In the article, Ackbar Abbas poses arguments about the different changes that have been takin place in cities and how a strict analysis of cinema helps us understand these changes. The writer has mainly probed into two kinds of cities: Exorbitant and generic cities. He has defined exorbitant city as a city that is impossible to capture in one scene, it is not photogenic and cannot draw on the available repertoire of images, it relates to the kind of uncertain sociality found in cities where social relations are either changing or have broken down. On the other hand, he defines a generic city as a city that is independent from the chains of its history, it is liberal and does not get weighed down under a general identity.
Ackbar Abbas believes that a city can either be generic or exorbitant but not both at the same time. I believe that a city can be exorbitant and generic depending on the viewers perspective. For example, if a person views shanghai as a financial hub, then it is classified under exorbitant city. But if the viewer is aware of the historical and cultural significance of shanghai it gets classified under generic city.
shaurya kang
3035812385
A good synthesis of Abbas’ idea of the exorbitant and generic city. It would be great if you can elaborate your response more as you have presented an interesting comment on the possibility of co-existence between exorbitant city and generic city. An exorbitant city suggests an overwhelming, multifaceted, “phantasmagoric” city (Abbas, 143), how does Shanghai’s role as a financial hub be classified as exorbitant city? That aside, Abbas noted Koolhaas’ thesis pointed out that “Generic City has overcome any fixation on identity.” (Abbas, 147), why do you think that if one is aware of the historical and cultural significance of Shanghai, it would be a Generic City?