Piece in TheFeature by Smart Mobs author Howard Rheingold about how cellphones and wireless PDAs are changing the metabolism of cities, with people squeezing even more into their days by being able to make calls, send emails and text messages, etc while commuting or moving about the city:
As a result of the extra telephone-enabled work accomplished while commuting or moving from place to place within a city, Townsend believes the pace of urban life is quickening. “As every person completes more tasks, communicates with more people, coordinates activities among more social networks in the same amount of time, the aggregate effect is an acceleration of the urban metabolism.” If Townsend is right, today’s New York minute will seem too leisurely for tomorrow’s crowds of hypercoordinated and autoscheduled city-dwellers. One key challenge to civic leaders and urban planners is to create more public spaces that attract transient communities of wireless urban nomads who serve as creativity and conviviality magnets, attracting vitality to the social heart of the city.
We’re lucky enough not to have to commute anywhere during the day, but we know what he’s talking about. We’ve acquired a bad habit of trying to only make our lengthy social phone calls while we’re walking to or from something, like walking to the post office; it’s difficult to justify simply sitting around the house, chatting on the phone, when there is so much else (read: blogging) to do.
