The exorbitant and generic cities are introduced in this chapter of Abbas’ book. What caught my eye is the irony of cities wanting to be legible and imageable and hence boosting their visuals but instead turning into the opposite problem of hypervisibility and instant recognition. Hence, as such anomalies multiply in the city, they become too generic. The book states Hong Kong as one of such examples, but I disagree with such a view since I think as long as there is a cultural and traditional heritage these “anomalies” do not become generic even if they add up. I think that the complexity and abundance of such anomalies is what makes Hong Kong, and some other cities, more fascinating and iconic.
Hae Gi Choi 3035451193
Good point about the irony of it all. What do you understand to be the factors that produce the “generic city”? What are some shared characteristics between the “exorbitant city” and the “generic city”? While Hong Kong has a unique character that on the whole does not present itself as generic, it possesses definite characteristic of the exorbitant city. What are examples of the “anomalies” that are not absorbed by the “generic city”? If you recall Abbas’s essay on disappearance that you have previously read, are not even buildings and places that are understood as historically meaningful subject to treatment (sometimes framed within the understanding of heritage conservation) that is similar to what is being done in other cities? Consider that genericness is understood not only from the perspective of the thing/place itself but in the treatment of it.