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New Urban Eras and Old Technological Fears: Reconfiguring the Goodwill of Electronic Things

Department of Geography, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1SS, UK, Thrift{at}gma.bris.ac.uk

The literature on electronic telecommunications technologies has been infected by the virus of new era thinking, a virus which is simply another variant of technological determinism. This paper is an attempt to expose this virus and it is in four parts. The doubled introduction questions the idea of novelty by paying attention to current writings on 'cyberspace'. The second part of the paper then extends these introductory comments by considering the way in which technological determinism was used to explain the electronic communication technologies of the 19th and early 20th centuries. It is argued that these same habits persist in current writings on the effects of 'new' electronic communication technologies. The third part of the paper illustrates some of these arguments by reference to the history of one of the most concentrated examples of informational space, the City of London. Finally, the doubled conclusion points to what does seem to be novel about the current technological conjuncture by attempting to listen to historical experience.

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