they are often at risk of physical and sexual violence. Consequently,
there may be places where women cannot, or do not want to, go. Such
places may be unsafe, or they may be intimidating because they are pre-
dominantly male environments. While diverse sexual identities are much
more accepted than they used to be, gay people are often subject to homo-
phobic attacks, and may gravitate towards gay pubs, bars or other meeting
places, where they are more readily accepted.
The sensory city
The city is a site of strong sensory stimulation: it is not only a landscape,
but also a smellscape and a soundscape. Theorists have pointed out that
sight has often been prioritised over the other senses. But smell, touch and
hearing can be as important in the way the city is culturally constructed.
Henri Lefebvre , for example, has pointed out how smell (often associ-
ated with disgusting rather than pleasant sensations) has been reduced
and controlled in modern life through the use of substances and tech-
nologies which remove smells (discussed in Bridge & Watson 2003). Yet
one of the strongest associations we have with a place is how it smells. Sim-
ilarly, the city is a soundscape which intermingles the noise of traffic, talk,
footsteps and musak.
The virtual city
There is now considerable tension between the city as a specific and visible
location where people live and communicate, and the growth of tele-
communications and computer networks which work across space–time
barriers and create a virtual city. In other words technology is moving us
into what has been called a ‘post-urban’ age, where the physical city will be
much less important than it has been in the past (Bridge & Watson 2003).
The consequences of this can be viewed in an optimistic or pessimistic
light. Technology, for example, is taking us into an era in which informa-
tion, in theory, will be available at all times to all people. However, digital
information is increasingly commodified by giant corporations. Critics
claim that technology polarises because it is in the grip of a wealthy elite,
and is not accessible to the poor.
The unreal city
The unreal city is one which only exists in your imagination. An unreal
city may have a name: you may feel that it exists, but it does not. An
unreal city might be constructed of roads that are dead ends, or have
262 The Writing Experiment