Virtual Urban Futures

Abstract

Considers urban spaces that tend to support & define community interaction at the boundary between the physical & the virtual world, drawing on the secondary literature. It is suggested that urban forms, eg, the shopping mall & TV, promote a kind of disjunctured space-time relationship that supports the phenomenological experience of virtual reality. A prior form of community space, the Greek agora, is considered as an appropriate metaphor for assessing the nature & significance of cyberspace. Like the agora & the modern shopping mall, cyberspaces are simulated & temporal & can be viewed as sites of cultural seepage. The construction of space in a particular mall, the West Edmonton Mall (Alberta), is compared to similar processes at work in the virtual habitat created by Lucasfilm & Quantum Computer services. It is argued that such marginal urban spaces already constitute virtual environments whose elements have recently been transplanted into the virtual realm. The conclusion to be drawn is that if cyberspace is ever to produce a true communal space, it must develop a proper balance of interaction, leisure, & commerce. 39 References. D. Ryfe