In this reading, the city with the complexity of physical size and population, historical and cultural change, and movement is been defined as exorbitant while the city with less uniqueness tends to be described generically. However, as the city prospect model is shown in tutorial class, the generosity and exorbitance could coexist. For example, the unique atmosphere was depicted in Kar Wai Wong’s movie “In the Mood for Love” that combined the implicative Chinese style romance and the fashion clothing as well as the modern city background, conveying a special erotic dimension in the movie, which could be the exorbitant perspective of Hong Kong. At the same time, Hong Kong is also a generic city with overwhelming modern many-storied buildings and a similar culture with many colonial cities. However, from my perspectives that whether to define a city a generic one or exorbitant one, also depends on the audience’s cultural context, that for people from the mainland, China, it could be a exorbitant due to the strangeness and freshness, while it is so familiar to those who live in developed countries and thus seen as generic.
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Iris, Yeung Hiu Man
Appreciate this attempt at comparing Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese cities in an attempt to parse out the definitions of a “generic city,” proposed by Abbas. From your response, you seem to argue that for a city to be generic, they are also less unique, less heterogeneous. Can you think of some examples of physical infrastructure, buildings or places that possibly challenge this notion? Choose a city that you are most familiar with. Also, how do. you think a city can resist becoming “generic”?