- ICT infrastructures as a new challenge for the urban planning profession    177 kb by    Fernandez-Maldonado, Ana Maria | fernande@bk.tudelft.nl    Short Outline It deals with the main spatial implications of basic issues regarding the technical, political and economic aspects of the development of ICT (backbone) infrastructures. And how this matters for urban planners. Abstract In just one decade, digital technologies have become pervasive in developed countries and increasingly present in cities of developing world. Thanks to them, the spatial reach of daily life and work activities and contacts has expanded from the local to the global scale. Changing the way we inform, entertain and educate ourselves, as well as our ways to work, do business, and keep contact with each other, they have made the world different than what it was 12 years ago. Digital technologies are, however, dependant on conventional telecommunications infrastructures, which are undoubtedly urban infrastructures, since they are mainly deployed within and between cities. Surprisingly enough, the study of the features and scope of these new urban infrastructures has not been sufficiently explored and acknowledged by urban planners and policy-makers. In the context of a creative economy, connections that are made through electronic networks are more important than connections made by means of transportation networks. If traffic networks have deserved so much academic attention, why are ICT infrastructures still out of the frame of urban and spatial planning? It becomes highly relevant to pay attention to the main spatial implications of the technical, political and economic aspects of the development of ICT (backbone) infrastructures. In front of the challenges of a highly competitive, privatized and deregulated telecommunications sector, what basic knowledge and skills are needed by urban planners and policy makers to face the progression of an uneven ICT economic geography favoring some places in detriment of others? To answer this fundamental question the paper will deal with the current context of the telecommunications sector, currently in charge of deploying and operating ICT networks; the main features of the present geography of global ICT infrastructure; its main urban and spatial implications; and the consequences for the urban planning profession . Keywords ICT infrastructures, telecommunications Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2005: Making Spaces for the Creative Economy   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper