Cities: high—and low—density.

For hundreds of years towns and cities were centers of commerce and culture and political power. Trends started here and spread to rural areas.

In our times cities still wield much influence. Many of the forces of progress crystallize here. But major cities are no longer centers of influence and power.

There are no centers any longer. Global telecommunication—global mobility-—global economics are helping decentralize influence and wealth.

The forces of change now coalesce in many places. Resort towns and Club Meds and Disney Worlds and world fairs and film festivals— wherever large numbers of the upwardly updated interconnect. Airport communities are also powerful generators of ideas: hundreds of thou­sands of people convene here every day for conventions and con­ferences.

The fact that many of these instant communities are hyperfluid and no more than quick linkup/linkouts does not diminish their impact.

New ideas and directions are also generated in other ways—via elec­tronic telecommunities. People connecting not in person but cross-fertilizing via hookups.

Meanwhile major transformations are unfolding within cities. The cities themselves are decentralizing. They are spreading out.

To people living in California or Arizona the old cities of the East Coast and of Europe—with their narrow dark alleys and congested streets and massive stone buildings—appear old and yestercentury. These eighteenth- and nineteenth-century cities loom like giant movie sets.

By the same token to many residents of New York and Boston and Vienna the new spread-out communities of the West Coast appear sterile and alienating.

This is exactly what rural America and Europe of the nineteenth century thought of the emerging industrial-age cities.

The fact is that it is difficult to make a rapid transition to the postin-dustrial world while still living in old cities.

Date: 2015-02-28; view: 909