City of Bits Paperback – 25 July 1996

It looks like new

Had I come across this book a decade ago I'd have appreciated it more. While it may have been interesting to hear Mitchell prognosticate about the Internet in the mid-1990s, much of this book's content now seems dated. Numerous futuristic scenarios he describes are run-of-the-mill today. Some of what he envisioned is spot on: anyone will be able to telecommute to work, watch CNN and socialize with friends on multiple screens connected to a personal computer; video conferencing will be commonplace; people will be able to get answers to specialized questions in niche online forums. Other prognostications have yet to fully pan out: distance will become irrelevant and the landscapes of cities will be changed by the Internet as much as the automobile changed cities.The best chapters of this book examine architecture and how the design of space in buildings affect people's movement, activities and behavior within that space. Mitchell convincingly argues that design of space can be applied to the virtual world. Still, the technologies and services Mitchell describes as the conduits that would shape the space of the Internet didn't really pan out. I don't think too many people are still going to usenet to find people with common interests, nor are ISPs like eWorld, Compuserv or Prodigy particularly relevant today, as Mitchell seems to have thought they would have been. As someone living in 2009, most of this book comes across as, well, duh, of course. Then again, since I have the benefit of living in the future that Mitchell describes, it's easy for me to say that.