Understanding ICT’s impacts on urban spaces: a qualitative content analysis of literature

Abstract

Since the 1980s, a considerable amount of research has dealt with the spatial impacts of services and devices related to Information and Communication Technology (ICT). In answering the question of “what are the ICT’s spatial impacts?”, a literature review reveals that a major part of the research is trapped in dualities such as the “centralization-decentralization” and “substitutionary-complementary” effects of ICT. Other studies have investigated the ICT’s spatial impacts regarding the discourses of the industrial age rather than the post-information age. Moving beyond the technology-centered and deterministic presumptions, this paper deals with a more fundamental question on defining the variables which play a role in the process through which ICT impacts urban spaces. We have conducted a qualitative content analysis in order to gain an understanding of these variables. Based on the review of 242 texts in the literature, 175 codes were extracted and organized into 18 subcategories, four generic categories, two main categories and one theme. The extracted theme points to a quadripartite dynamic co-evolution between the ICT, agents, societies and cities. This co-evolution—and considering the long history of technological changes in cities—mean that cohesive policies toward predetermined visions are needed for effective use of ICT in creating desired spatial impacts. In absence of such policies, the spatial impacts of ICT remain unpredictable.