Apocalyptic predictions have declared the advent of information technology to cause a gradual elimination of the reliance on physical place. As one example, Batty (1993, p. 615) meant that the Internet would entail 'a new kind of space, invisible to our direct senses, a space which might become more important than physical space itself.' Negroponte (1995, p. 2-3) suggested that the increased 'digitalization' would cause a move from 'the manipulation of atoms' to 'the management of bits,' insinuating a shift from whatever is tangible or physical to the intangible and virtual. Developing a similar