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Bruce Sterling And Jeff VanderMeer Offer 2 Lessons On How To Build A Science-Fictional City
Why Does My City Scream?

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Anekanta - killed by a cacodemon
09/17/09

In reply to Bruce Sterling And Jeff VanderMeer Offer 2 Lessons On How To Build A Science-Fictional City
I was very close to picking up The City of Saints and Madmen last week. Maybe I should have.
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GuinevereLagman
09/17/09

In reply to Bruce Sterling And Jeff VanderMeer Offer 2 Lessons On How To Build A Science-Fictional City
just a comment from an urbanist: there's a difference between built environment and the society that inhibits it (although you can see it as combine function) - the social aspects are reflections of the built environment (and vice versa) but one should be careful to correlate them in a one-dimensional way. seeing either or both together as technology is a singular viewpoint; it's an engineer's viewpoint. for others, cities are anything from artifact to, well, text, and can be "read" in different ways. interesting to see that bruce uses the past tense in the sentence i'm referring to. in any case, one core idea of the city is proximity, and people will need that in the future too, even if it takes on other, new shapes. or they'll cease being people. my two cents. love the future metro series!
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Lightice
09/17/09

In reply to Bruce Sterling And Jeff VanderMeer Offer 2 Lessons On How To Build A Science-Fictional City
Well, Jeff VanderMeer knows what he's talking about. His Ambergris, the City of Saints and Madmen is one of the most fascinating cities I've seen in speculative fiction. It's at the same time infuriating and pleasant to know that he'll probably never reveal all its secrets.
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Ruthless, If you let me
09/17/09

In reply to Bruce Sterling And Jeff VanderMeer Offer 2 Lessons On How To Build A Science-Fictional City
I think that there is a lack of historical buildings in future city-scapes. So many old buildings gain that vaunted "historical" status that they can never be torn down/modified in exterior appearance.

I can't imagine a Coruscant type city-scape, that totally displaces these structures. A group of 10 citizens will stop it from happening.
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Edited by Ruthless, If you let me at 09/17/09 10:57 AM

Lightice
09/17/09

@Ruthless, If you let me: In the case of Coruscant it seems stranger that there are no *new* buildings. The Jedi Temple is apparently thousands of years old, yet its architecture doesn't seem significantly different from the rest of the city. The implication seems to be that now new buildings have been made in a millennia.
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icelight
09/17/09

@Ruthless, If you let me: Those sorts of cities really only appear after wars. Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, was essentially flattened by the Nazis. With no historical sites to work around, the city is almost surreal in the quantity of glass and modern architecture it contains. It's not that any one building is notably exceptional, although there are a few. Instead, the unremitting expanse of skyscrapers, plazas and modern art make walking through the city unlike any other I've been to.
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skeksis
09/17/09

@Ruthless, If you let me: Bradbury Building, Blade Runner is the first one that comes to mind. But I am having trouble thinking of other examples.
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Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.
09/17/09

@Lightice: I think you're both right.
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braak: You are, as usual, completely correct.
09/17/09

In reply to Bruce Sterling And Jeff VanderMeer Offer 2 Lessons On How To Build A Science-Fictional City
I think it's important to remember, too, how economic realities affect the organization of a city--the banks are here because they want to be near the marketplace which is here, which is where it is for god only knows what reason, probably because it was the flattest part of the are six hundred years ago, and it's where all the cows stopped to graze.
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redqueenmeg
09/17/09

@braak: and this road is in this dippy place because the dippy cows decided this was the shortest way to water, even though it wasn't... heh.
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braak: You are, as usual, completely correct.
09/17/09

@redqueenmeg: Yeah, cows don't like hills, so they'll go ten miles out of their way if it means not having to have to walk up.

Which explains the entire layout of Boston.
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Why Does My City Scream?

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