ABSTRACT
But social struggles to shape urban places and electronic spaces are not simply about the contest over material benefits within a highly unequal capitalist society. They are also about the meanings that are constructed for places and the ways in which urban place and electronic space become embroiled in the construction of diverse social and cultural identities. Again, this is now well established in terms of urban places (Keith and Pile, 1993). Sharon Zukin, for example, admits that while cities are the ‘localization of global economic and social forces…space also structures people’s perceptions, interactions and sense of well-being or despair, belonging or alienation. This structuring quality is most clearly felt (and most visible) in the built environment, where people can erect homes, react to architectural forms, and create-or destroy-landmarks of individual or collective meaning’ (Zukin, 1991; 269).
