Googlization Factors of Saudi Eastern Province Virtual Cities. Factors Analysis of Eastern Province Virtual Cities

摘要

Over the past urban areas evolves based on the human needs and the way they conduct their life activities. The agriculture era evolved the human settlements around the water and fertile lands. Then croup production and market start taking place within the settlement and re-shape its land uses. The industrial revolution and car invention introduced industrial areas that evolved the transportation means and expanded the settlements size and changed its pattern. The human settlements become cities that have land use regulations, market mechanism, and civil infrastructure, political and environmental places. These factors influenced the physical pattern of cities since then. On the last 20 years third evolution on emerged through Information Technology (IT) and starts showing their impact on means of human activities and consequently their settlements pattern. Various human activities used to be conducted by physical presence become attainable through virtual means. Consequently, urban areas have been influenced by the presence of IT and the policies governing it's penetration on the urban and regional level. This study attempts to study the phenomena of virtual cities in the Eastern Province in Saudi Arabia by relating their population size to their presence on the cyberspace.