Al-Sayed, K; Deni, S; (2015) Virtual Communities and Patterns of Social Interactions in ‘Tech City’. In: Partanen, J, (ed.) Proceedings of 13th AESOP Complexity and Planning Thematic Group Meeting 15th-16th January 2015. (pp. pp. 10-64). Tampere University of Technology: Tampere, Finland.

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Abstract

The impact of social media and Web 2.0 on socioeconomic behaviour in the physical space of the built environment had recently become a matter of intense debate in social sciences and human geography. This paper examines the relationship between the configurations of urban space from the perspective of 'space syntax' theory by Hillier and Hanson (1984) and the configurations of social networks in Twitter, whilst focusing on the technology start-up cluster in 'Tech City' London. Where there has been arguments made for a strong correlation between twitter ties in businesses and physical distance, this research is focused on the borough scale aiming to outline a relationship between the configurations of streets and the virtual and socioeconomic attributes of start-up businesses. The paper reports a moderate relationship between indices of centrality in twitter network and its correspondent measure in street networks. In addition, the research yields global and temporal patterns of relationships with land uses and land values. The paper concludes by reflecting on how the configurations of twitter Tech-City community are present in the physical medium, where short and long links define the local and global part-whole relationship between Tech-City and other communities.

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