Cities, nations and communications in the global era: Urban telecommunications policies in France and Britain

Abstract

Driven by globalization and the need to compete for positions in international systems of cities, urban policy‐makers and planners are increasingly intervening directly in the development of telecommunications. This new policy arena potentially brings with it radically new sets of relations between urban and telecommunications policies at the local, national and international levels. Unfortunately, however, we know little about these new relationships and how they vary between different cities and nation states. Research on urban telecommunications policies rarely moves beyond the description of projects or plans. Given this context, this paper compares in detail the urban telecommunications initiatives under development in Britain and France. This is used to explore and illustrate the ways in which global technological and political trends in telecommunications and cities are leading to situations within which telecommunications initiatives at the urban level have an increasingly important place. It is found that, despite globalization, urban telecommunications policies in the two countries are profoundly shaped by the highly contrasting national approaches to urban economic and telecommunications policies and intergovernmental politics in Britain and France.