ABSTRACT
The vacuum of the inner city clearly demands solutions with both political and spatial components. Repairing people ravaged inner cities is, in many ways, beyond the power and responsibility of architects and planners. National debates over welfare, incentives for commercial development, and even illegal immigration all ultimately relate to the ill health of people cities and of their inhabitants. The origin of cities and their evolution was, in fact, based on the need for places of interactive exchange: the marketplace, the government, and the spiritual and intellectual centers. The function of the great, vital marketplace will be challenged by interactive home shopping and an array of other electronic merchandising techniques. In the Western world, the exchange of goods and information is swiftly moving from the traditional web of streets to the immaterial web of electronics. Served by almost unlimited venues for electronic interaction, institutions and individuals could thus neatly spread around the globe.
