Tag: utopian overdose

South Korea, sustainability, globalization, eco-city
Urban Land

Songdo, South Korea: Utopian City of Big Data and Urban “Sustainability”

The idea of the “utopian” community began in 1516 with Sir Thomas More’s fictional perfected society to present-day attempts to build the most sustainable urban ecosystem. With the case of Songdo International Business District, South Korea, we begin a series of case studies in the success and failure of utopian experiments in living sustainably.

model cities
Political Geography

Honduras: Neoliberal Utopias Advance on Indigenous Land

The government of Honduras plans the creation of neoliberal free-market enclaves, unaccountable to national laws and governed by foreign corporate interests. Stipulated for territory inhabited by Garifuna people and campesino farming communities, with propaganda about democracy, economic innovation and humanitarian justice, “President” Pepe Lobo should first refrain from presiding over the coup-backed “illegitimate regime.”

Trujillo, first neo-colonial charter city?
Political Geography

Honduras: Neo-Colonial “Free Market” Charter Cities, Democracy Not Included – By Annie Bird

Free marketeers and Libertarians advocate for the world’s first Charter City, with authoritarian governance, facilitated by a military coup, coordinated using political sway with business partners, using public funds from the IDB for infrastructure plans, and built on land “purchased” from indigenous communities, small farmers and the state of Honduras.

Metropolis, Fritz Lang, dystopia
Film

H. G. Wells on the Futurist Dystopia of Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis”

“Metropolis” hallucinates a futuristic city, a paradise of glass and steel, where underground workers toil endlessly at the giant machines that run the world above. Controlled by the autocratic industrialist, his spoilt son falls for the working class prophet who envisions some mediation between workers and managers. Noted science fiction author H. G. Wells reviews the controversial 1927 masterpiece.