I wonder if an increasing dominance of the word "space" isn't a reflection of our contemporary capitalism.
1. Abstract "spaces" replace concrete "places" in the world fully subsumed under capitalism & remade in the image of capital (in many places "real subsumption of labor under capital" has replaced "formal subsumption" though there is still much primitive accumulation -- e.g., dispossession of peasants -- left to do). There are few non-capitalist "places" left for capital to take over (as in the age of colonialism), so it must ceaselessly create new "spaces" if it were to create new markets.
2. There has been no epoch-making invention that revolutionizes the means of production & raises labor productivity higher (e.g., steam, coal, oil, automobiles, etc.) for the last several decades. In rich nations, an increasing portion of the growing labor force has been employed in service industries (be they public or private sectors) which are labor-intensive, not capital-intensive, and whose productivity is hard to raise. In an age without an epoch-making invention, the metaphor of "time" (which under capitalism depends upon the notion of Progress) is less attractive than the metaphor of "space."
3. In many cities in the USA, zoning & the war on crimes have been ruthlessly employed to create new upscale "spaces" for accumulation in the same "places" that used to be blighted by urban decay.
David Harvey might say something like above.
Yoshie