ABSTRACT
Finding a representative and significant case study of the digital city phenomenon in the UK has never been an easy task. The survey conducted within this wider study pointed the fact that although the number of Internet/web civic sites was high in the UK, the vast majority of these initiatives were not very interesting for the purpose of this investigation. Most sites, despite carrying promising titles such as ‘Virtual Sheffield’ or ‘Wolverhampton Community Internet Project’, were actually just promotional brochures for the city, targeted at non-locals, or relatively poorly compiled directories of local organisations and telephone numbers. Interestingly enough, several major cities in the UK were ‘represented’ by many different sites competing with each other and all claiming somehow to be there to contribute to the life of their physical counterpart. Bristol was just one of these cases in 1996, with six different ‘virtual cities’ – including a Council site – all offering low standards of both information richness and interaction (Graham and Aurigi, 1997, p.39).
