‘The economic frenzy of the 1990s…[typified by] new styles of production, novel forms of consumption and organization in everyday life, new horizons of planning and logistics of mobility, [and] new forms of materiality and sensibilities’ (Löfgren (2003) Glob. Netwks 3, 3). It is being built around smaller enterprises distributed in a much more dispersed geography, relies on the old economy for physical capital and a portion of demand, and the location of business activity in the new economy is far less tied to the cost-based logic that has shaped and reshaped the distribution of industry in the old economy. It relies to a growing extent on telephone-based networks for production and delivery, but also has leading-edge layers that require face-to-face contact (Beyers (2002) J. Econ. Geog. 2, 1). For J. Bryson et al. (2004) the key players in the new economy are service activities, although Chiang (2008) Geog. Compass 2, 1 focuses on ‘the critical role of manufacturing’, which spurs innovation spillover and generates multiplier effects. However, for Wood (2002) J. Econ. Geog. 2, 2 the term signifies that things are not what they used to be ‘even if we are not certain what they are’. Ettlinger (2007) PHG 32, 1 argues that ‘the popular characterization of the new economy in terms of “time–space compression” requires revision to consider the complex content of what is being compressed over time and across space’.