Local Memory and Worldly Narrative: The Remote City in America and Japan

Abstract

This paper describes the uncharted terrain of the 'remote city', an ubiquitous modern urban space. Concentrating on four cities to the north-east of Tokyo and New York, it argues that worldliness is hardly a monoply of 'world cities'; that historical narratives of connection not only construct the 'locality' of many places, but establish imperatives for regular re-engagement. The remote, local, historical and small are revealed as aspects of globality, rather than alternatives. The worldly narratives of Bangor and Lewiston, Maine (US), and Hakodate, Japan, are contrasted not only with each other, but with the studied non-worldliness of the larger but still remote Japanese city of Niigata. The essay ends with a possible explanation for why 'heroic' or local worldliness actually flourishes in an era of the global mundane.