Information Technology and Urban Form

Abstract

This article explores the link between information technology (IT) and urban form. It does this by examining recent literature pertaining to two urban theorizing traditions: the deconcentration and economic-restructuring schools. Whereas in the deconcentration school, IT–urban form relationships are the newest stage in a sequence of technological innovations in transportation and communications posing new challenges to the geography of accessibility, in the restructuring school, these relationships are theorized as pervasive sociotechnical change transforming the organization of production, institutions, and everyday life. Despite their paradigmatic differences, both schools explore urban decentralization and/or centralization questions and identify urban dispersing effects related to synergies between IT and the automobile society. The author uses a Dutch and a U.S. case to illustrate the challenges that informational or New Economy development pose to urban and regional planning.