Information and Communication Technologies and the New Regional Economy

摘要

The developments described above give a rather complex picture of the possible impacts of ICTs on physical space that cannot be summarized in a couple of sentences. We did not really discuss the impact on local and urban development, addressed in other chapters of this book, such as Chap. 7. However, many of the questions raised in those papers with respect to the future function of e.g. cities depend crucially on the inflexibilities of the current, physical transportation and distribution infrastructures to be able to deal with congestion as opposed to the reliability and new opportunities offered by ICTs. After a century of continuous industrialisation, also of services, most of the basic needs of Western societies, consumers, and citizens appear fulfilled, their welfare has increased substantially, and the amount of 'free time' increased. The space and time extensive development path, which accompanied this industrialisation process, appears to run against natural limits. ICTs can expand these limits. But it can also, partially at least, destroy those limits. The first effect consists of what we have described here as the complementary effect of the use of ICTs on space, the second effect as the substitution effect. The complementary effect of ICTs can be considered as a form of space and time augmenting technological change. Distance can, with the help of 'just in time' be made less relevant, the rate of return to the physical infrastructure increased. Mobile communication offers solutions to the time problem when access is becoming difficult because of congestion. As to the knowledge sector, which we did not discuss here, it can be expected that ICTs will augment the rate of return to knowledge investments. This holds for research and development, education and training, marketing, as well as information and communication more generally. In this sense the physical proximity to the access of codified knowledge and information no longer represents a limiting factor, but the distinction between knowledge in which physical proximity might be important, e.g. when based on informal and social contacts, and codified knowledge remains essential. It is only this last form of knowledge, which appears no longer restricted by geographical frontiers but in Marshallian terms appears worldwide 'in the air', can be bought or acquired and understood and maintained by communities. From this perspective, the relation between ICTs and space calls for a new concept of agglomeration in a world characterized by the 'death of distance'.