The Informational World City London
Abstract
Purpose
The Department of Information Science of the Heinrich-Heine-University in Düsseldorf is currently conducting a research project on Informational World Cities – the prototypical cities of the knowledge society, which have been growing in the twenty-first century. In total, 31 potential Informational World Cities were identified and a set of criteria was developed to evaluate the degree of informativeness of a city through coherent criteria. The purpose of this paper is to investigate London.
Design/methodology/approach
The investigation was based on the Grounded Theory, ethnographic field research, interviews, bibliometrics, patentometrics, official statistics and the analysis of web content. During the stay in London, eight semi-standardised interviews according to SERVQUAL were conducted.
Findings
The characteristics of an Informational World City are well-marked in most cases, especially London’s knowledge infrastructure. Furthermore London places value on smart innovations and tries to adapt public transport to the growing population. This includes, next to an enhancement of the train capacities, information and communication technology, since the digital infrastructure keeps gaining importance. The ethnic/cultural diversity as well as the international connectivity and the creative infrastructure are also distinguishing marks of London. Nevertheless, especially the digital and smart infrastructure require enhancement. London’s government is ambitioned, though, to make progress and pursues plans which are of benefit to the city’s informativeness.
Social implications
This paper gives insight into the characteristics of the prototypical city of the upcoming knowledge society.
Originality/value
This paper follows an interdisciplinary approach and combines information science, urban studies and sociology to analyse cities of the knowledge society. Furthermore it is the first time that London is considered an Informational World City in an empirical study.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors’ special thanks goes to the interview partners for offering a deeper insight into life and development in London regarding the various aspects of informativeness.
Citation
Murugadas, D., Vieten, S., Nikolic, J. and Mainka, A. (2015), "The Informational World City London", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 71 No. 4, pp. 834-864. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-06-2014-0090
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited