In particular, the creation of networks means that anyone can be a node in the network, but what begins to matter most is to whom one has connections. This means that old-fashioned connections have begun to matter more, now that anyone can be linked to everywhere, in order to make sense of the complexity. For people in local places, it is important perhaps crucial to have links to the global networks of large firms where information, commerce, and decisions are centered. Links to global networks no longer require proximity, but they do require having links and using them to obtain and exchange information. The cost of being unconnected or remote is a higher cost of operation, usually in the form of a time penalty, rather than as a penalty.
Time is often the most important variable for a person or firm to control.
The front-line and cutting edge places are big cities. Everywhere else must rely on their connections to big cities and their capabilities in other factors, especially labor skills. Although the effect of telecommunications has the potential to collapse distance rather than just to shrink it, the effect is not uniform either between different combinations of regions or between different organisations occupying the same region. The computer network innovations which are redefining the basis of competitive advantage cannot be divorced from the organisations within which they are embedded. . . Rural and peripheral areas face special challenges, to which the paper returns after discussing the imperatives of business location.