- Serve city- Interactive Urbanism   25 kb by    Hackenbroich, Wilfried & Sonnabend, Regina | wilfried@hackenbroich.com    Short Outline Self-entrpreneurs and ultra-small businesses need access to the global networks of production. Networked, mixed-use urban neighbourhoods provide concentrated ''opportunitiy structures'' for cooperation and the exchange of different forms of knowledge. Abstract The study is a product of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. It maps out an urban redevelopment strategy for a new service area in Sydney, Australia. Production and working methods are being reorganised in the globalised economy. As a result of the flexibilisation of working time, of outsourcing, tele-homework and part-time work, more and more employees in the industrialised countries are being released from traditional forms of employment. As «self-entrepreneurs» they are obliged to reconstruct the social and organisational structures employees previously had access to in companies and institutions. Cooperation between self-entrepreneurs and trans-national companies establishes a communication network that operates beyond company limits and breaks up traditional, hierarchical communication structures. Production resources that employees once had access to in the companies are now being sought in the urban space. The city is turning into a network space of ubiquitous production. It is helping to compensate for the loss of corporate structures. Planners must provide access to information and communication systems beyond the mere infrastructure. Physical mobility has not become any less important, but in future the main focus will be on accessibility to information networks. The «right to access» incorporates, in particular, those who are prevented by their social and economic situation from making use of the new media. There is a need here to bridge the growing gap between the well connected and the poorly connected. The urban space can become a filter for information instead of being a source of information. Spatial planners and designers, therefore, have to help shape the interface between space and information in the city. Modern technologies (PDAs, GPS) offer wide-ranging potential in this respect and they also make it possible to rethink urban orientation systems. Keywords Shaping the interface between urban space and information 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