The wireless way to urban revitalization

The Philadelphia Wi-Fi issue is unfolding not a moment too late. In addition to the economic ramifications, this interesting article from Salon.com (PPS is mentioned towards the end) talks some about some of the interesting social implications of wireless technology in cities.

I disagree with Paul Goldberger cited in the article, who wrote in Metropolis

"the mobile phone renders a public place less public...it turns the boulevardier into a sequestered individual, the flâneur into a figure of privacy. And suddenly the meaning of the street as a public place has been hugely diminished,"

and tend to succumb to the allure of the projects from Glowlab, who use wireless technologies to explore the urban realm, allowing greater exploration of connections between increasingly specific localities (i.e. attention paid to a single block in the Lower East Side reaps enough material for an exhibit now ended). These innovations can give deeper and more local meaning to the sense of place than ever before.