9:26pm September 2, 2014

“Urban spaces have spirits, and cities have souls. Some are dangerous, menacing, but also seductive; others are marked by beauty and excess; others again by their dreariness or spookiness. These are contagious qualities that are said to seep into the character of the people living in such cities. […] Some urban spirits are global in reach, others mainly local or regional. They are reproduced in everyday stereotypes and mythologies. None of these are of course true in any sociological sense but the proliferating fantasmic and mythical qualities of cities and urban spaces are effective realities that shape the behaviour, cosmologies and desires of people in cities, or of those who visit them, imagine them, or describe them in narrative or imagery.”

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