“Out there, over the hills, on the other side of the tracks”

This chapter presents an exposure to an “out there” as a key aspect of the global urban. For urban modernities concerned the ways in which space and time were organized in rational ways that reflect linear progressions, differentiated functions, ordered relations of cause and effect and the configuration of circulatory systems that placed landscapes, resources and productivity in relation to each other. As urbanization becomes more extensive and extended, it would also seem to be moving in the direction of an “out there”, taking on the risk of what Lauren Berlant calls constant interruptions. It was important to demonstrate increasing distance from communities of the poor, as well as one’s eligibility to be noticed and taken seriously by an urban elite.