| Goal of this investigation, which was co-ordinated by the Berliner Institut für Sozialforschung, has been to find out how the increasing use of information and communications technologies affects the sociospatial development of cities in Europe. A pivotal question was whether processes of suburbanization are supported by the expansion of information and communications technologies, and thus spell further social and economic problems for cities.
In the relatively-balanced urban system in Europe, cities are regional centers of innovation. The positive socioeconomic development of a European urban system is indispensible to securing work, welfare, and employment, and to keep pace with competition throughout the world.
The research team assumed that the expansion of new information and communication technologies will continue to accelerate in both the economic and private sectors. In this process, the significance of spatial structures will undergo fundamental changes. The functions of central places, today fulfilled by cities for their respective regions, could become less important in the future.
The ICCR was research partner to the project and has been responsible for the case studies and quantitative investigations in Austria and contributed to the cross-sectional topics of research. Furthermore it organized the second project workshop in May 1999 in Vienna. |
ICCR, Vienna, Austria
