Towards a Digital (Societal) Infrastructure?

Abstract

In what ways might informational techniques and information technology alter the infrastructure of society? The approach employed in this paper involves a number of fundamental, almost historically determined, conditions for the emergence of an increasingly societal infrastructure. This discussion is then related to analyses of the significance of information and communication technologies (ICT) in terms of ubiquities, agglomerations and clusters. Are there grounds for assuming that these trends are having an impact on the systems of towns and cities of differing sizes and at varying distances? In conclusion, the discussion turns to the issue of whether developments in informational techniques over the past 20 years are leading towards what has been referred to as a digital division of labour and, by extension, also towards a ‘digital (societal) infrastructure’.