Sergio Amadeu da Silveira - Cidadania e Redes Digitais

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c i t i z e n s h i p a n d d i g i t a l n e t w o r k s
between police headquarters and patrol cars in cities like Mateo, California 7 . Many
models were established from these local actions characterized by a new intervention
model in cities. These actions were sponsored by different governmental agencies,
private companies and NGOs.
Thus, cities obtain a new content from the new flows that intertwine themselves
from virtual factor structuring concrete social networks, rethinking the relationship
between these new technologies and the region. Unlike the common sense around
the space annihilation by time, it seems that, as Castells argues, the material space
arranges the time, “structuring the temporality over different and even contradictory
perspectives according to sociospatial dynamics.” Therefore, it is thought that territory
will arrange its time and temporality when incorporating these new information
technologies.
We must study the impact of these new technologies on territory structuring,
considering the geographical space and as a reflex and a condition of social practices.
The inherited space, the industrial city, and the designed space, the informational
city, both interact. The new communication networks are assimilated into the infrastructure
that is already arranged and built on the territory in the form of railways,
roads, water and gas supply ducts, power distribution grids, telephony and television
cables. This interaction is mediated through the movement of social forces that
have power to restructure the territory. However, besides the interaction between
the inherited and the designed spaces, which promotes the replacement and expansion
of city functions, the digital city is the space designed for a real city.
Likewise, the cyberspace discussion as the new social relationships representative
in computers and communication networks is transformed and reterritorialized
with Digital City. New information and communication technologies incorporation,
designed on and shaped by the built environment, enables a new space configuration
and new organization processes of urban space, distinct from the urban
industrial structure purpose.
The place where the informational city materializes itself also changes. In U.S.,
the arising of the so-called informational cities was associated to weapons production
and high technology, while in Europe, it was directed to research and development.
With the digital cities’ expansion, the location of informational cities changes: they
7. Ibidem, p. 4.
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