In Abbott. C’s writing ‘Migratory Cities’, the writer suggests a more pragmatic definition of the cities’ roles and the criteria for cityhood. Abbott explains his idea through the cases shown in two stories: 1950 James Blish’s <Astounding Science Fiction> and 2009 Stephen Baxter’s <Flood>. Both stories project the cities that are in ‘move’, which literally can ‘fly, walk, crawl, roll, creep, and float’ by inches and miles. This premise the authors suggested definitely challenged the stereotypes of cities in our mind, such as that cities are always stationary, have concentric structure spread out from the middle, not relocated unless the government does so, and ‘die on the ground where they were born’.
But the flying Manhattan and wandering community in the stories actually seem to operate properly, serving most of the responsibilities that the cities have to come up with, even though they were breaking the very bottom line of the existing definition of cities. The community in <Flood> explains themselves as organized, politically structured, secured, facilitated, communicable, … and therefore, as one ‘city’.
This is where the question ‘Then what makes the city a city?’ comes out. Abbot answers the question by suggesting three more practical criteria for the cityhood. First of all, its population has to be large enough and consists of heterogeneous races, ages, and backgrounds. He states that the city has to drive the action that meets proper scales and variety of urban life. The flying Manhattan fell short of his standard regarding this aspect. Secondly, the city has to provide sufficient services to residents and ensure stabilities with a firm organization, such as the government. And lastly, regardless of their ability to move, the city has to be fortified enough to survive from dynamic geophysical changes around. In his words, the city has to be able to ‘substitute persistence for permanence’.
Starting from somewhat absurd curiosity ‘What if a city could move?’, Abbott rather came up with a more substantive definition of cities, implying it is not just about a physical assembly of a building but an organic structure that has mean.
Kim Sunyub 3035550561