Notes

The virtual space since its formation in the early 1990s had produced different forms of societies differing in size, structure and bonding. The impact of the virtual space in the society and its use of physical space has been a material of debate in social sciences and human geography. This paper studies the relationships between the configuration of the physical space network and virtual space network. A relevant research was by Garcia-Gavilanes, Mejova and Quercia (2014) in twitter ties between businesses and the physical distance. Secondly, the most relevant research in spatial configuration and configuration of virtual space was a theoretical approach in Weissenborn’s (2010) dissertation through building a taxonomical model for discussions between Hillier’s and Hanson’s (1984) ‘Space Syntax theory’ and Benkler’s (2006) “information networked environment’. This paper will start with the discussion of some common conceptions in social sciences in the relationship between society, virtual space and urban space including Castell’s ‘Space of flows’ (1996), Urry’s ‘Mobilities Paradigm’ (2007) and Hillier’s and Hanson’s theory of production of societies (1984). Then, this research will refer to Hillier’s and Hanson’s (1984) theory of ‘Space Syntax’ to analyse the configuration of the physical space networks in comparison to the virtual social network of start-ups in twitter in Tech City east London in addition to indicators of physical activity (such as economic status and number of employees) and the dynamics of start-up businesses . The dissertation conclusion points the virtual space as an open complex social network yet the existence of a physical community between a certain set of users could is possible yet there absence of a direct relationships between twitter and the spatial configuration.