The Local & the Global: Management of Cities in the Information Age

This text challenges the belief that cities will eventually disappear as territorial forms of social organization as new information technologies permit the articulation of social processes without regard for distance, arguing that the specific role of cities will become more important, and proposing that a dynamic and creative relationship be built up between the local and the global. In this way, cities will remain the focus of social organization, political management and cultural expression, equipped to deal with the enormous social and environmental problems of urbanization.

Jordi Borja is a member of the Municipal Government of Barcelona and was, until recently, Professor of Urban Geography at the University of Barcelona. Manel Castells is Professor of City and Regional Planning, Professor of Sociology and Chair of the Center for Western European Studies at the University of California, Berkely.