Understanding ICT’s impacts on urban spaces: a qualitative content analysis of literature

Organising for thin places during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Thin places likely offer other ways to shape individuals' professional stability, development, and everyday work through elastic bonds to the organisation produced by I.C.T., such as smartphones and mobile Internet (Afradi & Nourian, 2020). These technologies also have the capacity, without physical contact, to pace and order everyday work activities in ways that expand work-related and organisational relations, routines, habits, space rhythms, meaning construction, and feelings of belonging to a context (Thulin & Vilhelmson, 2019).…”

Conceptualizing an Informational Paradigm in the Pursuit of Sustainable Cities and Communities

“…The recent revolution, embodied by ICT, has brought forth a myriad of transformations in urban contexts. These transformations encompass the globalization of the economy and technology, the decentralization of traditional national power structures to a dynamic interplay between global and local levels, the dematerialization of consumption patterns, and a notable shift towards information and knowledge-based services [3][4][5][6]. Together, these dynamics contribute to the intricate process of societal deindustrialization, reshaping the fabric of contemporary societies [7,8].…”

“…While the industrial age was characterized by discussions centered around technological determinism, standardization, and decontextualized thinking, the recent information revolution signifies a paradigm shift towards addressing the public's yearning for recognition of their values. This transformation is exemplified by key concepts such as Sustainable Development, the global economy, the Information Society, the Right to the City, and democracy, with sustainability serving as the foundational principle guiding all development strategies [3,5,6].…”

“…This cultural projection within spatial formation has been a longstanding frontier in the planning profession, where planners initially served as facilitators of public views, integrating community voices into planning procedures through public participation, thereby forming the foundation for strengthening social capital. The Internet, propelled by Information and Communication Technology (ICT), emerges as a catalyst for change by facilitating planners' engagement in addressing the public's overall esteem needs and enabling the decoding of the encoded meaning of space as experienced and manifested in the online social structure [5,6,12,19,20]. This virtual representation of the social meaning, values, and lived experiences of the public serves as a valuable tool for planning sustainable approaches aligned with the public's overall needs, embracing individualization while responding to the changing power dynamics that once dominated city planning [5].…”

“…This multifaceted endeavor involves technological empowerment, civic participation, and the preservation of urban identity, occurring in a crucial phase of urbanization marked by the city's increased reproduction through digital information [11]. The influence of digital information in urbanization leads to the emergence of a virtual realm of values (space of flows) alongside the tangible aspects of the real city (space of places) [4,6,9,11,12,14,20]. Leveraging social networks enables citizens to assert their Right to the City, fostering a harmonious integration of functional urban aspects with profound social meanings [5][6][7]10,12,19,22].…”