At 08:11 PM 5/1/96 +0200, you wrote:

...

...

It's now a major industrial city and will

It's industry being?

It's a service industry. An information service industry. Journalists, phone-sex whores, business consultants, bankers, brokers and barkers are moving into town, setting up their virtual shops, and catering to the hordes of readers, sightseers, sex-seekers, game-players, businessmen, professionals and amateurs of all stripes that are pouring into town in wave after wave.

Its also a college town. And a publishing center. Then there's the warehouse district, and the post office. There's also a thriving import-export business. No wonder the political big-shots back in Atomland wish they could annex Cyberspace. I predict that these attempts will succeed about as well as the European colonization of the Americas. (ambiguity intended)

Granted most of these virtual shops consist of a single ticket-taker's booth and a 10-meter tall neon facade.

That's how boom-towns start, allright.

Granted that the shops occasionally collapse on visitors,

Yes.

that there are no streets,

We have streets all over the place. From here theres a 56Kb lane road that's even fairly well paved. But they mostly lead to "Atomland expatriot hobbyists" and a few service subsistance farms.

that you can't tell the sellers from the buyers

It always starts with a barter economy.

... few people are able to accept cash.

It will be a while, but someday folks will say: "Save your greenbacks, Atomland will rise again!" and they will be wrong.

Still, it's a service industry.

Coming soon.... Virtual Food! Okay, maybe I got a little carried away....