November 20, 2006

The Megacity

George Packer's The Megacity: Decoding the chaos of Lagos' in the In the November 13th New Yorker is as fascinating as it is depressing (and not incidentally a searing indictment of architectural intellectuals like Rem Koolhaas who are so lost in theory that they seem unable to comprehend the palpable misery they are witnessing). The article is not online, but seek it out, it deserves to be read.

The story is illustrated with 2 powerful images from Samantha Appleton, an incredible photographer (and former assistant to James Nachtwey), who works in most difficult corners of the world.

update: if you have a library card, you can read the full article on this library site.

related: lagos on google maps, memories of post colonial africa

posted at 01:34 AM by raul

Filed under: elsewhere

Comments:

11/21/06 01:27 PM

Ryszard Kapuscinski's writing on Lagos (Shadow of the Sun or a few shorter pieces in various Granta compilations) is probably a little dated now, but is still worth a read. I read the New Yorker piece several times over I was so stunned by it.

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