The World Wide Web has experiences growth that is nothing short of remarkable. In less than a decade, the Internet has gone from a technology used by a few scientists to a tool used by tens of millions of people. In the United States, a statewide poll of 802 residents on December 29, 1999 found that in New Jersey (where most of the research reported in this paper was done) 53 percent of the respondents connected to the Internet at least once a week. Those cryptic combinations of letters and dots (e.g., http://www.someone.com are routine on all forms of publications and visual broadcasts. Billions of dollars are being invested to continue the expansion, and it is fair to say that we are only feeling the initial tremors of a technology that is still evolving. It is already diffusing rapidly through the sciences, especially the medical sciences.
The Internet also is beginning to affect urban redevelopment, yet its role is uncertain. Pitroda views information technology as asocial leveler. Freeman believes it will help to substantially upgrade the quality of urban education. Yet, at the regional scale, Wheeler and O’ Kelly find that New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and a few other metropolitan areas have gained at least a temporary advantage over most Southern and Northwestern metropolises because they have more high-speed connections. That advantage may be short-lived, but it also could increase.