Title: Desired configuration of live/work communities for information workers: a new perspective on an old debate between mixed-use small towns vs. mono-functional suburbia

Authors: Tooran Alizadeh

Addresses: Griffith School of Environment, Griffith University, Nathan Campus, 170 Kessels Road, Nathan, Brisbane, Queensland 4111, Australia

Abstract: This paper investigates the desired configuration of live/work communities for the growing social group of community-based information workers who work, live and play in the same locality using telecommunication. It starts with a brief review of information workers and their urban preferences in the literature. It then refers to a long-standing debate between suburbs and old small towns as mono-functional versus mixed-use developments that leads to the case study choice for this paper's empirical part. This paper then examines two case studies of recently developed live/work communities in Australia and the USA in which different urban configurations - mixed-use versus mono-functional - delivered different results towards attracting information work. This investigation offers a new perspective on the old debate between the two urban configurations that could contribute to the development of residential communities in the new era.

Keywords: suburbia; old towns; small towns; urban configurations; mixed use development; monofunctional; live-work communities; information work; telecommunications; Australia; USA; United States; information workers; suburbs; residential communities.

DOI: 10.1504/IJKBD.2012.048391

International Journal of Knowledge-Based Development, 2012 Vol.3 No.3, pp.264 - 282

Received: 15 Oct 2011
Accepted: 30 Mar 2012

Published online: 31 Jul 2014 *

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