The Newsletter 63 Spring 2013
Jonathan van der Stel
Sublime and heterotopic landscapes
The current state of the Asian urban environment is characterized by a high level of capitalist policies. Due to land-scarcity and economic benefit, a mass migration surge from the countryside to the coast is taking place in most Asian countries. To handle the influx of these people, many cities resort to a ‘maximum profit per footprint’ policy. Here the smallest possible piece of land is extruded as high as possible into the air, to be divided into tiny fragments, often not exceeding 20m2. The resulting urban situation is that of walking through a canyon-like abyss, shaped by the concrete forest of anonymous towers.
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