ABSTRACT
One decisive consequence of the ever-increasing levels of globalization and informationalization of everyday life in the developed world during the last decade is the growing disorientation in many people’s sense of place. The traditional fixed statics of space are becoming eclipsed by a new fluid dynamics of pace. Whether one labels it “McWorld” (Barber 1995), “time-space compression” (Harvey 1989), or “fast capitalism” (Agger 1989), the condition of the contemporary world order, as Paul Virilio (1986) suggests, is one of “chrono-politics” in which the power of pace is outstripping the value of place. Consequently, geographies are increasingly dimensionalized by speed not territory. Speed rules over every aspect of life now being revolutionized by the acceleration of a “dromocratic revolution” (Virilio and Lotringer 1983).
