The Cities of the Future?

The upcoming election will almost certainly continue to focus on one thing: war in Iraq. The war, and our seemingly intractable situation in the Middle East is of utmost importance, but it isn't the only thing we should be talking about. One of the other integral topics should be: whose America is this? Specifically: is the US becoming a third-world country?


I have lived for the last 3 years in Brazil, which is a developing nation. I live a few hours outside of the city of São Paulo, which is the third largest city on the planet, and a world unto itself. It is also becoming an experiment in isolation and segregation. Open a newspaper in the city, and what jumps out at you are ads for luxury condos. They are a trend where every amenity will be available to the select 1% who can afford to pay the sickeningly high prices to buy one of these mini-palaces. In the next few years, developers have plans to create cities within cities. The condo-dweller in Sao Paulo will be able to go to a movie, church, the dry cleaners, a restaurant, and home again without leaving the confines of his "apartment complex." The poor, middle-class and the outside world in general stay outside.


But, we, Americans, would never allow something like that happen to our greatest cities, would we? We do not live in a land of favelas, slums where fear is like a virus, and crime is rampant. We live in the civilized, fluid, and open-minded world of the USA. Right?


I just finished reading a Q&A with the writing team of the book above: The Suburbanization of New York. I started to think about its subject a long time ago, when I was living on the border of Bushwick and Ridgewood, in Brooklyn. I never had money to live in Manhattan, but I love New York. Its variety, it craziness, it life. It is a world, not a city. And it was so different from the New Jersey suburb I grew up in. That is changing. One of the responders to the NYT forum about the book was Jeremiah Moss, the creator of Jeremiah's Vanishing New York. His blog tracks the irreversible (in his opinion) disappearance of all things original and creative in the Big Apple. Jerilou and Kingsley Hammett, with their book, move beyond that visual investigation to attempt to pin down the causes and effects of the branding of New York City, and its transformation into a place where "a nondescript building sells for $1,000 a square foot while family homelessness is at its highest level since figures have been kept and 500,000 children go to bed hungry every night (see The New York Observer, March 26, 2007)."


I love New York City. I am also afraid for my country and this great metropolis. Brazil, with its infamous inequality and striking contrasts, is less striking when you think of the above stats. Can a city be diverse and progressive, or is the city doomed to become the shopping mall of the rich and pampered?