1 .		Your textbook authors introduced the concept of space-time convergence, meaning "the rate at which places move closer together in travel or communication time or costs." Geographer David Harvey calls this the concept of "time-space compression." I mean to signal by that term processes that so revolutionize the objective qualities of space and time that we are forced to alter, sometimes in quite radical ways, how we represent the world to ourselves. I use the word 'compression' because a strong case can be made that the history of capitalism has been characterized by speed-up in the pace of life, while so overcoming spatial barriers that the world sometimes seems to collapse inwards upon us. The time taken to traverse space and the way we commonly represent that fact to ourselves are useful indicators of the kind of phenomena I have in mind. As space appears to shrink to a 'global village' of telecommunications and a 'spaceship earth' of economic and ecological interdependencies -- to use just two familiar and everyday images -- and as time horizons shorten to the point where the present is all there is (the world of the schizophrenic), so we have to learn how to cope with an overwhelming sense of compression of our spatial and temporal worlds. The experience of time-space compression is challenging, exciting, stressful, and sometimes deeply troubling, capable of sparking, therefore, a diversity of social, cultural, and political responses. A further explanation is given by geographers Doreen Massey and Pat Jess from their book A Place in the World? The familiar claim that 'places are all becoming the same' seems to reflect a notion that everyone everywhere is wearing jeans and trainers and drinking cola out of a metal can. This perception of globalization follows from ideas prevalent in the 1960s, that the world would become westernized or, perhaps more specifically, that the culture of the USA would spread all over the globe and that, soon, everywhere would have a McDonald's. But although 'fast food' did arrive on the streets of London, Moscow and many other places, it arrived in places which had their own existing character and culture. Sometimes, as in Britain for example, where local characteristics may be reinforced through local planning regulations, some international images have had to be modified to 'fit in' to a local streetscape; sometimes the images and the building-styles that go with the newcomers form a clear reminder of 'the shrinking world' and the multinational corporations. But it is not only American-style burger shops which occupy the High Street; so do Chinese, Italian and Indian restaurants, all of which, in time, become as familiar as the 'local' butcher or greengrocer. In other words, what we have witnessed is a process of global mixing (although an unequal and uneven one) rather than a straightforward, unidirectional notion of westernization. These representations of the moving and mixing of peoples and cultures run quite contrary to the old idea of places having fixed boundaries and exclusive communities. They suggest instead a permeability of boundaries and an openness to influences from elsewhere, an openness which is multidirectional. The unfamiliar becomes familiar and the familiar is found in unfamiliar places; we now expect to find certain foodstuffs and a host of commodities available in places far from where they were originally produced, and we no longer feel we need to take 'everything' with us when we go on holiday 'abroad'. And not only commodities and places; the process of moving and mixing affects cultures as well. Cultures intersect and influence one another in ways which leave behind any notion of a simple and direct association between culture and place. If ever there was a simple correlation between place and culture, it is no longer so simple. No culture, no place, is 'pure' and there is no authentic version of either to 'go back' to. Globalization is part of major processes of social change, and the multidirectional nature of the moving and mixing involved has produced and reproduced not sameness but hybridity and local uniqueness. Comment and localize this concept of time-space convergence and space-place relations in your own life experience. Do you think the effects of time-space convergence is similar between the urban and the rural?   To create paragraphs in your essay response, type <p> at the beginning of the paragraph, and </p> at the end.