If Isaac Asimov was alive and wanted to rewrite his "Caves of Steel " book, he would not have needed to describe a Cosmopolitan city in future, that future is already here, in his book he described cities which if cut off from outside would die within hours. He describes a devaluation of mankind in face of scarcity of resources and population density, a dystopian version of the world where survival of mankind relies on Yeasts and their products. Except the part about Yeasts, the whole idea doesn't seem so far fetched right now.
There are megacities which are housing millions of people, and curiously enough, these people are structured into layers defined by socioeconomic factors (mostly wealth anyway), however the main burden of running these gargantuan cities falls upon the shoulders of the lower layers, and also on the environment. for each mega city there needs to be area at least hundreds of times bigger, in order to simply feed the city. You can actually feel that the city is sucking in, sucking in money, resources, humans and even feelings even our souls. the allure of mega cities, tempts everyone, from way out (like from space) it actually appears like an utopian version of human civilization, even insects mistake it for the moon and fly towards it. however this high density of people has not led to the great solution, instead cities have became breeding grounds for diseases, crimes. Cities are spelling death for everything that human evolution has achieved through the years. In cities, the moral and believes of individuals mix to a degree that from the resulting overall mesh of tangled ideas, no sensible conclusion can be made. A society simply falls to a lower status of being, that of shameless parasitic existence. Long have gone the days of Industrial cities and urban production, cities like Detroit or Liverpool have died, and a new mutated and mutilated entity has been born, actually now, nothing is produced in cities (except pollution), only Service Sector is effectively active, a virtual sector; where the city creates a need, and the city fulfills it, it is a manner of self justification.
The megacity is a monster who breathes in fresh air and exhales deadly carcinogenic fumes, the never saturating monster, expands like a dense bacterial colony, annexes any human settlement around it, joins other megacities and accelerates towards it's inevitable doom. The vastness and the complicated mechanism of survival, becomes it's vulnerability, it's weakness, the city will eventually become paralyzed, all it needs is a trigger, an earthquake, a bomb or ... . The city crumbles, mass riots will rise and the great dystopian motto of every large city "everyone for himself" will become the order of the day. Masses will die, the wealth will be looted and every sign of civilization shall vaporize.
No wonder we create superheroes, the cities will reach the point that nothing humanly possible can save them, although they will reach that point through human means, through human greed, in that moment only a superhero can save this ailing structure. Then Batman should save Guatham city and Spiderman should save New York. Actually it was a great idea to imagine that Robocop will police the streets of Detroit, as the motor city is the classic example of human's failure at reaching the golden dream.
Cities when first formed were crowns of human civilization, a sign of progress, prospect and better future, they grew with civilization and then reached a threshold after which they became a hurdle to humanity and civilization. A Dystopian version of existence.
....You may ask me "so what?" is there anything we can do? well I think not at this moment, we have far passed the point of no return, we either should await that eventual doom's day, armageddon or end of the world, or well we can simply emigrate, where?
To new solutions, even new planets!!!
Saturday, May 10, 2008
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