IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v37y2000i2p301-317.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Public Space, Urban Space and Electronic Space: Would the Real City Please Stand Up?

Author

Listed:
  • Mike Crang

    (Department of Geography, University of Durham, Science Laboratories, South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK, MA.Crang@Durham.ac.uk)

Abstract

Commentary around the electronic media has raised issues of political action, community formation and changing identities. This paper explores how the notions of 'public space' can inform this debate over electronic media. It examines the metaphorical adoption of urban models to look at electronic sociality and suggests four principle approaches: cities set in or against world flows, suburbanised telecities, communitarian visions and accounts that appeal to a renewed public sphere. The paper examines how these share many assumptions. However, instead of trying to sift these metaphors by contrasting them to a purported real world, the paper examines how they shape an electronic architecture. Spatial metaphors and electronic practices are seen as entangled and shaping each other. The paper suggests that the different metaphors for the city reflect a range of anxieties about and desires for urban life. In this sense, the 'real' city is the indefinable complexity and folding of spaces—lying outside the visualisations offered of cyberspace.

Suggested Citation

  • Mike Crang, 2000. "Public Space, Urban Space and Electronic Space: Would the Real City Please Stand Up?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 37(2), pages 301-317, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:37:y:2000:i:2:p:301-317
    DOI: 10.1080/0042098002203
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/0042098002203
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/0042098002203?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. katie j. ward, 1999. "The Cyber-Ethnographic (Re)Construction of Two Feminist Online Communities," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 4(1), pages 51-64, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.

      More about this item

      Statistics

      Access and download statistics

      Corrections

      All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:37:y:2000:i:2:p:301-317. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

      If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

      If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

      If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

      For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

      Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

      IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.