Global cities: real‐time … and Byzantine

What should we think of the global city as an information or virtual city? It has quickly and easily become a received idea. The advocates of the new virtual urbanism try to impress us with the social and political potential of ‘real‐time’ cities and ‘electronic spaces’. They tell us how new technological systems can radically transform urban life and experience. But, Kevin Robins asks, what kind of vision or Utopia is this? Is it in fact one of regimented identities rather than one of the free flow of a diversity of identities? What sense does it make? And how does it correspond to the realities of global transformation in contemporary urban contexts?