![]() ![]() What were previously known as “world cities” during the era of high imperialism (1857–1945) depended on culture, trade, and war, following networks established by colonialism and directed by nation states. That majority has already risen to 54% and is expected to reach 66% by 2050. For the first time, the majority of people worldwide lived in cities. In 2011, the world changed - statistically. Who’s even looking anymore? The fracturing upon fracturing of social life has made the global city so economically, formally, physically, and culturally divided that it cannot be seen from a single point of view. Blue-glassed shine walls in the invisible wealthy, while eddies in the heat-dazzled smog block their view from a 90th-floor penthouse. There were once eight million stories in The Naked City (1948) but now there’s only one: the endless rise of the one per cent of the one per cent. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.” That cyborg future has mutated into Trump’s bathetic “beautiful” wall that makes an aesthetic out of sensory isolation and xenophobia. ![]() Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. At the beginnings of Ronald Reagan’s neoliberal revolution, Roy Batty’s dying declaration from Blade Runner (1982) was a vision of transcendence: “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. A glittering Pudong at night across the Huangpu river in Shanghai (photo courtesy /gags9999) ![]()
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