Editing City (section)

== Representation in culture ==
{{Further|Urban fiction}}
[[File:The fall of Babylon; Cyrus the Great defeating the Chaldean Wellcome V0034440.jpg|thumb|''The Fall of Babylon'', an 1831 portrait by [[John Martin (painter)|John Martin]], depicts chaos with the Persian army occupying [[Babylon]], symbolizing the ruin of a decadent civilization. The lightning striking the [[Etemenanki|Babylonian ziggurat]] represents the [[Tower of Babel]] and God's judgment against Babylon.]]
Cities figure prominently in traditional Western culture, appearing in the [[Bible]] in both evil and holy forms, symbolized by [[Babylon]] and [[Jerusalem]].<ref>Ellul (1970).</ref> [[Cain]] and [[Nimrod]] are the first city builders in the [[Book of Genesis]]. In Sumerian mythology [[Gilgamesh]] built the walls of [[Uruk]].

Cities can be perceived in terms of extremes or opposites: at once liberating and oppressive, wealthy and poor, organized and chaotic.<ref>Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson, "City Imaginaries", in Bridge & Watson, eds. (2000).</ref> The name [[anti-urbanism]] refers to various types of ideological opposition to cities, whether because of their culture or their political relationship with [[Rural area|the country]]. Such opposition may result from identification of cities with oppression and the ruling [[elite]].<ref>Herrschel & Newman (2017), pp. 7–8. "Growing inequalities as a result of neo-liberal globalism, such as between the successful cities and the less successful, struggling, often peripheral, cities and regions, produce rising political discontent, such as we are now facing across Europe and in the United States as populist accusations of self-serving metropolitan elitism."</ref> This and other political ideologies strongly influence narratives and themes in [[discourse]] about cities.<ref name=Lynch2008p678 /> In turn, cities symbolize their home societies.<ref>[[J.E. Cirlot]], "City"; ''A Dictionary of Symbols'', 2nd ed., translated from Spanish to English by Jack Read; New York: Philosophical Library, 1971; pp. 48–49 ([https://archive.org/stream/DictionaryOfSymbols/Dictionary%20of%20Symbols#page/n103/mode/2up online]).</ref>

Writers, painters, and filmmakers have produced innumerable works of art concerning the urban experience. Classical and medieval literature includes a genre of ''[[List of literary descriptions of cities (before 1550)|descriptiones]]'' which treat of city features and history. Modern authors such as [[Charles Dickens]] and [[James Joyce]] are famous for evocative descriptions of their home cities.{{sfn| Latham | McCormack | McNamara | McNeill | 2009 | p=115}} [[Fritz Lang]] conceived the idea for his influential 1927 film ''[[Metropolis (1927 film)|Metropolis]]'' while visiting [[Times Square]] and marveling at the nighttime [[neon lighting]].<ref>Leach (1993), p. 345. "The German film director Fritz Lang was inspired to 'make a film' about 'the sensations' he felt when he first saw Times Square in 1923; a place 'lit as if in full daylight by neon lights and topping them oversized luminous advertisements moving, turning, flashing on and off ... something completely new and nearly fairly-tale-like for a European ... a luxurious cloth hung from a dark sky to dazzle, distract, and hypnotize.' The film Lang made turned out to be ''The Metropolis'', an unremittingly dark vision of a modern industrial city."</ref> Other early cinematic representations of cities in the twentieth century generally depicted them as technologically efficient spaces with smoothly functioning systems of automobile transport. By the 1960s, however, [[traffic congestion]] began to appear in such films as ''[[The Fast Lady]]'' (1962) and ''[[Playtime]]'' (1967).<ref name=Borden />

Literature, film, and other forms of popular culture have supplied visions of future cities both [[utopia]]n and [[dystopia]]n. The prospect of expanding, communicating, and increasingly interdependent world cities has given rise to images such as [[Nylonkong]] (New York, London, Hong Kong)<ref>Curtis (2016), pp. vii–x, 1.</ref> and visions of a single world-encompassing [[ecumenopolis]].<ref>[[Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis]], ''[http://www.doxiadis.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=14929 Ecumenopolis: Tomorrow's City] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171010005729/http://www.doxiadis.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=14929 |date=10 October 2017 }}''; Britannica Book of the Year, 1968. Chapter V: Ecumenopolis, the Real City of Man. "Ecumenopolis, which mankind will have built 150 years from now, can be the real city of man because, for the first time in history, man will have one city rather than many cities belonging to different national, racial, religious, or local groups, each ready to protect its own members but also ready to fight those from other cities, large and small, interconnected into a system of cities. Ecumenopolis, the unique city of man, will form a continuous, differentiated, but also unified texture consisting of many cells, the human communities."</ref>