It took just 20 years for the personal computer to go from glamorous, newly invented avatar of the future to drab, quotidian commodity that anonymous corporations produce and distribute by the millions at the lowest possible price points. IBM's recent sale of its personal computer division to a Chinese outfit that most Americans and Europeans had never heard of is a sure sign that the digital revolution of the late 20th century is over. Media mania is no more. But as the tumult and the shouting of the journalists and the flacks dies, the captains and the kings of industry depart the hallowed ground of Silicon Valley (retiring to their McMansions to dream of breaking into bio or nano), the legendary labs close their doors one by one, and the Internet bubble of the waning millennium fades into history like the tulip frenzy and the great gold rushes, we can begin to understand the immense, irreversible, multifaceted change that all this has brought to our cities.