making the city
1) According to Sassen, the inhabitants of a city can be equated with the space of a city, as business and global connectivity increasingly glocalizes these areas (50). She also discusses the looming possibility of “public” space being taken over by commercial and global economic privatization. What she doesn’t discuss are the implications this privatization of public space has on specific bodies. She actually seems to gesture that the city is the place for disadvantaged people to gain access and power, but I don’t think that addresses the many forgotten and erased people that physically occupy these cities.
2) To put Baudrillard and Sassen in conversation, I’m interested in the ways that signs and symbols mark the city and enable them to be hubs of globalization while remaining specific physical places. Culture acts as a way to localize and differentiate the global nature of the city. In Korea, Songdo city is actually being created to be a global economic city. It is literally being built in a flat place that has no inhabitants. I wonder what this says about the impact that cultural symbols inherently mark the city? How will people conceptualize this city that has no history and will it be a “successful” endeavor in the economic sense?
3) To continue with the example of Songdo, I wonder how de Certeau’s concept of the city walker will be reimagined when this city opens up like a Disneyland’s opening day? There is essentially a ribbon cutting followed by business and living in this city. If there is no evolution in the city, where pedestrian encounters with space are reactive and adjusting to larger state structures, how will the individual use of that city space be affected?