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In his essay, “ Implication of the Information Revolution for Africa: Cyberimperial-ism, Cyberhype, or Cyberhope?,” Robert G. White outlines the current state of Inter-net connectivity in Africa and considers the implications of the information revol-ution in Africa over the next millennium. To illustrate, White describes how distanceeducation technology enables information to flow from Africa to the North. He con-tends the fees generated from African Virtual University distance education courses“ represent a major supplement in earnings of almost all African professors and,indeed, probably provide full employment for many.” He describes how this couldshape Africa’s future by “slowing or reversing the brain drain of African intellectualsleaving to pursue careers in the North.” While the book contains numerous sketchesof different countries, the majority of authors appear to be from developed nations.The book and our visions of the future would be enriched by adding more non-Western authors and Third World thinkers and writers to participate in the discussionof what the Internet means in developing nations.

Cyberimperialism introduces some critical sensibilities into our evaluation of thesocial impact of the Internet. Readers who have become accustomed to publicationsextolling the democratic virtues of the Internet will benefit from the alternativeimages of the World Wide Web as a tool of oppression. As a whole, the essaysidentify key issues shaping the futures of globalization and the role of the Internetin its spread. Futures researchers interested in engendering conversations about thefuture of globalization and the Internet would benefit from its more balanced andnuanced discussion.

David J BrierUniversity of Hawaii at Manoa, Hamilton Library,

2550 McCarthy Mall, Honolulu, HI 96822, USAE-mail address: daveb@hawaii.edu

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City Region 2020: Integrated planning for a sustainable environmentJoe Ravetz; Earthscan, London, 2000, pp. 307+xii, £19.95 paperback

City Region 2020 is an interesting and irritating book. Let me get the irritationout of the way first. This is essentially a matter of format. The book is printed attwo columns a page. I never really like this, popular though it is with architects andother urban professionals. When, as here, the book is full of figures, charts, tables andpictures which are printed in a single column space, then the effect of the graphics isto irritate rather than inform because it is just too hard to see what the things mean.Reading this book is sometimes a struggle — not in consequence of the writingwhich although demotic (no bad thing) is always clear — but because the graphicsare such a mess.

216 Book reviews / Futures 34 (2002) 213–218

That said this is an interesting book on an important topic. It is a case studysequel to the UK Town and Country Planning Association’s (TCPA) Planning fora Sustainable Environment [1] in which the general programme of sustainable devel-opment in the “social city region” is applied to Greater Manchester. The product isnot a plan as such. Rather in terms of Patrick Geddes’ classic formulation of survey,plan, and implement, what we have here is the survey. The case study is explicitlyintended as an exemplar for old industrial city regions, and even a Tynesider willadmit that Greater Manchester is the oldest such place in the world so the choice isexcellent. Ravetz is the author drawing on the expertise of the Sustainable CityWorking Group and the book is organized around the thematic interests of that groupinto three sections: Context, Key Sectors, and “Putting it Together” . The section onContext is a mix of conceptual specification, local history, and prognosis about futuretrends. As is typical in the products of the UK tradition of planning, trends arediscussed in relation to specified scenarios. These are respectively:

� Business as usual — in effect a projection of current trends without a turn tosustainability and social inclusion.

� The Technological scenario — a reliance on technical fixes taken alone, e.g. interms of cleaner cars but a continuing trend towards greater car numbers and use.

� The Deep Ecology scenario — a world fit for hobbits.� The sustainable city region — the preferred alternative of both author and reviewer

in which there are both social and technological transformations and the socialtransformations relate both to individual behaviour and collective policy.

The general character of the Context section is good in the sense that there isclear exposition of ideas and a good account of the contemporary spatial and socialcharacter of the city region. Moreover, although the ideas are left under-developed,Ravetz clearly understands that city-regions are complex systems with all the impli-cations that flow from that ontological specification. Here it must be said that it isa pity that he does not draw on the work of the Cranfield complexity group and inparticular on Allen’s [2] specification of the complex character of city regions. Thiswould have provided a good frame for much of the subsequent account. Complexityis implicit but the book would have been better with it explicit.

Ravetz does propose an “ Integrated Sustainable Cities Assessment Method”involving “systems mapping” , “accounting” (with a software tool developed for this),delineation of strategies and agencies, and appraisal. This is important but againleaving the complex system “ontology” — i.e. specification of the nature of the urbanregion as a complex system — implicit, means that things are not taken as far asthey might be. Lemon et al’s [3] proposal of integrated method would seem to tiethis kind of thing together in a way which is not achieved beyond the level ofdescription in this text.

Complexity would have been nice and very useful. However, a more damaging,indeed crucial weakness of the text is also apparent in this first section. Despite theclear specification of the postindustrial character of the city region and an explicit

217Book reviews / Futures 34 (2002) 213–218

linking of that character to the processes of social change summed up in theexpression “post-fordism” and a coherent identification of the divided and polarizedsocio-spatial form of the postindustrial, post-fordist city — this book never confrontsthe fundamental antagonisms of interest which underlie those divisions and whichwill be crucial in shaping the urban future. I think Ravetz knows about exploitation,domination and even class relations but, and this is characteristic of liberal techno-cratic planning as proposed by the TCPA for over one hundred years (there are muchworse things let me hasten to say), there is an assumption of consensus when wemight necessarily have war to the knife. If consensus is assumed then we may restassured that the scenario for the future is business as usual.

Part Two — the discussion of Key Sectors — covers the built environment, traveland transport, land and ecology, waste and pollution, energy and climate, and econ-omy and work. The chapters are always interesting and anyone looking for a sus-tainability fix on any of these topics will be well served. Each concludes with asection on “making it happen” but these are the weakest part of the expositionbecause, while they do contain sensible and practical suggestions, they back off frompolitical realities. The chapters in part three “Putting it Together” deal with lifestyleand community, regeneration, and funding and running the city region. Again theyare always informative — I was particularly impressed by the discussion of fundingissues which is innovative and comprehensive. However the chapter dealing withgovernance does demonstrate the weakness of the absence of what in my mis-spentyouth used to be called “a class analysis” (post-colonialists might add gender, eth-nicity, sexual orientation and whatever — I would not). The discussion of adminis-trative forms is interesting but as is almost invariably the case in texts of this sortwhen we come to practice what we get is participation. Empowerment doesn’ t geta look in, which is perhaps no bad thing because when that word is used outside anotion of fundamental conflict, then it becomes a gutted and meaningless travesty. InManchester those with the power aren’ t easily going to give it up. Political scientistsrecognize that our cities are “post-democratic” — the essential content of the usefulconcept of “urban regime” . There is no real sense of the issues that arise from thatin this text.

But the book does have a lot of good stuff, once you get past the obstacles theformat poses in getting to it. That said if I apply the old rule I learned as a left wingcatholic teenager — that in dealing with situations you should see, judge and act —very similar to survey, plan and implement when you think about it, then the bookdoesn’ t see important things, judges only environmentally (which is not nothing),and whilst proposing actions, ignores the most important interests which make itmost unlikely that those actions will happen.

References

[1] Blowers A, editor. Planning for a sustainable environment. London: Earthscan; 1993.[2] Allen P. Cities and regions as self-organizing systems. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach, 1997.[3] Lemon M, editor. Exploring environmental change using an integrative method. Amsterdam: Gordon

and Breach; 1999.

218 Book reviews / Futures 34 (2002) 213–218

David ByrneDepartment of Sociology and Social Policy,

University of Durham, Elvet Riverside,Durham DH1 3JT, UK

E-mail address: dave.byrne@durham.ac.uk

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