The Informational City
Economic Restructuring and Urban Development
1. Auflage August 1991
416 Seiten, Softcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
The cities and the regions of the world are being transformed under the combined impact of a restructuring of the capitalist system and a technological revolution. This is the thesis of this book, now in paperback. Castells not only brings together an impressive array of evidence to support it but puts forward a new body of theory to explain it. He analyzes the interaction between information technology, economic restructuring and socio-spatial change through the empirical observation of contemporary national, urban and regional processes in the capitalist world, with emphasis on the United States. The author summarizes a very wide range of evidence of urban and regional development, and isolates the causes and consequences of the processes and trends that may be observed.
Introduction.
1. The Informational Mode of Development and the Restructuring
of Capitalism.
2. The New Industrial Space. The Locational Pattern of
Information Technology Manufacturing and its effects of Spacial
Dynamics.
3. The Space Flows. The Use of New Technologies in the
Information Economy and the Dialectics between Centralization and
Decentralization of Services.
4. Information Technology, The Restructuring of Capital-Labour
Relationships, and the Rise of the Dual City.
5. High Technology and the Transition from the Urban Welfare
State to the Suburban Warfare State.
6. The Internationalization of the Economy, New Technologies,
and the Variable Geometry of Spatial Structure.
Conclusion.
Appendix to Chapter 2.
Index.
tour-de-force. Although many other social scientists have been
groping their way towards an understanding of the new economy and
society, Castells has leap-frogged them all to produce the
definitive analysis that will surely stand for years to come."
Peter Hall, Times Higher Education Supplement
"Castells provides a careful and closely-argued exposition. This
is the book to read to find out ... how the space economy of the
United States is being reshaped. Castells describes in compelling
detail a burgeoning sphere of communication flows which is
transforming organisations, work, and individual lives." Nigel
Thrift, New Statesman and Society
"The Informational City is one of [Castells] most
important works. In it he presents an impressive synthesis drawing
on the results of a large number of research studies ... Castells
has managed simultaneously to provide the best available summary of
the best studies on the new regional industrial structure of the
USA, and a set of thought-provoking essays about the deep structure
of the information technology revolution and neo-conservative
economic policies. The book will be of use to teachers and
researchers alike." Ian Miles, University of Sussex
"This book is provocative and relatively easy to read. The
author presents a convincing case for the dawn of an informational
age that promises to complicate capitalist social organization."
Growth and Change
