ABSTRACT
Alternative theoretical perspectives have asked more fundamental questions about the relationship between telecommunications and the physical form of cities. Critical and dystopian perspectives do accept that by ‘collapsing the relative distance between locations, albeit unequally and differentially, communications technologies are necessarily implicated in the establishment of new spatial interrelationships and new forms of spatial organisation’ (Gillespie, 1992; 66; emphasis added). But, in contrast to Utopian perspectives, they argue that ‘it does not necessarily follow that the compact city has been made obsolete and that settlements will disperse throughout the countryside’ (Gottmann, 1990; 194; emphasis added). Critical approaches examine the use of telecommunications within existing trajectories of economic, social and spatial restructuring. An historical perspective is needed to examine how telecommunications contribute to different forms of spatial restructuring. The specific applications of telecommunications will largely be driven by the broader social and political context within which they are situated. Consequently, it cannot be assumed that telecommunications will inevitably result in a simple onedimensional decentralising effect on urban form. Instead the broader spatial effects will depend on the specific context and process within which telecommunications are utilised.
