Imaginary Cities

I have seen many imaginary cities.
I live with a three-year-old.

Between bursts of "Daddy! DADDY! Look at my wall!" and "Daddy, I have surprise for you," I found time to read Darran Anderson's fascinating book Imaginary Cities.

Don't let the voluminous endnotes fool you; Imaginary Cities is not an academic book. It's more like the delirium of an academic. Just as imaginations are limitless, so is the potential material for this ambitious project. Anderson jumps from reference to reference, none ever fully described or explained. Rather than imposing a linear narrative, instead of situating works and expounding on their significance, Anderson drifts from one vision to the next. It is surprising, and somewhat daring on the part of both the author and the publisher Influx Press to print a book dedicated to material of such visual nature without a single image. The images are supplied by the reader's imagination. Reading this book can feel in turn dizzying, frustrating, exhilarating, incomplete, and ultimately inspiring.

Gotham City
The discussion of Batman's Gotham City is Imaginary Cities at its height. Consider the way Anderson introduces the story and locale that have been retold many times in the making of a modern mythology:

In a dank alleyway, far beneath the metropolitan skyscrapers, there exists a temporal loop. A rich couple, having taken an ill-advised shortcut from the theatre to reality, are shot dead over and over, each time in slightly different variations but always with the same outcome.
p. 374

Rendering by Ferris

source: http://architecturemuseum.blogspot.com

"Gotham is Ferris gone wrong,
or perhaps Ferris gone according to plan."

This is an excellent writing style. It is both clever and appealing to frame the constant retelling and adaptation of the story as a temporal loop. Yet this is a point where I wish Anderson had delved a little deeper. The variations differ because our cities have changed over time. The unchanging outcome becomes a fixed point for navigating a shifting world.

There is meaning in the dark spaces of Gotham City. Anderson recognizes they are more than mere backdrop, they are a fundamental part of the story:

"Batman is a critique of failed urban planning and empathy. Alleyways have dead-ends as traps for the unwary. Abandoned buildings are warrens for criminals. A dark sanctimonious fear of rookeries and today's housing estates, projects and slums as inhuman breeding grounds, prevails." (p. 377)

Again, following the variations through versions over time would show differences in what lurks in the dark as some of our boogiemen have come and gone.

Referring to architectural illustrator Hugh Ferris, Anderson suggests, "Gotham is Ferris gone wrong, or perhaps Ferris gone according to plan." (p. 379) Batman has traditionally been grounded in a dark Victorian esthetic overlaid precisely with a Ferris image of the metropolis. Personally, I find this darkness fascinating and appealing; that is the Gotham City I prefer. I am more drawn to scenes filmed on Lower Wacker in Chicago in "Batman Begins" (2005) than to the increasingly glass-clad Manhattan of "The Dark Knight Rises" (2012). Neither have the palpable anxiety of getting mugged on an urban street that "Batman" (1989) held in common with its audiences' own experiences during the 1980s. As street crime still continues to drop, cities increasingly gentrify with glossy new buildings, and the police militarize, Ferris may continue to fade in the image of Gotham City. This leaves the question of what fixed points remain from the Batman saga as landmarks for our collective consciousness.

Losing Control in the Suburbs

We seek to make the world around us an interactive place that anticipates our needs and responds to our desires.  For millennia, we have domesticated animals, transforming the wild beasts of our collective nightmares into loving pets that follow our commands.  For more than a century, we have illuminated our streets to alleviate our fears of what lurks in the darkness.  We have created doors that open before us, and we continue to refine computers to ask us what we want.

The terrifying wolf that ate Grandma
(engraving by Gustave Doré)

Dogs domesticated from wolves have become
part of our home

Until we consider this innate drive to create a dynamic environment that responds to our needs and desires, we cannot understand the rise of the suburbs and their current crisis. The suburbs offered this promise, and their failing ability to deliver now dulls their luster.

Consider what the suburban dream offered: a yard, modern appliances, accommodations for cars, and more convenient shopping. For decades, these worked together to provide suburban residents a comfortable control over the environments where they lived.  Yet over the past several decades, transformations in the social and economic landscape, together with new technologies, have made the suburban model too rigid and unresponsive to our desires.

The yard is an extension of the home.  It was envisioned as a small parkland or garden that could be configured based on personal preferences.  It served as a playground where children were more closely supervised and protected from strangers.  The family dog became ubiquitous with the backyard.  Today, the relationships are changing.  Longer commutes and the increase in work hours have made yard work more difficult to fit into the schedule; what was once an enjoyable leisure activity has often become an obligation that interferes with other preferences for limited free time. It has become less of a weekend retreat and more a weekly chore.  In some cases, it becomes an additional expense, as busy families contract out their yard work.  An increase in organized activities seems to have reduced the yard's role as a playground for the family children and their friends.  And while the family dog still enjoys free reign of the backyard, as what continues to provide one of the most compelling reasons for families to move to the suburbs, urban areas have become somewhat more supportive with improved dog parks, reducing somewhat this relative advantage of the suburbs.