City Ubiquitous

This book explores an emerging mode of urban life that is both familiar and startlingly new: a continuum of places, technologies, and performances that meld disparate enclaves into a seemingly coherent whole. We may access this convergence of terminals to the same place by way of interstate highways, internet connections, and personal media devices, even as we encounter ever more unyielding barriers to meaningful human communication. ""City Ubiquitous"" is written for students and scholars of the built environment, but it is also meant for anyone who recognizes the odd and frightening pleasures of urbanity. Flowing from airport to hotel to coffee shop to chain restaurant, we glimpse the alienation and fascination of looking, consuming, and communicating in the staccato rhythms of contemporary life. The book investigates this phenomenon, this structure and perception of omnitopia, by investigating its origins in Parisian arcades, world's fairs, and military-industrial superslabs, its manifestations in airports, hotels, and shopping malls, and its potential undoing through performance, placelessness, and reverence.