This article introduces many different types of imagined cities in science fiction movies which depitcted a despair and cruelty of the urban future. As what the author has mentioned about Mortal Engines, a book written in his article, described the city of the future with all possibilities while social classes are polarised to extremes: the elite would be so privileged that they can live in a good life, but the factories of the lower classes strike in squalor. The author has created a false utopia. Many pessimistic cities of the future were labelled as “moving cities”, and no matter what

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This article shows us various types of imaginary cities. Those imaginary cities often have a background setting of catastrophe, and human social issues that exist in reality are magnified after the disaster. These cities’ functions are also used to tackle the problems humans would go through. For example, “Walking city” describes a city with extensive legs that can let it migrate from one place to another. The imagination of “Walking city” indicated people’s potential worries about future environmental pollution. It also reflects the reality of the lack of public transportation resources. Another example is the film “Snowpiercer”. In the movie, people

Continue readingReading Response: Carl Abbott

After reading, I was interested in the walking city mentioned in the first half. The residents can move the whole city anytime when there is serious environmental pollution and political oppression. In such a situation, people really have human rights and initiative. The author points out that such cities are not only hunters, but also gatherers and traders. Each independent city had a high degree of economic development and autonomous power. Each inhabitant is indispensable. The article’s “urban robots with huge extendable legs” is also a reflection of the unprecedented development of technology. In the future, advanced artificial intelligence and

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The reading shows cities in films in a concise yet detailed approach, exploring all of the different functions that help the city work. I find it interesting that most of the cities within the film are set in a post-apocalyptic world, and they are constantly mobile, a city that holds the last trace of humanity traversing across a ruined world. This setting can help spawn a lot of unconventional cities that are beyond our imagination, but the creators always seem to draw references from real cities, for example, the class disparity and mistreatment of the lower class within the moving

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Science fiction cities move by floating and flying in the sky, crawling and walking on the road, sometimes floating and sailing on the water. The mobile city from Strength of Stone disassembles and  reassembles itself during the journey. This city moves by the elephant legs. Swarm is a city assembled by more than 150 airships, which have different parts scattered in different places and interact with each other by the control of the computer. This moving city looks like the real city, the area in this city is parceled by the functions. Distributed areas can remotely connect to the others

Continue readingReading Response: Carl Abbott

The reading fascinates me with a new perspective on how the imaginary world envisioned in science fictions are related with the real world. I was provoked to ask the question of what defines a city. The concept of walking cities imagined the flexibility and motion of a territory moving around the globe. In a way, this is similar to rail-riding cities like in Snowpiercer, that small societal systems are built within the drifting city. Yet the largest difference between the two lies in their interaction with the surrounding world. A walking city trades, and hunts other territories, while inhabitants in

Continue readingReading response: Carl Arbott

This chapter mainly talks about migratory cities. Migratory cities are imagined cities in SCI-FI films, they are moving mobile cities including the walking city, distributed city, instant city, and so on. Among all types of cities mentioned in the chapter, I am most impressed by the train city. In the film Snowpiercer, an eternally moving train is the only thing that protects the remaining humans after an ecological disaster has frozen the Earth. On the train, lower-class passengers live in crowded rear cars, while the elites live in comfortable front cars. The train city in the film actually points to

Continue readingReading Response: Carl Abbott