28 October 2009

What Is Paris?

After a week in Paris and a week in Malmö, I tried to draw common lines between the two cities. What is it that defines a place? Is it the buildings, its history, its reputation? Is there a concept that contains all of the previous ideas (and more)?

Paris and Malmö belong in (mostly) different contexts, but they are both defined by the actions that take place in them. Actions follow desires, and to quote the rhyzhome text:

"Desire is a production; it creates situations..."

It is the people that define space.

What makes each city a unique experience is the culture, stories, values or experiences of those who inhabit them. An interesting thought-experiment, would be to try to picture a scenario where Malmö has 12 million inhabitants.

How alike or how different would they be?

What Is Paris?

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