Every city is trying to build as many landmarks as they could to represent its image with a view to making the city more memorable. Yet, it leads to many Generic Cities, losing their identity, culture and history while becoming more exorbitant in reality. Why do Asian cities have the tendency to homogenization despite their cultural richness, especially for China with a long history? Perhaps Ironically, the cities are learnt through cinematic image. People are trying to recreate the characters and qualities of the city through film but at the same time, undermining the visibility of their cities. This correlates to a previous reading on the relationship between disappearance and reappearance. Is it due to the cost difference between the reproduction through image and in reality? Is it due to the balance, as well as the prioritization between economic development and cultural preservation through the image representation of the city.
– Wong Lok Yu Angel 3035794375
Films are, indeed, one of the most powerful tools of representation. On the other hand, city branding strategies are part of city marketing, which have been one of the urban design and development aspects for decades. Cities around the world are paying a massive amount of money to stand out from the others, mainly to attract more people to come. By understanding these rationales, you could proceed to approach the “generic city” by asking questions about its multifacetedness and build your argument thereupon. For example, what kind of depiction of a city is provided by films? Have they been representing the city well enough? What are the things that were not depicted in the films? This way, you can better correlate the concept of disappearance to your argument.