More Reactions To "The City Is A Battlesuit"

Matt Jones links to some reactions to his io9 piece The City Is A Battlesuit For Surviving The Future. Some really interesting stuff there, I particularly like Ben Hammerlsey's post:

It's not a battlesuit, because this isn't a battle. Much as one might want to be Bourne or Batman or the dude from Mission: Impossible, at the end of the day, none of us are. The layers of modern life aren't grand missions to vanquish evil, or the preparation for the time that we'll be called to action, activated by the Global Frequency. Instead our cities are made of, and our lives build up, layers and layers of soft actions.

Note that Ben is the Editor At Large of Wired UK whose new issue focuses on cities. Should be interesting.

In response to the battlesuit word, Matt clarifies:

The most important part of the sentence for me was 'surviving the future' - for which I still believe cities are the key.

Personally I'm not convinced, having been living outside of a city for more than a decade now. I've recently written a story about what the future could be like living in a Village, because maybe cities aren't the future. I don't have a date yet for when the story will be published, but I'm looking forward to people reading it.

Meanwhile another member of The Berg, Matt Webb, has given a talk for which the bibliography contains Geoff Ryman, Bruce Sterling, The Argos Catalogue and Olaf Stapledon amongst others. Now that's a talk I'd like to hear.