is a matter sphere disappears. The traditional notion could of the values, of the value set. Therefore, I get only be reconstructed by institutions – through close to myself, my family, my group, my project, fundamentally political institutions and in a and we split. That is the notion of com- general crisis of legitimacy. Take, for instance, munication in cities in which the dominant California. These days 39% of people in Cali- culture has been irreversibly suppressed. In- fornia think (at least a year ago they did) that stead, there is coexistence and a multiplicity of the governor as well as the political represen- sources of meaning and expression. The key tatives in their state and in the USA are crooks challenge for the new urban civilisation is to – yes, the word used in the survey is crooks. restore communication. To restore communi- And 70% believe they are not being repre- cation means the building and development of sented. According to Kofi Annan’s survey last communication protocols. This is not a meta- year for the United Nations, two-thirds of the phor; it is a concept from information tech-

# 2002 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG 556 MANUEL CASTELLS nology theory. Which kind of communication spatial practice, if you say: ‘That is my space protocols? Let me present three of them. and also the space of this other guy’, and then if we share the space and we do not kill each TYPES OF URBAN INTERACTION other the first week, then maybe we can start populating this particular space together. So, The first kind is the physical protocol of com- rather than recreating the public sphere, we munication. How do you restore communica- are moving toward public places as an alter- tion in a fragmented sprawl? Well, you have to native model, so away from Habermas and introduce new forms of symbolic nodality that closer to Kevin Lynch. And in that sense, the will identify places in this endless sprawl. What spontaneous social interactions in public places kind of symbolic nodality? We do not have to are the communicative devices of our society. think of fancy solutions. I am not postmodern, Meanwhile, formal political institutions have so I always want to give an example. I do not become a specialised domain that hardly affects construct and deconstruct; I am trying to the private lives of people who do not want to analyse. Let us consider the Barcelona model be professional politicians. So, in the practice of planning and design, which has been highly of the city, the answer lies in public spaces, commended around the world. How was the including what I call the social exchangers or periphery of the working-class district (which communication nodes. These are the stations, was much worse than the Parisian periphery airports, all those places where people have of the grandes ensembles) marked and redefined to bump into each other because they have to by the Barcelona planners? Well, they started change trains or planes or buses. And these to construct horrible monuments, statues and are the squares, which have some kind of squares of very doubtful taste. But that does social activity. These spaces are in fact the not matter, really. Some people like it – not devices with which to reconstruct sharing many – but it does not matter. When you get communication and therefore city life. I call completely lost, and you ask anyone living this level of urban interaction the sociability of there: ‘How can I get to that HLM number public spaces in the individualised metropolis. 134 in the second town?’, the person will tell The third level of urban interaction refers you, ‘Well, continue here, then you will find to the new combination of electronic communi- an absolutely horrible statue in a shabby cation and physical face-to-face communication square, then you turn right and you are there.’ as new forms of sociability. These days, we know In other words, symbolic nodality reconstructs through rigorous empirical research that it is spatial meaning in the city. That is why archi- completely false that the internet alienates and tecture again becomes very important. Archi- isolates, etc. That proposition is based on just tecture always had been about the marking of two studies, and they can be easily criticised. places. Urban design has always been about All the other studies show the contrary. People the marking of urban forms in relation to who engage in sociability on the internet have culture and meaning. more sociability, more friends, more activities, The second level of urban interaction refers more everything, controlling for level of edu- to social communication patterns. That is, it cation. What we also know is that this sociability concerns how people can start being together, is not separate – not a virtual reality versus sharing cities without being able to speak to the real reality. No, it is a different domain each other and without going through the of reality. The communities that exist on the public institutions. How can people be public internet are different kinds of communities in the post-Habermas society, in which only than the ones that exist in different forms. Habermas thinks that there is public legiti- In fact, they are not communities. They are macy in the institutions? How can people do individual networks of socialisation, but they that? Well, remember the old child psychol- work together to induce forms of face-to-face ogy, explaining how children learn communi- sociability. So, virtual communities as net- cation. They learn it by doing things – not by works of individuals connect to face-to-face talking but by doing things and sharing things. sociability, thereby recreating some form of If you share something with others in your sociability. The analysis of code-sharing in the

# 2002 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG LOCAL AND GLOBAL: CITIES IN THE NETWORK SOCIETY 557 new urban world requires the study of the the functionality of integration in the global interface between physical layout, social organ- networks. In that sense, the process of recon- isation, and electronic networks of communica- structing urban life is the process of recon- tion. In this sense, the analysis of the new struction of the city as a communication network of spatial mobility in the mobile system in its multi-dimensional sense. Restor- phone era is a critical frontier for the new ing functional communication through metro- theory of urbanism. The young people in our politan planning, providing spatial meaning societies are building their sociability on the through a new symbolic nodality created by mobile phone. But they do not spend their innovative spatial projects, and reinstating the time talking on the mobile phone to the city in its urban form through the practice of person they will meet when they get to their urban design, focused on the preservation, appointment. While they are walking towards restoration and construction of public space – their appointment, they are anticipating their these are the critical issues in the new type of appointment. Some empirical research has urbanism. Conversely, there is what I would been done on the use of the mobile phone to call the defensive battle of nostalgic recon- actually build a multi-spatial system, including struction of the old city in the suburbs through a spatial back-up system at home, perhaps. new traditionalism and the new urbanism. While providing a connection with their Well, this is really giving up. It amounts to friends, the mobile phone also transcends saying, I am going to build a suburb that looks the boundaries of space. They use it to reach like a city. But the important thing is how ultimately the closest discotheque or the closest people interact. And people can interact in bar or the closest excursion to the mountains. horrible places. If they interact in horrible So, the places of the space of flows – that is, places, then they can reconstruct this space the corridors and the halls that connect places and make it meaningful. So, that level of com- around the world – will have to be understood munication seems to be the critical one. There as exchangers and social refuges, as homes on are a number of cities around the world where the run as much as offices on the run. we see just that. You can observe it on all con- Under these conditions, a dominant trend tinents, from Portland to Curitiba to Barcelona. emerges towards the disintegration of cities There are a number of very good examples as communicative devices. The beginning of that always combine an emphasis on public general urbanisation could be at the same space, competitiveness in the global networks, time the end of urban civilisation, which is a strong emphasis on local governments and based on communication and sharing, even citizen participation, and the ability to reinte- sharing in a conflictive manner. This is the grate symbolic nodality, symbolic represen- current situation, but at the same time there is a tation in the reconstruction of space. But in counter-offensive. Again, these are not my ideas; the end, none of these efforts by people, by I always look at what is happening, and then planners, and by urban designers can function I say, ‘Aha, good, counter-offensive; here we go.’ without a transformation of the urban policy, and that depends in turn on the transforma- CONCLUSION: THE INTEGRATION OF tion of urban polities. Ultimately, the meaning URBAN LIFE of cities depends on the governance of cities. How can we introduce this notion of gov- Throughout the world, a number of people in ernance of cities in a situation of increasing cities – politicians and, particularly at the local bureaucratisation and alienation of institutions level, planners and citizen groups – are trying vis-a`-vis their citizens? That is a fundamental to reconstruct urban life. Urban life is to be question. In the absence of any empirical understood here not as the traditional historic evidence we cannot accept the idea that some central city, not like a world of Amsterdams. great urbanists or great architects or great Rather, it should be seen as a world of social policy-makers would be able to make any signi- interaction and meaning operating on the ficant advances without transformation of urban basis of the appropriation of a space by policy on the basis of urban polities. So, ulti- sociability and by the society that goes beyond mately it is a political problem in the traditional

# 2002 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG 558 MANUEL CASTELLS sense, in the sense of the polis, the challenge is REFERENCES to reconstruct society through the practice of living together, in the process of communicat- CASTELLS, M. (1996) The Information Age: Economy, ing with each other in the urban civilisation. Society and Culture (three Volumes). Oxford: Blackwell Note CASTELLS, M. (2001) The Internet Galaxy. Reflections on 1. This essay is a revised version of the Alexander the Internet, Business and Society. Oxford: Oxford von Humboldt lecture presented by the author University Press on 8 October 2001 at the University of Nijmegen, FRIEDMANN, J. (1986) The World City Hypothesis. The Netherlands, which was sponsored by the Development and Change 17 (1) pp. 69 – 84. Royal Dutch Geographical Society, the University GOTTMANN,J.(1961)Megalopolis. The Urbanized North- of Nijmegen, The Netherlands Graduate School eastern Seaboard of the United States. New York, NY: of Housing and Urban Research (NETHUR), Twentieth Century Fund. and the Department of Human Geography of MITCHELL, W.J. (1995) City of Bits: Space, Place and the the University of Nijmegen. The evening was Infobahn. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. organised by Professor H. Ernste and Professor SCOTT, A.J. (1996) The City: Los Angeles and Urban J. Terwindt. The editoral board thanks Ms Lieke Theory at the end of the Twentieth Century. Stelling for her transcription of the text from a Berkeley CA: University of California Press. recording of the lecture

# 2002 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG