Reading through Abbott. C’s Migratory Cities, I am deeply intrigued in the concept of cities in different shapes. Abbotts provided many examples of moving cities like the one Stephen Baxter illustrated in his novel “Flood”. Through the reading I felt the need to redefine the concept of “City” as a preparation for future.
Along with the facilitation of the reading, I now believe we should acknowledge that “City” is only refering to a place where a large group of people live. We must acknowledge that there can be other forms of cities. For instance, the movie “Snowpiercer” (2013) illustrated a society with different classes of people living in different parts of train. The train itself represented and act as a “city”.
(image from Laputa: Caslt in the Sky)
With the acknowledgement of other forms of city, that “city” does not necessarily refers to still buildings, more diversified and innovative shapes of cities can be formed. Now that think of it, castle in the cloud, like “Laputa: Caslt in the Sky” by Hayao Miyazaki are one other type of moving city, just that it is more mysterious.
(image from One Piece)
The idea of city being more than still buildings gave us more rooms to create our fantasy. Like even in animation, in “One Piece” by Eiichiro Oda, a fictional city Water Seven faced inundation by the constantly raising sea level, then someone came up with the idea of making the whole city into a boat. This reflects that with the adoption of city being able to move can allow us to come up with my innovative and interesting thoughts in movies and films.
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