Cities as Meta? Moreover, cities as metapictures?

            De Certeau and Favro both make arguments about the complex nature of the construction of cities and people's interaction with them. In studying how cities are made and interacted with, perspective is of the utmost importance. De Certeau begins his essay by giving us the aeriel perspective of New York City from the top of the World Trade Center. This helps us to consider angles and privilege. It helps us to imagine that every person has a different experience of the city that is sometimes very reflective of their class and race. In many ways Favro especially gives us a Marxist-like argument and helps us to consider how a city reflects, selects, and deflects reality (Burke 45). Cities are not dead. They are live structures that act as a reflection of their people, almost like a metapicture.




        A city is probably one of the most self-referential structures to ever exist. Newer cities may reflect on older cities while the architecture of that city reflects on architecture itself. But what cities truly reflect is the nature of the people who built them. This active participation in city building is especially evident in Favro's "The Street Triumphant." Favro describes how triumphal military parades carved paths through the most important part of Rome, reemphasizing them as iconic. She also describes how throughout the parade the spoils of war were placed on display throughout the city and how the soldiers would all use their money to add to the creation of new buildings. Favro states that, "Those with the means and status to erect major structures in Rome noted the important rhetorical role buildings played in the triumph, and determined which sites, building types, and simulacra would have the greatest impact upon both spectators and participants" (160). In this way, the city of Rome was very much reflective of its people's wishes and of its militaristic achievements.

     That's all very well and dandy, but what about the people who don't have the "means and status"? Much like Cooper argues about her race and gender in "Voice from the South," these people (most likely women and lower class) did not have a voice. Their mark on Rome was never seen in important buildings and structures, and their presence is not actively felt throughout history. While cities are very reflective, it is of the utmost importance to criticize who they are reflecting and who they are ignoring.

      The meta nature of cities is also evident in de Certeau's "Walking in the City." In many ways, the New York he describes reminds me of the "Egyptian Life Class" drawing that Mitchell critiques in his "Metapictures." I make this connection because "Egyptian Life Class" critiques the idea that styles transform with history and that newer styles are in some way more evolved or sophisticated. However, this picture points out that modern art students perform no differently than ancient art students did in their art classes. They draw what they see much in the way a city is built around the people that are seen. There is no difference between Rome and New York. Both cities reflect on their most prominent and powerful citizens while deflecting the marginalized and poor.

      De Certeau's understanding of cities is very abstract but he makes a parallel between language and cities. "The act of walking is to the urban system what the speech act is to language or to the statements uttered" (de Certeau 1347). Walking he claims is "a space of enunciation" in carving an evident path through a city. I can imagine that if you walked through New York City you would look up at the buildings and easily understand who made them and who they were made for.

     I think both of these essays help us to keep Marxism in mind, but more importantly they help us to remember our post-modern nature. Everything is questionable and nothing is assumed. Without questioning who is reflected in history and who is not, we would automatically assume that all voices and people were accounted for. As rhetorical theorists we must always question the why the how and the who. Without examining all angles we would have a very narrow world view, like looking at a city from the rooftops without walking through the streets.