ABSTRACT
This chapter explores many different ways in which digital networks affect the structure of the city. It analyzes the concept of the network society, introduced by M. Castells, and discusses this in relation to a range of other readings and also introduces the terms 'meshworks' and 'assemblages' to consider more multi-layered and social perspectives on network infrastructures. Urban infrastructure consists of various structures; buildings, pipes, roads, rail, bridges, tunnels and wires brought together in a connected framework. But this framework also has rules; 'the software for the physical infrastructure, all the formal and informal rules for the operation of the systems'. Communications technologies, from the masts connecting mobile phone networks to the fibrous cables of the Internet, whilst crucial in supporting the mobility and flux, are also fixed networks that must be embedded in space. Changing temporal infrastructures also loosen the grip of time on space.
