The perfect urban space was invented thousands of years ago
THE CITY OF THE FUTURE already exists. It’s not Masdar City, the walled “cleantech” hub being built in Abu Dhabi, where sheikhs, workers, and technocrats will commute to corporate offices in solar- powered personal transport pods. Nor is it Chengdu’s Great City, a low-carbon eco-district to be completed by 2020, which will house 80,000 city dwellers in “supertall” towers.
The city of the future is contained in the cities we already inhabit. As Italian author Italo Calvino observed in his classic novel Invisible Cities, any one city can harbour a multitude of others. Sprawling Calgary will soon incorporate swaths of Manhattan-style density near its core, Tokyo’s public parks shelter homeless villages straight out of Mumbai, and the outskirts of Guangzhou are dotted with McMansions that evoke the exurbs of Houston.
Denne historien er fra June 2018-utgaven av The Walrus.
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Denne historien er fra June 2018-utgaven av The Walrus.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Dream Machines - The real threat with artificial intelligence is that we'll fall prey to its hype
Some of the world's largest companies, including Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet, are throwing their full weight behind AI. On top of the billions spent by big tech, funding for AI startups hit nearly $50 billion (US) in 2023.
MY GUILTY PLEASURE
MY CHILDREN are grown, with their own partners, their own lives.
The Quest to Decode Vermeer's True Colours
New techniques reveal hidden details in the Dutch master’s paintings
Repeat after Me
TikTok and Instagram are helping to bring Indigenous languages back from the brink
Smokehouse
I WAS STANDING THERE at the corner, the corner where the smaller street intersects with the slightly wider one.
How Could They Just Lose Him?
The Huronia Regional Centre was supposed to be a safe home for people with disabilities. Then, amid suspicions of abuse at the facility, twenty-one-year-old Robin Windross vanished without a trace
Prairie Radical
How conspiracy theorists splintered a small town
Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe
Scott Moe rose quietly through the ranks. Now the Saskatchewan premier and his party are shaping policies with national consequences
The Accommodation Problem
Extensions. Extra exam time. Online everything. Addressing the complex needs of students is creating chaos on campus
MY GUILTY PLEASURE
I WAS AS SURPRISED as anyone when I became obsessed with comics again last year, at the advanced age of forty-five. As a kid, I loved reading G.I. Joe and The Amazing Spider-Man.
