Anthony Townsend

<p> It&#39;s the talk of the town today. The Metropolitan Transit Authority, after years of dithering has finally signed a contract to build out a shared cell phone infrastructure inside the underground portions of the subway system. Sort of. </p><p> According to the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/20/nyregion/20cellphone.html">New York Times</a>, &quot;[t]he cellphone network will start in six downtown Manhattan stations in two years. Once it is shown to be working properly, Transit Wireless will have four more years to outfit the rest of the underground stations.&quot; </p><p> Thats six years to completion, folks. Awesome. </p>

<p> The <a href="http://www.bauhinia.org">Bauhinia Foundation Research Centre</a>, a think tank close to Hong Kong governor Donald Tsang, has just released a <a href="http://www.bauhinia.org/publications/BFRC-HKSZ-ES-ENG.pdf">report</a> arguing that it might make sense for Hong Kong and Shenzhen to merge into a single metropolitan entity. According to <em>The Economist</em> Cities Guide email update (one of the magazine&#39;s best services for subscribers and a most for global urban trendwatches): </p>

<p> Valleywag, the uber-obnoxious Bay Area gossip blog has a great piece on the impact a rapidly-expanding Facebook.com has on downtown Palo Alto (The Institute is right across the street!) </p>

<p> The gang at <a href="http://www.appleseedinc.com">Appleseed</a>, one of New York City&#39;s most interesting boutique economic development consultancies, has just <a href="http://blog.appleseedinc.com">launched a new blog</a>. This is looking to be a must-read, as founder Hugh O&#39;Neill has been one of the most accurate analysts and forecasters of economic trends in the New York region for many years now, and a strategist bar none. If his first post, a take on New York City&#39;s current commercial real estate market is a harbinger of things to come, I suspect we&#39;ll be back for more. </p>

<p> <span style="font-size: 12pt">Some readers may be familiar with the </span><span style="font-size: 12pt"><a href="http://groups.google.com/group/telecom-cities">TELECOM-CITIES listserv</a></span><span style="font-size: 12pt"> that I&#39;ve run for the last ten years, sharing discussions about how information and communications technology is transforming cities and the process of urbanization. Once upon a time back in 1998, 1999, TELECOM-CITIES was an active community of researchers trying to figure out what fiber optics and cell phones and dot-com startups meant for the future of cities. Over the years, the list has maintained that focus, but growth of readership has been stagnant for years.