The Network Society - University of Massachusetts Amherst

Editor’s Preface xxiii
in a different, but complementary approach, focuses on the local, analyzing
what kinds of buildings are required by the network economy
and the knowledge society. How should these be distributed spatially
within a city?
The final chapter of the book focuses on the policies of transition
to the network society. Pekka Himanen looks at the challenges that
are going on in the information society and their future evolution on a
medium term trend, giving particular emphasis on the situation in
Finland and Europe. For Himanen, the most critical aspect in the
development of the information society is the development of the deepset
structures of society, to which we must now pay close attention,
stressing that the development of technology will help only when it is
combined with changes in the underlying structures.
Erkki Liikanen’s contribution focuses on the European Union policies,
namely, why it is important to increase productivity and innovation
in Europe across all industry and service sectors, what is the key
role ICTs play in improving Europe’s economy and how the European
Union stimulates this through the eEurope 2005 Action Plan and
what should be the political approach to sustain the development of
the broadband market. Focusing on South America, namely Chile,
Carlos Alvarez analyzes the incorporation of Information and
Communications Technologies (ICTs) as a key component of Chile´s
strategy for economic growth and social development, giving a context
of the global impact of ICT to later concentrate on how ICTs
have been embraced as a government initiative in Chile. We then
return again our attention to Europe with a contribution by Maria
João Rodrigues that asks, “What Europe do we want and for what?”
Her argument is that the traditional discourses focusing on the need
to ensuring peace within borders are no longer working, namely for
the younger generations who take this for granted. Given that, we
need a more forward-looking approach to the European citizens aspirations
by focusing on sustaining their living conditions in a global
economy, making Europe a stronger player in improving global governance
and creating a more democratic and effective political system.
The paths and objectives for Europe are here discussed under the
framework of the Lisbon Strategy.
Finally, Jorge Sampaio, President of the Portuguese Republic,
responsible for the fostering of this book by inviting the different