Just Imagine . . .
| . . . revolves around urban organization.
A world in which traffic spans nine levels, in which private airplanes
are for everyone, pills are consumed for nourishment and there is
rocket travel to Mars. (Although, in view of our recent space escapades,
this is disappointingly easy to imagine.)
Here is a city presented, fifty years into the future. The film, having been made in 1929 thus places New York right on the cusp of the 80s. Somehow, that seems appropriate. Here is a city based upon success and happiness, the antithesis of Blade Runner or Metropolis. Skyscrapers are the results of clean and efficient design-work. Light is allowed to pierce through every layer, reaching even the darkest caverns of the city -- if indeed, there are any at all. Traffic runs in smooth and ordered lines, eased, presumably by the new invention of air traffic. Pollution seems to be a tribulation of the past. Earlier historic buildings have been erased from this modern day city. It is a city which has been built upon a fresh slate: clean, new, prosperous and hopeful. This perception of New York is the paragon of cities: rich in ideals. Is this what we're heading for in our urban world of the 1990s? |
Return to City Home Page |