The virtual reality of cities is the current historical period of urban progress and a kind of interconnected co-activity between innovative virtual elements, elements of the city and its urban parts according to the affected relationships of social, financial, cultural, spatial, political and local features. The phenomenon of ‘interpretative flexibility’ (one of the concepts related to SCOT) was found to be particularly relevant to this process. The findings of these two case studies point to complex endogenous and exogenous barriers to urban-technological strategies, as well as a certain blurring of relations between cities and ICTs as the most influential dilemmas confronted by local authorities as they seek to integrate urban and ICTs policy-making. The thesis itself is based on a three- fold theoretical framework involving the theory of the Social Construction of Technologies (SCOT), a comprehensive typology for virtual cities, and the concept of recombinant architecture. The methodology compares these two cases by focusing on their distinct ways of integrating traditional urban and ICTs policy-making. This thesis aims to identify some of the dilemmas observed in technological development strategies in two contrasting European settings: Antwerp in Belgium and Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK. The development of virtual cities depends on a series of economic, political, social, cultural and spatial aspects influenced by specific local conditions. They are part of a process of interaction between the new elements of the networked society and elements from other periods of urban history, all interwoven in the same city. Virtual cities, in turn, represent the current historical phase of urban development. It is this complex of forces that forms the subject of this thesis. Supplemented by other influences such as infrastructure, physical spaces for accessing new technologies, the structure of virtual spaces (Internet, Intranets, etc.), public and private interests, these policies form the basis for the socio-technical construction of what is being called the virtual city. ![]() These policies have been characterised by initiatives predominantly related to the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). The last decade or so has been one of intense activity as city-makers and local authorities have struggled to evolve policies to keep pace with the technological development of cities around the world.
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