ABSTRACT
In the mid 1990s, the booming technological development of the Internet and the World Wide Web seemed unstoppable and destined to grow exponentially. Together with the fast deployment of new products for information and communication, both in terms of hardware and software, a massive amount of hype was generated in the press, the media, and in scholarly papers as well, on the forecast revolutionary and beneficial impacts of the Internet on Western societies. This had also encouraged visions of urban futures in which information and communication technologies were going to be central to city management and the exercise of local democracy.
