ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on understanding and explaining the way that our increasingly networked world impacts on how we experience and inhabit urban space. It explains the nature of the spatial effects of the networked and mediated world; from mobile phones and sat navs to data centres and Wi-Fi nodes and discusses how these change the very nature of urban space. The book highlights how H. Lefebvre's concept of meshworks allow for a more subtle, human-centred links and connections that integrate what Castells refers to as a 'space of flows' with the 'space of places'. It explores the spatial qualities of network frameworks, and outlines how traditional ideas of containment and proximity are shifted. The book examines how urban screens re-introduce a social stage to the city, merging playful shared experiences with everyday activities and creating conditions for 'shared encounters'.
