The Hyper Modern City Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Hyper Modern City - Essay Example In ‘Drifting in Las Vegas: A Postmodern Ethnography’(1995), the author speaks of how American, British, as well as other geographies have been shaped to be similar to Las Vegas and other brands to make cities as carnivals: The super-hyper version is Las Vegas. I call Las Vegas the Versailles of America ... long after Las Vegas’ influence as gambling heaven has gone, Las Vegas’ forms and symbols will be influencing American life. That fantastic skyline! Las Vegas’ neon sculpture, its fantastic fifteen-story high display signs, parabolas, boomerangs, rhomboids, trapezoids and all the rest of it, are already staple design of the American landscape outside of the oldest parts of the oldest cities. They are all over every suburb, every subdivision, every highway ... They are the new landmarks of America, the new guideposts, the new way Americans get their bearings (Wolfe 1965, p. xvi) The Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2003) defines utop ia as â€Å"(the idea of) a perfect society in which everyone works well with each other and is happy†. Due to technological advances, the speed of our lives has increased with the speed of communication, fast foods, and the information age so much so that we try to create our own utopia. Like the thousands of images flashing before our eyes on television, at the cinema, everywhere, we want it our way and we want it now.