“Migratory cities” seem fantastic and full of scientific and technological sense. However, as Abbott said the flowing city will be in a “bubble” and the “walking city” will be a “self-sufficient” city. Both of them show the closed attitude. For the happiness inside the city ,they would like to disconnect from the world and nature.This is some similar to “build a wall between slum and rich neighborhood” in Brazil ,which makes “closed neighborhood” with many disadvantage. And the movement of the mass requires a great deal of energy. Sci-fi film Wondering Earth is under the background of the engine that

Continue reading[Reading Response: Carl Abbott]

The discussion of “distributed city” is particularly interesting in spatial sociology and also demonstrated by science fiction. By separating the functional districts into physical spaces that distant from each other, will the production model of the city remain similar as before? Saskia Sassen’s answer might be denial, for she argued that with the growth of demand for highly professional labor, the requirement of nearby related infrastructure and service will also increase. For example, around the agglomeration of banks and finance companies in Central, where people work for a high salary and long hours, hospitals, parks, and malls guaranteed their basic

Continue readingReading Response:Carl Abbott

The description of the lag-time places deeply touched me. The develop of technology and Internet are so fast, and the rise of the metropolis and its bright appearance always make people yearn for it. But on the edge of the city, in those gray areas, people have advanced technology, but not the basic living and social security to go with it, thus forming the chaos of “forgotten cities”. The growth of cybercity scares me. If human has advanced technology but the social structure breaks down, then we are likely to inevitably enter the future of cyberpunk. Powerful corporations take control and small individuals lose their dignity. I don’t

Continue readingReading Response: M. Christine Boyer

The first text provided numerous examples of imaginary cities that might appear in the future, among which most seem pessimistic and desperate. A few questions pop up: Is that what our future will be like? Why do all these authors imagine our future like that? Many pessimistic future cities are imagined as moving ones, which I believe is because it is novel to people living in the world now who have never experienced such a life. Moreover, an individual in a large society is somehow like the moving cities: start travelling from one home, wander in the big ocean of

Continue readingReading Response: Carl Abbott

While reading the article, I have the same feeling with most of the people. I feel quite pessimistic and cannot see the future, especially the future in Hong Kong. As we know that the overwhelming population is getting serious, it is nearly impossible to purchase estate. As we know that Kowloon Wall City is the product of lacking planning. Sky-rocketing population causing the poor living environment in there. It is something happen in the past. However, I believe that we will face the same problem in the future. Since the Hong Kong population is still growing, the land will be

Continue readingReading Response: Carl Abbott

While reading examples raised in the first article, a question pops up: why are future imaginations always dark and pessimistic? Our ‘future’ is filled with natural disasters, running out of resources and pollutions together with the disappearance of social structure. In the serial drama Black Mirror, many episodes depict how high technology improves people’s quality of life in the beginning. But almost every one of them turns out to have a heart-broken ending, full of irony, suspicion and critics. The negative imagination of human nature terrifies me more than the physical ones. It seems that the accumulation of human intelligence,

Continue readingReading Response: Carl Abbott