Changing the State of Today’s Cities in Castells' Cities in Network

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The article Local and global: cities in network society by Manuel Castells is a 2002 article which seeks to shed light on changing the state of today’s cities. Castells outlines his purpose quite clearly by noting that he seeks to “explore two sets of relationships – that between the local and global, and that between certain dimensions of identity and functionality as they impinge on spatial forms – and will try to show how they interact in the spatial transformation of the information society.” The truth is, the world is changing and cities are indeed adopting complex states which further segregates and distances parts of the world from each other.
Castells takes his time to explain how the current transformation of cities was achieved. Here, he mentions the information technology revolution, globalization, and networking. These he argues constitute what he calls a network society and still continues to influence the developments seen today. One is inclined to agree with Castells because the real effects of these three aspects have helped to shape the world as it is today. For example, today, the world is often referred to as a global village and this is as a result of the spread of global...