Landscape, people and cities in a ¨hyperlapse¨ video

Though the technique is not new, I´ve enjoyed this video by Ben Wiggins that I´m sharing from The Atlantic

http://www.theatlantic.com/video/archive/2012/09/bored-of-epic-time-lapse-videos-check-out-this-hyperlapse/262843/

Picture of the day: Golden Pavilion, Japan

Golden Pavilion ( Nick Aura ) The Golden Pavilion temple and its grounds are stunning in Kyoto, Japan. Buddhist temple gardens are among the many admirable things that make Japan a singular destination.

http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-tr-japan-20120311-photos,0,5264658.photogallery

World Peace City. Illustrations by Edgar Gonzalez

From the article by Anna Bates:

World Peace City is Guatemalan artist Edgar Gonzalez’s Utopian vision of a city. The piece is made up of 300 individual drawings to date, each completed on Gonzalez’s commute from Brooklyn, where he now lives, to Manhattan, where he works as a bartender.

“When I started the project I had no idea what it was going to be,” says Gonzalez, who was unaware of his talent when he started drawing, and just wanted to kill time on the train. Each section of the piece fuses buildings from around the world into one jumbled up landscape, and the sections link up to form a vast panorama. “It’s two worlds,” he says. “The one we recognise and the one we want it to become.”

Drawing on the train has its problems; the piece is full of buildings that exist just to cover up wobbly lines. But the commute is also very much part of the piece. “I got talking to someone on the train one day and he told me about a landmark in a town in his country for me to include. It’s like my biography,” says Gonzalez, who has spent four years working on the piece. “I can tell you exactly what happened and what I had in my mind when I look at every one of them.”

Gonzalez doesn’t yet know what the final piece will look like, but he “think[s] it will be round,” and estimates that there are another 100-200 sections to go before it is completed.

http://www.iconeye.com/news/gallery/world-peace-city-by-edgar-gonzalez

Interesting designs of maps

I love to see beautiful maps designs, but I´ve never imagined a colorful map of the moon, like the one above. And there´s more that I´m sharing from Guardian.co.UK. Click on the link to read an explanation of each one:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/interactive/2012/sep/07/weird-maps-to-rival-apple-in-pictures?fb=native

COUNTER TOURISM: An interview with Phil Smith

Phil Smith

Phil Smith is an academic, writer and performer, who lives in South Devon, UK. For twenty years he worked predominantly as a playwright in experimental, physical, community and music theatres, during which time over one hundred of his plays received professional productions. In 1997 his work took a sharp turn towards working in non-theatre sites and this led to his interest in walking as both an art in itself and as a means to making art and performance and everyday political interventions in public spaces.  

I have the pleasure to interview Phil Smith again, this time advancing on from his theory and practice of Mythogeography – the art of ‘walking sideways’ – as an opportunity to  learn about Counter Tourism, the subject of Phil’s new project that includes micro-movies, online presence, and two new publications: a pocketbook and a handbook for everyday tourists.

MM Which are the basic differences between Mythogeography’s walks and the ones for Counter Tourism?

PS They are inspired by the same ideas – those that come from the ‘drift’ or dérive – but where Mythogeography’s walks (or at least their intentions) are unbounded, Counter Tourism takes the boundings and prescriptions of heritage tourism as its object. Where Counter Tourism’s visits step to the side or go off at tangents, they do so in order to later loop back to the discourse of heritage tourism, in order to destabilize or re-frame or vivify that discourse.

MM If we don’t feel nostalgia is that a problem? How does Counter Tourism work in a country which we don’t know anything about?

PS In a way, such a visit, knowing nothing, is already Counter Touristic. For heritage sites are very often presented on the basis of invisible, unspoken but mutually understood narratives. For example, in English country houses the lives of the uniformed staff are often remembered and re-presented, but the non-uniformed staff  (labourers, gardeners) are not. The recognition of uniformed servants is regarded as a democratic innovation, but it contains its own discrimination. So, actually preserving one’s lack of knowledge or feeling might be a good tactic – you will very quickly begin to feel the meaning-making machines get to work on you and that sensation might illuminate the nature of the site and the nature of ideological production in it.

MM Considering the attendance of British people to the trips of Counter Tourism, what do you propose for a different culture, in other words is there a pattern to follow or you’d change the strategy in another country?

PS When as a member of Wrights & Sites I was part of publishing ‘An Exeter Mis-Guide’ we assumed that the book would be mostly used in the city it as written about, yet it has been used in many different countries – France, USA, India, Australia, and so on – as a tool for exploration. Rather than me trying to anticipate how Counter Tourism might be adapted for different countries I would rather leave that to people to discover in their own improvised visits. At one point I write “if the guards are armed” – there are no armed guards at UK heritage sites, so I am signaling my awareness that conditions for visits will vary from country to country and region to region.

MM Your research panel members come from a wide range of working backgrounds. What’s your experience working with both professional artists and also people with a background not related to arts and architecture?

PS Well, the whole basis of Mythogeography is the idea of multiplicity so it was a joy to have so many insights and perspectives. What the panel members brought were insights and attitudes that disrupted many of my assumptions. Sometimes they de-composed what I was thinking and doing, at other times their ideas and mine were synthesized or fell into mutual orbits. It worked differently with different people, but almost always adding to the multiplicity. 

MM Why do you include popular songs and some informal disguises, like hats? Is it a kind of postdramatic theatre?

PS There is an inspiration for Counter Tourism in postdramatic theatre – yes, definitely. The performance walks from which Counter Tourism developed might be characterized in the way that that Hans-Thies Lehmann characterizes the postdramatic: ‘disintegration, dismantling and deconstruction’ , ‘de-hierarchization of theatrical means’ , and an ‘experience of simultaneity’  sited on a plane of synchronicity and myth: ‘not a story read from... beginning to end, but a thing held full in-view the whole time... a landscape’. Songs and disguises are for using sparingly – there is a danger that Counter Touristic visits can flip over into showing off and exhibitionism. But in one of the films - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM7FZkd1Qaw – I do sing, but I think I’m probably trying everybody’s patience with this moment of self-indulgence! So hats and songs maybe, but very sparingly!

MM Does everybody participate in the performances or maybe you found reluctant ones among professionals?

PS When a visit is explicitly a performance – like a mis-guided tour – then almost everyone will be prepared, if asked, to take some active role or part – modeling ghosts or holding a rope for me to ‘dangle’ from. I never set out to make people feel uncomfortable or self-conscious, I always aim to make people feel comfortable and secure and then challenge them to step a little way out of their comfort zone for the purposes of the collective event. Using the Counter Tourism tactics people can choose how performance-like or how discreet they want to be.

MM I was surprised to see that in GeoQuest video old people are participating, also kids and adults. Is there any different approach for the eldest?

PS Well, these were older people in ‘sheltered housing’ so the visit of the GeoQuest there had to be to them in their homes rather than taking them to the site – so we took rocks and sand to them rather than them visiting the cliffs and beaches. But no, apart from being sensitive to our impact – the arrival of three men in strange costumes could be disturbing for very elderly people if too noisy and boisterous – we treated older people in the same way and with the same intentions as everyone else.

MM You say there are variations and re assemblages of what tourists see based on their own experiences of life. Is it valid to manipulate them to find the multiplicity of points of view?

PS I hope that Counter Tourism is an offer rather than a manipulation. It requires the tourist to make a leap that only they can make – one can offer the different viewpoints, but if a visitor wants to stick to a homogenized narrative of the site then they will be able to ‘pull the shutters down’.

MM In GeoQuest video, people are making sound with stones, while the leader is playing a song related to geology, also in another scene, people are using pink glasses. Is it part of the exorcism of familiar forms of heritage?

PS Yes, I think “exorcism” is a very good word to use – heritage (in this case a geological one) is often seen as a view through “rosy coloured spectacles” (a nostalgic’ overly sunny view of the past that confirms our own prejudices) and using the glasses forefronts and challenges that tendency and then seeks to bend it to a new kind of impact. The fundamental tactical-principle of counter-tourism is to exorcize or hollow-out existing ways of visiting sites and then re-animate those ways in exorbitant and excessive ways (either as spectral versions or highly coloured, comic or emotional versions of themselves).

MM On the other hand you show the importance of signs on the monuments’ walls - what’s the purpose of it, wouldn’t it reinforce the idea of heritage?

PS I try to encourage people to ‘over-interpret’ the signs – rather than as simple narratives of the heritage we can (half-seriously) read them as esoteric crypto-messages or discover double meanings or you tell ourselves tales about how they unintentionally reveal the secrets of the site.

MM Is it allowed to take pictures, if they are a static representation of reality, not in the spirit of Counter Tourism?

PS O yes, even without a stills camera or a video camera we see through those lenses and frames all the time – just as many urban nineteenth century people might have seen the landscape as if framed like a painting. So I suggest that we use those internal frames knowingly – and photography can help – as well as being a means to disseminate counter-touristic ironies and opportunities to others.

MM Based on the film of ‘Mythogeography’ at the Royal William Victualling Yard, are mythogeography’s walks exclusively for students?

PS Not at all! I wanted to make a film of this walk and I wanted to take my students on the walk as part of their course – so I was ‘killing two birds with one stone’ – my walks are almost always open to the general public and I have no idea who will turn up – often my subject matter is adult but my means are playful, so children can often get involved in those means – for example, in my recent ‘Spaces’ walk in Weymouth I referenced the murders of a local serial killer and dragged around a bath (he drowned his victims) – the children loved the way that the water in the bath bounced around as I dragged it over the cobblestones (something I had drawn everyone’s attention to as a useful means – the break up and reforming of the site’s reflection - to re-interpreting the site).

MM In the overall context of Counter-Tourism, what was the significance of your “water walk?”

PS Water Walk was a mis-guided tour around an area of industrial heritage and former quayside in Exeter during which we tried out some innovative ideas for a tour that came to have a bearing on the devising of Counter Tourism – myself and the other guide began by explaining that we were going to relinquish most of the roles of guides, we told the audience all the history we were not going to tell them about on the tour, we enacted all the pointing we would not be doing and we took off our guides’ jackets – we then led the tour mostly in silence enacting various secular rituals using water (crucial to the former industrial processes of tanning, cloth manufacture, driving the water mills, and so on) – we ‘exorcised’ the tour and then resurrected its tactics in excessive ways. The responses of participants were qualitatively different from other tours – not only did they describe the multiple meanings of the sites appearing, but they became self-consciously aware of how they were constructing a multiplicitous heritage-consciousness while in the act of actually constructing it in their own minds - this quality I came to attribute to this tour’s accessing of ‘chorastic’ qualities in the site - a space somewhere between being and becoming, temporarily resistant to obligations of exchange and commerce, a temporary evasion of identities and hierarchy, a potential space of transformation, a transitory space that a particular kind of performance might be able to provoke and sustain for a while. From this walk I took the idea of the double movement (exorcism and excess) to which Counter Tourism subjects the ordinary tactics of a tourist visit, the idea that the guide should step back and let the participants be the driving force, and that the driving aim should be access to the ‘chora’ of a site rather than the performance intervention in it.

MM Is it helpful for your objectives to see the landscape indirectly, for example through the many reflections on the water, or through lenses, or to imagine the landscape through the sky?

PS Yes – frames and mirrors – I am always using them and advocate them – they allow us to become aware of the internalized frames, mirrors and representations that we use and make.

MM In Counter Tourism, can the human body have a direct approach to Nature? I was just imagining myself laying on the grass, listening to the sounds of Nature and in this way recreate the landscape….

PS Why not? Yes, sometimes there is a moment to drop all the clever tactics and go for a direct sensual immersion – but without any romantic illusions – there will be all the same ideological framings at play even in this sensual act as in, say, an intellectual inquiry.

MM This question was inspired by thinking of the movie directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, “Stalker” ; I suppose you find some relations between Stalker and Counter Tourism?

PS To some extent, yes, because ‘Stalker’ is about a kind of pilgrimage which is partly ordeal – and both those qualities can be introduced into the touristic visit with subversive or disruptive effects. And, of course, pilgrimage and tourism have always been close. I like to use anachronisms knowingly – to disrupt ideas of ‘progress’ and ‘modernity’.   

MM What do you suggest for those tourists in the shopping malls who are missing the “counter tourism” or even the conventional tourism?

PS I would say – do the counter tourism in the malls. One of my tactics    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGAQTJAKSAA  is to walk a mall or supermarket as a zombie, treating the mall as the museum of a post-apocalyptic society. In the Handbook I move on to discuss how all spaces are heritage spaces – but some have a gate and a ticket office and some do not.

MM Where is Counter Tourism going?

PS I hope that it will be seized upon as a pleasure by as many everyday tourists as possible – firstly as a means for enjoyment, but one that will change the nature of heritage from a looking backwards (whether serious and analytical or nostalgic and chauvinistic) to what others have called ‘anticipatory history’ – a use of the past for making the best futures.

MM Thank you so much Phil!

Above, three shots from the video Mythogeography at the Royal William Victualling Yard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGdBtWmbc4A&feature=player_embedded#!

To buy Phil Smith’s  books on Counter Tourism and Mythogeography go to: http://www.triarchypress.com/pages/Counter-Tourism-Pocketbook.htm , http://www.triarchypress.com/pages/Counter-Tourism-Handbook.htm 

and http://www.triarchypress.com/pages/Mythogeography_Guide_to_Walking_Sideways.htm For more about Counter Tourism check out www.countertourism.net and for 31 micro films on counter-touristic tactics click on the links at 

http://countertourism.blogspot.co.uk/p/tactics.html

House in 5D

Hong Kong, China: An actor dressed as a ghost walks past a '5D haunted house' at the Hong Kong Ocean Park (5D haunted house!!!) From guardian.co.uk.

3rd Annual International Conference on Architecture, 10-13 June 2013, Athens, Greece . CALL FOR PAPERS

Athens Institute for Education and Research-ATINER (www.atiner.gr <http://www.atiner.gr/> ) 

Call for Papers and Participation

3rd Annual International Conference on Architecture, 10-13 June 2013, Athens, Greece

The Architecture & Engineering Research Unit <http://www.atiner.gr/docs/ARCHITECTURE_UNIT.htm>  of the Athens Institute for Education and Research <http://www.atiner.gr/>  (ATINER) will hold its 3rd Annual International Conference on Architecture, 10-13 June 2013, Athens, Greece. For further details, please go to the conference website: http://www.atiner.gr/architecture.htm<http://www.atiner.gr/architecture.htm> . The registration fee is €300 (euro), covering access to all sessions, two lunches, coffee breaks and conference material. Special arrangements will be made with a local luxury hotel for a limited number of rooms at a special conference rate. In addition, a number of special events will be organized: A Greek night of entertainment with dinner, a special one-day cruise in the Greek islands, an archaeological tour of Athens and a one-day visit to Delphi.

The aim of the conference is to bring together scholars, researchers and students from all areas of Architecture. Areas of interest include (but are not confined to): 

• Individual buildings and building types

• History of architecture and the built environment

• Architectural theory

• Developments in construction

• Town planning

• Allied arts such as painting and sculpture

• Social Research examines the people who inhabit and use the spaces of architecture

• Technological Research studies the physical materials, methods, elements, systems, and science of architecture and the design and construction processes

• Environmental Research investigates the physical context of architecture, opening timely questions about the influence of society on environment

• Cultural Research studies place-making and the norms of the inhabitants of natural and built places past, present, and future

• Organizational Research examines the ways in which individuals and teams collaborate in the practice of architecture and in the client organizations

• Design Research considers the processes of shaping and making of places

• Educational Research examines the pedagogies of architecture and related fields

Please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words (using email only to: atiner@atiner.gr <mailto:atiner@atiner.gr> ) by 12 November 2012 addresses to: Dr. Nicholas Patricios, Head, Architecture & Engineering Research Unit <http://www.atiner.gr/docs/ARCHITECTURE_UNIT.htm> , ATINER & Professor of Architecture, University of Miami, USA. Abstracts should include: Title of Paper, Full Name (s), Affiliation, Current Position, an email address and at least 3 keywords that best describe the subject of your submission. Please use the abstract submitting form available athttp://www.atiner.gr/2013/FORM-ARC.doc <http://www.atiner.gr/2013/FORM-ARC.doc> . Decisions are reached within 4 weeks.

If you want to participate without presenting a paper, i.e. chair a session, review papers to be included in the conference proceedings or books, contribute to the editing of a book, or any other contribution, please send an email to Dr. Gregory T. Papanikos, (gtp@atiner.gr <mailto:gtp@atiner.gr> ), President, ATINER.

The Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER) was established in 1995 as an independent academic association with the mission to become a forum, where academics and researchers - from all over the world - could meet in Athens and exchange ideas on their research and discuss the future developments of their discipline. Since 1995, ATINER has organized about 200 international conferences and events. It has also published about 150 books <http://www.atiner.gr/docs/BOOK_PUBLICATIONS.htm> . Academically, the Institute consists of four research divisions <http://www.atiner.gr/RESEARCH-DIVISIONS.htm>  and twenty research units. Each research unit organizes at least an annual conference and undertakes various small and large research projects. Academics and researchers are more than welcome to become members and contribute to ATINER's objectives. Members can undertake a number of academic activities <http://www.atiner.gr/docs/Member-Activities.htm> .

Pros and cons of chartered cities

Illustration by Pesky Kid

I've been reading Debika Ray's article "Chartered territory" with high interest, as I've lived in different neighborhoods, in my country and in USA. It's been long years by now since we've decided to stay in a charter city in Southern CA, Orange County, because it's clean, safe, it's pretty much different from Los Angeles, and of course, there are lots of rules. I remember a school kids' fight in a corner was dissolved in minutes with the police's helicopter (one of them).

But everything has been developed as a matter of culture and habits, I don't imagine such rules in Buenos Aires, for example (Sorry, it became Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, former Capital Federal). And it must be very difficult to apply law and order in a huge city.

This happens when the City is originated as a small town, where everybody knows each other, or this is what I feel.

From wikipedia.org I reproduce a definition and an example of abuse in a charter city:

A charter city is a city in which the governing system is defined by the city's own charter document rather than by state, provincial, regional or national laws. In locations where city charters are allowed by law, a city can adopt or modify its organizing charter by decision of its administration by the way established in the charter. These cities may be administered predominantly by citizens or through a third-party management structure, because a charter gives a city the flexibility to choose novel types of government structure. Charter cities are similar in administrative structure to special administrative regions.

For example, in California, cities which have not adopted a charter are organized by state law. Such a city is called a General Law City, which will be managed by a 5-member city council. A city organized under a charter may choose different systems, including the "strong mayor" or "city manager" forms of government. One example of abuse of the charter system was in Bell, California. The charter was created after a lit­tle-no­ticed spe­cial elec­tion, where few voters understood what becoming a charter city meant. After a charter was approved, state laws limiting city salary no longer applied and City Manager Robert Rizzo gave himself a salary of $1.5 million for managing a city of about 36,000 people. As of June 2008, 112 of California's 478 cities are charter cities. A few examples include Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, and Irvine.

However, charter cities that are subordinate to the rules of larger institutions (such as provinces or nations) have limited flexibility to adopt new governance structures. Historical examples cover a broad range of charter cities, from virtually independent city-states to smaller municipalities which have limited administrative freedom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_city

(As a margin note, Bell is a city with a higher rate of poverty, mostly composed by Latino immigrants, it is in Los Angeles County. Irvine is a business city, very prosperous. Newport Beach and Huntington Beach, smaller coastal cities, what we call "white cities" , mostly composed by white-Americans). The last three examples belong to Orange County.

Can we imagine a charter city in Honduras? Which would be the consequences? Who would be the first inhabitants? Well, they would be low skilled workers to be displaced by the new wealthy citizens. 

Debika explains the situation very well, here I'm sharing an excerpt, the link is above:

" Honduran president Porfirio Lobo passed the amendment in February 2011 to allow a special development region to be established within the central American republic. The autonomous zone would be modelled on successful cities in developed countries and run by an appointed governor, with an international panel of individuals keeping him in check until elections are considered appropriate. Lobo’s inspiration was the “charter city”: the brainchild of US economist Paul Romer, who hopes to solve the problems of global poverty, accelerated urbanisation and international migration all at once. The idea is simple. All you need is a piece of land and a list of rules. Those who live in the city built on this land abide by this “charter” of rules, which is enforced by an independent party – perhaps a foreign government – and if they don’t like it, they can leave.(....) 

The “rules” are central to Romer’s theory. He argues that countries like the US are wealthy because they have “good” rules, while poor nations in Africa and Asia have bad ones. Establishing a city guided by the rules of prosperous nations, he believes, would provide aspiring migrants with the option to move to a place that has the same basis for success as western countries, while diverting the flow of incomers away from those that don’t want them. A place like this, he says, could provide all residents with homes, jobs, safety, freedom and opportunity. The charter cities idea reflects an existing – if contested – mainstream “good governance” theory that has dominated the international development agenda since the late 1990s. The argument is that strong institutions differentiate successful states from failing ones. These encompass everything from the rule of law, transparency, accountability, efficient markets and property rights, to social norms and culture. Everything else – planning, design, what the city produces – is secondary.(....) 

While Romer has given little thought to design so far, some aspects of his vision are clear. A charter city should span about 1,000km2 and have a population of up to 10 million. Ideally, it should be on the coast, to allow for a port, and have room for an airport. Masterplanning, he says, would occur however each city sees fit, but Fuller suggests the authorities could provide the basics: “They could design a system of large arterial roads, about a kilometre apart. The space in between could be left to private developers.” Fuller admits that the lifestyles of migrants, many of whom would be low-skilled, may be humble at first. “The types of jobs available will be in factory assembly lines, and apartments will be small and amenity-free,” he says. He adds that formal housing and work are better options than the informal slums in which many urban low-waged families in developing countries live and the precarious work they do – and the city would get richer over time.(....)

 However, as soon as you think about the idea in spatial terms, you encounter difficulties. Romer’s idea is deeply embedded in the language of free-market capitalism. For him, good rules are those that open up markets, enable private competition and make it easier to establish businesses – this usually means low taxes, light regulation, few employment laws and a restrained state. 
Romer’s growth plan relies heavily on attracting private foreign investment. The kind of city he envisages is therefore likely to be shaped by the demands of global capital – especially in the absence of an elected government or a physical and social plan. Dubai is built on these principles – and it’s an unsustainable blend of corporate towers, luxury housing and extravagant leisure facilities; a “cultural ghetto in the desert, with European and American packaging”, in the words of Henning Rasmuss, an architect who is working on the reconstruction of war-torn provincial capitals in Angola. 
“Dubai is connected to nothing but money,” he says. “It is an entirely invented marketing apparition.” A charter city might resemble this. And its infrastructure would probably follow suit. Dubai has little provision for pedestrians outside the downtown area. In many cities that experience a rapid inflow of foreign capital, public transport is neglected in favour of highways and airports. Such a city may even be what US management academic, John Kasarda, describes as an “aerotropolis” – an area designed entirely around an airport, in the way successful cities of the past were around ports.(....) 

And, like Dubai, such a city is likely to be the object of speculation. “If you had this kind of thing in Haiti or Sudan it would attract so much capital that people would start rapidly building apartment blocks, which would then sit empty,” says architectural historian Wouter Vanstiphout. “Property prices would go through the roof, and affordable housing would be pushed outwards to the least attractive areas, defeating its very purpose.” The fact is that such cities rarely provide a better life for the poor. 
Earlier this month, there were mass protests in Hong Kong over inequality and the lack of democracy; Dubai is notorious for its labour camps; Shenzhen, China’s first and most famous special economic zone, has nets around factories to prevent suicides. “The cities that have arisen in China chew up the world’s resources with slave-like labour conditions, to make products that are then dumped on to functioning markets,” Rasmuss says. While Romer emphasises ease of business, he says nothing of minimum wages, unionisation or social protection to safeguard employees. He also envisages that water, electricity and housing will be privately supplied, but this strategy has consistently failed to provide adequate, affordable facilities for the world’s poor. There is no reason residential areas in a charter city would be different from present-day slums: expensive, dark, crowded and filthy. Informal housing exists in developing countries because it is functional. In Mumbai, as property prices have risen, there have been efforts to remove slums by building homes on the outskirts for their residents. “But this always fails,” Cross says. “They rent out their properties and move back to the city where the work is.” 
Informal settlements are, however, unlikely to be allowed in Romer’s city. “I don’t think there will be any real public space in a charter city,” Vanstiphout says, pointing to London as an example where protesters and street performers are increasingly excluded from central areas because of a proliferation of privately managed space. Controlling and restricting access to space like this would be the key to achieving safety – one of the central promises of charter cities. Romer hopes to achieve this by “setting” social norms. But crime is arguably a product of poverty and repression, and exists in spite of such rules. Security in a charter city would, therefore, rely on strict enforcement – perhaps cameras, curfews and networks of informants. Elena Pascolo, a designer at Urban Projects Bureau, worries about the “totalitarian implications” of controlling space in this manner; the expression of political dissent would be near impossible. “Romer’s model implies the management of conflict and dissolution of dissent – the cornerstone of what drives city formation,” she says.(...)