Here is one problematic aspect to the comparison of place linkage and hypertext linkage: In a hypertext there is the structure of the set of links in the text, and there is also the envisioned structure and history created on the occasion of a particular reading of the text. The link structure provides possible paths but not an actual journey. Some literary hypertext theorists argue that it is the unique event of a particular reading which creates "the text." I find this view unsatisfactory for the same reasons that it would be unsatisfactory to argue that a symphony or a play exists uniquely in each performance and not also in the score or script. The full reality of the work must involve both, so that each can provide ways to criticize the other. A performance of a play or a reading of a hypertext could be inadequate to what is there in the text; on the other hand a script could be unperformable, or a hypertext structure so convoluted that it was unreadable.
The point in relation to suburbs is that a suburban place is structured by its skein of normative connections, not just by the itineraries of your or my particular life in the suburbs, which will actualize only some of the "built-in" connections. However, as with texts, each may be used to criticize the other: my daily life might not take adequate advantage of the connections available, or, as too often happens, the poverty of daily living might show up the thinness of the normative connections. As with art, density of available connection is important for the richness of life.
(c) David Kolb, 1 August 2001