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Ask HN: The most cyberpunk city in the world?

70 points| zabana | 9 years ago | reply

I'm currently re-reading Neuromancer by William Gibson. I Love how he describes the different cities in the book and I was wondering which city in our current time best fits the archetype. (Shanghai comes to mind but I'm curious to know your opinion)

64 comments

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[+] 19eightyfour|9 years ago|reply
Okay, tbh, I'm going to vote against all map points on the de rigeur "tech metropolis" list.

TOKYO, HK, SHANGHAI, SHENZHEN, SEOUL, or <insert yet-another East-Asian megacity here.>

No to all of them. Why? They're really more capitalist mega-aggregations of labour and value...tech, either consumer-side or industry-side and any, cyber-punk under-side to these places is really, despite their (arguably somewhat faded) romance, these days is a side effect ( okay, maybe 1990s-era Harajuku FRUiTS style aside ).

I'm going to vote for someplace in Africa as actually the most cyberpunk.

I've never been there, but bear with me. High mobile phone usage but lots of shanty towns, mobile finance but still open air barter markets. And they do a lot of destroy/recycle/resell of tech ( old computers, old tvs, old batteries, old ships ). It's technologically advanced, but it's also still animist and voodoo. The internet didn't just "get adopted", it got "inhaled" and started changing everything, because things were still flexible enough to be changed.

Look maybe I'm just TOOMA, and someone who actually knows and has lived there can set this perspective straight. But for sake of freshness of updating the conception of "cyperpunk" I'm going against the grain of passing the crown around the clique of Asian megacities, to someplace maybe a little more grungy, maybe a little more deserving of the mantle of "cyberpunk".

A place where you could still imagine, perhaps, an organic "phreaking" culture existing even today, accompanied by reverse engineering and zines, distributed by bicycle couriers to people cool enough to be included in such secrets.

I know Africa is not glittering spires of glass and steel, but is that really so cyberpunk in our current time? Isn't the essence of cyberpunk something a little more bustling but raw-and-real, and digital but down-to-earth?

[+] dennyabraham|9 years ago|reply
Cyberpunk connotes overcrowded cities where human life is commoditized and tech is widespread. Huge cities in Africa or India are much closer to unevenly distributed technological dystopias than the tech hubs other folks have suggested.
[+] stuxnet79|9 years ago|reply
Here's a cyberpunk short story called VIRUS! that is set in Accra Ghana

http://www.afrocyberpunk.com/virus/

I've been following the author for some years but I believe he has yet to complete a full manuscript. In general I agree with most of what you have said. The Sprawl Trilogy is almost 30 years old, a completely different era. A re-evaluation of what "cyberpunk" means in this day and age is necessary in my book.

[+] detaro|9 years ago|reply
Asian cities get closest to the visual aesthetic associated with the word, which is why they are cited often, but I think you are right when talking about everything else. South America might have some candidates as well?
[+] pdexter|9 years ago|reply
Where in Africa? Africa is huge, many different cultures and types of cities.
[+] arcanus|9 years ago|reply
South Africa.

In townships in South Africa you can see high tech low life everywhere: abject poverty but people still find ways to get old flip phones working or running a TV in a home with no electricity: just directly plugging it into a generator.

Nearby, there can be mansions with well-educated folks who hold the typical lawyer/consulting/banking/software set.

[+] xyzzy4|9 years ago|reply
I spent a few months in India and I thought it was extremely cyberpunk. I can see Africa being similar.
[+] konart|9 years ago|reply
Norilsk

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/01/26/09/3094F19C0000057...

[+] cjauvin|9 years ago|reply
Is this intended to reference Half Life's City 17? I never thought of it as "cyberpunk" in genre or ambiance though..
[+] gcmartinelli|9 years ago|reply
Watching this documentary (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGJ5cZnoodY) about Shenzhen I got a very strong cyberpunk vibe, especially the last 1/3 of it. People at the streets fixing electronics, cheap/pirated circuit boards being sold at the curb, etc.
[+] _jdams|9 years ago|reply
I was in Shenzhen not long ago. Good shout, but the city is actually very new. It's very clean and the subway is near spotless, so it doesn't give off a dark, dystopian cyberpunk kinda feel to it. Hong Kong is another good shout, specifically Kowloon region. Many Asian cities like these have lots of old neon signs, architecture, and technology that definitely gives off the Cyberpunk vibe
[+] altern8tif|9 years ago|reply
Definitely Hong Kong. I just came back from a holiday there and the bus ride from the airport to Kowloon amidst towering brutalist apartments made me feel like I'm entering a dystopian metropolis.
[+] pmarreck|9 years ago|reply
Seconding this. Hong Kong all the way, no contest. I also went there a year or 2 ago and (besides being reminded everywhere about what inspired the styles in the cyberpunk game Deus Ex that take place there) it just felt very cyberpunk. Also, I LOVED IT, and sadly only spent 24 hours there (yet a VERY memorable 24 hours!). I want to go back!
[+] hack_edu|9 years ago|reply
Oakland, CA is a strong contender if you step back. Especially for one of a Stephensonian-styled second-wave cyberpunk. It even plays a part in Neuromancer.

It has its dark parts along with strong facets of common cyberpunk themes: drastic social stratification, the social acceptance of regular drug usage, urban decay meets technocratic renewal, a renewed definition of suburbia, and a greater acceptance of non-binary genders.

[+] philsnow|9 years ago|reply
I like it, especially because there's a strong artist population there, and a common theme in cyberpunk is showing what the non-techies' life is like (to contrast it to the main characters' lives), and it's quite often artists.
[+] arethuza|9 years ago|reply
I don't know about "cyberpunk" but every time the Dubai screensaver comes on my Apple TV I'm pleased to find I must be living in the future:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bucV8Y_p0ME

Edit: All that video needs is an Elysium style flying Bugatti.

[+] dollaholla|9 years ago|reply
There are pockets of it everywhere. There's a filthy bodega in uptown Manhattan with expired produce on the shelves, but there's a Bitcoin ATM and young kids hang out there and barter stolen Uber accounts for Bitcoin.
[+] Raphmedia|9 years ago|reply
Kowloon Walled City.

It is no more but it was amazing that such a city ever existed. Read on it.

It was a city build on itself, cube shaped. Some people would spend their entire day inside or in the middle of the city and would never see the sun.

Search it on Google Image and you will understand what I mean.

[+] thejones|9 years ago|reply
A big part of the game Shadowrun: Hong Kong is actually set in Kowloon, so that would support your view.
[+] cx1000|9 years ago|reply
For those not familiar with the term cyberpunk (like me), this is what Wikipedia has to say

> Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a future setting that tends to focus on society as "high tech low life" featuring advanced technological and scientific achievements, such as information technology and cybernetics, juxtaposed with a degree of breakdown or radical change in the social order.

[+] wlesieutre|9 years ago|reply
Some of the better known examples are Neuromancer, Blade Runner, and Deus Ex
[+] beaconstudios|9 years ago|reply
the now-demolished Walled City of Kowloon was a great example of the dereliction/"street culture" side of cyberpunk fiction, very reminiscent of the "underbelly" image of cities like Midgar from FF7 or Hengsha in DX:HR. Also places like Lagos with a high rate of internet technology paired with scrap pickers and DIY recycling.

For the economic side of cyberpunk (the capitalist dystopia side), I'd say Hong Kong. A city with a booming economy and ample opportunity for international corporations but where the poorest citizens live in literal cages: http://all-that-is-interesting.com/cage-homes-hong-kong

For the neon/e-billboard aesthetic, you can't really beat Tokyo or Times Square, NY.

[+] z3ugma|9 years ago|reply
Dubai! The tallest building in the world, 2 of the tallest residential buildings, fringed by uninhabitable desert. Built on credit, on the backs of south Asian and Filipino indentured servants. An Instagram paradise for the global elite.
[+] boutcher|9 years ago|reply
Definitely not Shanghai (unless you consider everyone heads-down on their phones a symptom of cyberpunk.)

Shenzhen is a good choice though.

How about Tallinn

[+] Nothorized|9 years ago|reply
Tallinn is a very small city. When I travel, I love to walk alone in the city during the night, and despite a few big buildings (mainly hotels), Tallinn does not look that much futuristic.
[+] arcaster|9 years ago|reply
Maybe an unlikely choice, but I actually think Boston, especially chinatown in Boston is incredibly cyberpunk. Yes, I might be biased since I went to school in Boston and a huge fan of the Fallout series.

If I had to give a structure / area outside chinatown, the trench that the commuter lines and orange-line run through are incredibly cyberpunk.

[+] ttam|9 years ago|reply
Either somewhere in Asia or Berlin
[+] Nutomic|9 years ago|reply
I don't see how Berlin could be considered Cyberpunk at all. Sure there are some modern buildings, but most of it is at least 50 years old. And there's no real high-tech.
[+] adrianN|9 years ago|reply
I live in Berlin. Some parts are punk, some parts are cyber, no parts that I know are cyberpunk.
[+] FullMtlAlcoholc|9 years ago|reply
Taipei. I was only there for a couple of days but where I stayed had that Kowloon walled City feel to it and I went to a rave in the lush, jungle like mountains.
[+] deathtrader666|9 years ago|reply
Maybe Seoul, South Korea?
[+] thedailymail|9 years ago|reply
Seoul definitely has the cyber but is a bit light on the punk. Same goes for Japanese cities, IMO. Old Kowloon had the right vibe. If you could put Akihabara on Gunkanjima, that would be a new contender.