“Migratory Cities” explored a plethora of imaginary worlds from science fiction novels, movies and architectural posts, analysing each world settings but looking at its survival methods, energy efficiency and other aspects. Looking at this pantheon of fictional settings closely, I come to the conclusion that worlds of science fiction are reflections of our own cities, as well as imagination and inspiration of how our cities could be built differently.
The latter half of the text mainly explored the idea of distributed cities. Instead of a bigger, more concentrated city, distributed cities are a series of smaller cities, each with its particular expertise, connected by telecommunications and other technology to work together as a self-sufficient entity. While having a reliance on technology, distributed cities to me bring the positive effect of ensuring urban survivability, where a part of the city is destroyed by a disaster, the other parts, unaffected due to the distance between can come to rescue. In addition, distributed cities will not exhaust the area of their natural resources as quickly, since the agglomeration of the population would not be as severe with the city more spread out. This reminds me of the development proposal by Rem Koolhas, who proposed architects and urban designers look at suburban and rural areas to develop, and help spread out cities to ensure the longevity of our earth, or the idea of a global city by Saskia Sassen, where the fiction of distance is diminished due to the advancements of our technology, allow us to communicate, trade, and interact with the other side of the world.
From taking classes on zoom at the comfort at my own house, to seeing vaccines being developed through the combined efforts of laboratories around the world, I see distributed cities not as science fiction, but as a possibility.
What fascinates me equally about the cities of science fiction is that the cities portrayed are base on real cities, where a particular aspect or shortage of said city are being pushed to the absolute extreme.
The text mentioned that the hundreds of cities where ‘Strength of Stones’ takes place in are homes and a safe harbour ‘for the galaxy’s surviving Jews, Muslims, and Christians’, a particular description that fits New York City very well, when chaos ensued in most of Europe and Asia in World War 2, millions of war refugees desperate to escape their hometowns in Europe, eventually travelling to a city relatively far away from war. ‘Snowpiercer’ portrayed a world cover in snow, suffering from perpetual winter that makes the earth inhabitable, originating from a plan to save earth from global warming gone horribly wrong, a problem we face at this very moment. “Earth”, a rail-riding city in ‘Inverted World’ envisions a moving city where each resident has a specific job scope and responsibility to ensure the survival of the city, something we refer to as ‘division of labour’ in the real world. Sci-fi writers take a particular aspect of reality, be it the lack of a particular resource, social hierarchy, or human’s natural instinct of greed and warmongering, then adapt it, alter it, dials it all the way up, and with the help of plot holes and imaginary technology, they ponder the question “how will humans live together in this world?”
I believe that there is something to learn from these aspects. The uprising in Snowpiercer, sacrifices made to change the status quo, draws a haunting comparison to the bloodshed in Myanmar, the thousands of people standing up against the coup staged by the military. The exploitation and political deception in Inverted World, much similar to people in second and third world countries, work to the brink of exhaustion every day without proper welfare and pay to deliver goods and resources to us. Though romanticised in fiction, science fiction reminds us of the real and pressing issues much needed to be resolved in our world, serving as a reminder to not go the way of dystopian fiction, or what is fiction may turn into reality.
— Sherman Lo Shui Fung, U3035582966
A very articulate response to Abbott’s text! Technology has certainly transcended the concept of Distributed City from physical polycentric networks of cities to an interchange between digital and physical, which the covid pandemic has rightfully proved possible. However, I would be careful not to confuse the idea of urban sprawl with Distributed City – urban sprawl is the growth of a city; while Distributed City suggests a support network of self-contained cities.
On a side note, Koolhaas’ Countryside project (exhibition and book) investigates the transformation and experimental potential of countryside through a series of questioning on its role and significance. Therefore, I doubt that he had the agenda of encouraging the urban sprawl to the countryside.