So what?

That was a Miles allusion, not a putdown of the readings, but my pervasive sense as I read the first three articles was: nice filler for rounding out research into place/space, just to ensure you haven't missed a dimension that might inform, but it's hard to see how important these readings are for considering weightier questions. For the DaCosta article: Manhattan is popular because people need a Shangri-La and a Sodom, but for purposes of understanding community I don't see much use for film analysis except to get a better read on the nature of nostalgia. The Cohen piece sheds sonic significance on iPod and Walkman use, but music seems to have disappeared from modern city/suburbscapes (it'd be great to examine the import of this), so that appears to be somewhat of a dead-end. And since no one reads anymore, at least in the J201 generation, Kneale's piece appears to have little applicability. I know I'm being extreme with these comments, but maybe it's the nihilism pills I took this morning...