Global Cities
Keeping Up with an Urbanizing World
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16 February 2012
In 1951, Isaac Asimov, father of science fiction, opened his most famed book Foundation with a graphic portrayal of the planet that was leading an imaginary galaxy mastered by humankind in all its width. “Its urbanization, progressing steadily, had finally reached the ultimate. All the land surface was a single city.” A few years later, J.G. Ballard, in another of the columns of modern-day fictional literature, depicted a similar atmosphere in his dystopian novel The Concentration City, where the urban settlement in question encompasses everything known to its inhabitants, which cannot do anything more than accepting the view “that the City stretches out in all directions without limits.” No escape is offered to the impuissant protagonist, who travels endlessly along rail lines, only to get back to the point of origin without ever leaving a disturbing conurbation.
Global Cities / Leading Stories
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