The Internet as an Influence on Urbanization
By STEVE LOHR
Published: September 16, 1996
For years, experts have warned that computer technology could bring the demise of old bricks-and-mortar cities. In ''The Third Wave'' in 1980, the futurist Alvin Toffler sketched out a vision of legions of workers liberated from the traffic and hassle of urban areas by computers and telecommunications. Instead, he predicted, they would work from homes soon to be transformed into far-flung ''electronic cottages.''
Recently, the rise of the Internet has added weight to the theory of technology-led urban decline. The global computer network, after all, is seen as a powerful tool that could decentralize work and living patterns.
But to date, the impact of the Internet has been mainly to reinforce the economic and intellectual leadership of a handful of urban centers and nearby suburbs, according to an analysis by the Taub Urban Research Center at New York University.
The New York University study, released today, focuses on the Internet as an engine of economic and regional development. The university researchers examined the location of computers directly connected to the Internet, or ''host'' computers. They worked from data supplied by two consulting firms, Matrix Information and Directory Services Inc. and Netwizards Internet Domain Surveys.
Entitled ''Leaders and Losers on the Internet,'' the study used the host count as a measure of where the infrastructure of the Internet is concentrated. Host computers are typically more powerful machines, each with its own Internet name and address, and a count of them by location is assumed to be an indication of where private and public investment in the Internet is greatest. The study did not try to measure the number of people using the Internet.
The central measurement in the study was a county-by-county analysis. The five regions with the most Internet host computers were Silicon Valley, the Boston-Cambridge, Mass., area, Los Angeles, Manhattan and Fairfax County in Virginia.
In the rankings of the top 25 counties, the areas embracing several major American cities make the list, including San Diego, Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle, San Francisco, Dallas and Washington.
But the study observed, ''Some of the nation's major cities, like Houston, Miami, Detroit and New Orleans are not major participants in the Internet.''
These cities have not yet nurtured a large number of Internet-related businesses in the way that New York has become a center for developers of World Wide Web sites, Los Angeles has become the capital of high-technology special effects for movies, or the Seattle area has benefited from new companies started in the shadow of the Microsoft Corporation.
''The location of Internet hosts,'' the study said, ''suggests that there is a new pattern of leaders and losers in modern metropolitan growth.''
The Internet, to be sure, is merely the latest wave of technology that affects cities unevenly, helping some and punishing others. Deep-water ports, railroads, the telephone and the automobile all brought changes in the geographic distribution of wealth and people.
In the future, the New York University study asserts, access to the Internet and technical know-how to exploit computer technology may well be the keys to economic development. ''The future is going to belong to those cities and regions with the information-driven industries and people with the skills to thrive in those industries,'' said Mitchell Moss, director of the urban research center at New York University. Mr. Moss was the co-author of the Internet analysis with Anthony Townsend, a research assistant.
The regions doing well in the high-technology development race, Mr. Moss says, are likely to extend their lead. Telecommunications deregulation, he believes, will mean that new investment will increasingly go into the existing high-tech clusters. The accelerating concentration of skilled people, investment and innovation -- the Silicon Valley model -- will more and more become the pattern of economic development nationally, according to Mr. Moss.
Paul Saffo, a director of the Institute for the Future, agrees that Silicon Valley will be the model. But he says it is a model that suggests that new high-technology clusters will develop.
Computer engineers, Mr. Saffo notes, gathered in Silicon Valley partly because of Stanford University and the nearby Government research laboratories. Yet the weather, landscape and life style also made it a place where people wanted to stay. Once the industry took root, he notes, the business advantages of clustering grew in important.
Already, he sees evidence of computer professionals settling in new areas, attracted by the life style and high-speed telecommunications links in places like Santa Fe, N.M., and Telluride, Colo.
''The Internet won't mean the death of urban centers,'' Mr. Saffo said. ''It will mean the reinvention of urban centers.
''But,'' he added, ''it could also eventually mean an explosion in some exurban areas, leading to a migration not seen since the suburbanization of the 1950's.''
Computer experts point out that trying to count host computers by location is difficult to do precisely. The method used for the New York University study does not count the machines on internal corporate networks, known as intranets. In addition, the address listed for an Internet computer may not always be where the machine actually is.
Yet David Gelernter, a computer science professor at Yale University, questioned not the methodology, but the significance of counting clusters of Internet host machines. The results of the study, he said, showed that Internet connections are spreading beyond their university and computer-company origins (Silicon Valley and Boston-Cambridge) and into centers of affluent, well-educated people (Manhattan and Los Angeles).
''The Internet today is about high-powered consumerism,'' said Mr. Gelernter, who writes about technology's impact on society. ''Most people now use it for hanging out, shopping and browsing. Nobody's really making money on it yet. Culturally, the Internet is trivial.
''This may change, but I'm not sure that having a lot of Internet connections is any great economic or cultural advantage,'' Mr. Gelernter said.
''Leaders and Losers on the Internet'' will be posted at the New York University urban research center site on the World Wide Web (http:// www.nyu.edu/urban). The Web site for Matrix Information and Directory Services Inc. is http://www.mids.org. The site for Netwizards Internet Domain Surveys is http:// www.nw.com.
Chart/Map: ''The City Connection'' lists the counties with the most Internet hosts, as of January 1996.