In the 1960s the Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase 'Global Village'.
It neatly embodied the growing awareness that talking to friends in Australia was as easy as having a chat over the garden fence. Its sense of intimacy and friendliness recommended it to an optimistic era and it passed quickly into the public's vocabulary.
30 years later, the village metaphor is less convincing. The over-the-garden-fence chat is the stuff of out-dated soap operas. We are reluctant to let children play in the local park, assuming we have one. Our high streets are guarded by CCTV cameras, our new housing developments by gates and security guards, and our homes by security locks and neighbourhood watch schemes. All is not well in the village, it seems.
