In Chapter 3 of Imagining Urban Futures: Cities in Science Fiction and What We Might Learn From Them, the writer uses a wide range of films to illustrate different kinds of migratory cities. In those examples, cities become walkers, caravans, mantises or trains. They are competing with each other for resources, like coal or food. Some tiny and undeveloped cities will even be hunted in the competition.
Several science fiction writers are reflecting social problems in their novels. For example, in the film Snowpiercer(2013), the gap between the rich and the poor, and class distinction which happened in the real world are also be reflected in the rail-riding city.
Nowadays, the mobile city is still an idea which only happened in novels or images. There are a crop of questions leading it to be unpractical, like power and energy that needed to move and whether it is still a city when it becomes a “distributed city” (how the concept of a city may change if mobile cities exist). However, it is undeniable that sci-fi writers and devotees provide unlimited possibilities for the future.
Name: Shun Ying, Zhuang
UID: 3035702827
Indeed, on the one hand, the mobile city in the literal sense is not realize in the full sense as they are in fiction. However, the idea of the mobile city has been part of human civilization for a long time. Consider communities that are nomadic or semi-nomadic in the past and present. Consider the floating population of workers today. Could one understanding of the mobile city in film an allegory of communities that are mobile – these communities being the economic backbone of the city/country/region?