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A reader gets in touch with a quibble. I wrote last month about the profusion of Michelin stars among restaurants that serve the (once-patronised) food of India, China and Nigeria. I’d connected this to the story of our times: the seepage of power and prestige from the west and its allies. Their cuisines used to hog the Guide, as their economies used to hog world GDP.
一位读者就一个细节问题与我联系。我上个月写了一篇关于米其林(Michelin)星级泛滥的文章，这些餐厅提供的是印度、中国和尼日利亚（曾被轻视的）美食。我将这与我们这个时代的故事联系起来：权力和声望从西方及其盟友中渗透出去。他们的美食曾经在《米其林指南》中占据主导地位，正如他们的经济曾经主导世界国内生产总值(GDP)一样。
The Michelin trend is real enough, said this informed reader. In London. Elsewhere, even in cities of general open-mindedness, the Euro-Japanese grip on the finest end of fine dining hasn’t budged.
这位消息灵通的读者表示，米其林的趋势确实存在，在伦敦尤为明显。然而在其他地方，即便是思想较为开放的城市，欧洲和日本在高端餐饮领域的主导地位依然牢不可破。
I could counter-quibble, but not much. Instead, the email set off a broader thought. Why, in a growing world, can so few cities make a plausible claim to contain everything?
我可以就一些小问题提出反驳，但并不多。相反，这封电子邮件引发了我更广泛的思考。为什么在一个不断发展的世界中，只有极少数城市能够看似合理地声称自己拥有一切？
The global population has doubled over the past 50 years to 8bn. Our species now produces over $100 trillion of output per annum in current prices. And this stuff sloshes around with an ease that was unknown in the middle of the last century. Thanks to shipping containers, successive tariff-cutting rounds and the mutation of once-communist countries into prolific exporters, almost anything can get almost anywhere. So, albeit with more friction, can people. Migrants constitute a larger share of the world’s population than in 1960.
过去50年间，全球人口翻了一番，达到80亿。按当前价格计算，我们人类现在每年生产超过100万亿美元的产品。而这些产品的流通之便捷，在上世纪中叶还是闻所未闻的。得益于海运集装箱、连续几轮关税削减以及曾经的共产主义国家转变为多产出口国，几乎任何东西都可以到达几乎任何地方。人也一样，尽管会有更多的摩擦。与1960年相比，移民在世界人口中所占的比例更大。
Given all this, there should be a multitude of what I am going to call “total cities”. A total city is one in which a person can find almost literally anything: any cuisine, at low, middle and extortionate price points; any art form, exhibited or performed to world-class standard; any language spoken, not in scattered households but in communities of appreciable size. If you are dating in a total city, you might go out with someone from each continent in one calendar year without pausing to notice the fact. (I grant that Antarctica requires work.)
鉴于这一切，应该有大量我所称之为“综合城市”。综合城市是指一个人几乎可以找到任何东西的城市：任何菜系，以低、中、高昂的价格点；任何艺术形式，以世界级水平展示或表演；任何语言，不是在零散的家庭中，而是在可观规模的社区中使用。如果你在一个综合城市约会，你可能在一个日历年内与来自每个大洲的人约会，而不会注意到这个事实。
As soon as cities outside of London and New York are named, arguments kick off. Paris? I’d include it. Others wouldn’t. Tokyo?
一提到伦敦和纽约以外的城市，争论就开始了。巴黎？我会包括它。其他人可能不会。东京？
In an 8bn world, there should be lots of cities that readers agree are total. Instead, well, would it take more than one hand to count them off? Would you get past the index finger before starting a fight among ourselves? As soon as cities outside of London and New York are named, arguments kick off. Paris? I’d include it. Others wouldn’t. Tokyo? Not heterogeneous enough for some. Dubai? You can eat almost anything, meet almost anyone but not yet see a Vermeer on a whim. Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Sydney, Bangkok, Toronto: each incurs dissent. Is the number of cities who meet the criteria much higher than when the world held 4bn souls?
在一个80亿人口的世界中，应该有很多城市被读者认为是全面(total)的。然而，除了伦敦和纽约，你能一只手数得过来吗？你能在开始争吵之前数到食指吗？一旦提到伦敦和纽约以外的城市，争论就开始了。巴黎？我会包括它。其他人可能不会。东京？对于一些人来说，它的多样性还不够。迪拜？你几乎可以吃到任何东西，见到几乎任何人，但还不能随心所欲地看到一幅弗美尔画作。洛杉矶、香港、孟买、悉尼、曼谷、多伦多：每个城市都引起了争议。符合这些标准的城市数量比40亿人口时高吗？
Now, a few disclaimers. I don’t suggest “total” means “better”. Houston, with its abundance and range of migrants, and no lack of art, has a stronger claim to total-ness than most European capitals. You can still favour Rome, though. Total needn’t even mean good. The average person doesn’t become, as I do, a claustrophobic diva when denied immediate access to everything (“I can’t believe there are just four Uzbek-Galician wine bars in this dump”) or the ambient sound of foreign voices. As various elections over the past decade have shown, wanting the world on one’s doorstep isn’t a universal taste.
现在，有几点免责声明。我并不认为“全面”意味着“更好”。休斯顿，凭借其丰富和多样的移民人口，以及不缺乏艺术，比大多数欧洲首都更有资格成为全面之城。尽管如此，你仍然可以偏爱罗马。全面甚至不一定意味着好。普通人不会像我一样，在无法立即接触到一切事物（“我不敢相信在这个破地方只有四家乌兹别克-加利西亚葡萄酒吧”）或无法听到外国声音的环境中变成幽闭恐惧症患者。正如过去十年的各种选举所表明的那样，想在家门口就能享受世界并不是一种普遍的口味。
It is strange, though, that the world can grow and grow while the agreed-upon world cities remain more or less consistent. True, some things, such as access to visual art, are naturally constrained. Canonical paintings are few, and one in the Met is one that can’t at the same time be in the São Paulo Museum of Art. But most things that make urban life great are, as economists put it, non-rivalrous.
然而，奇怪的是，尽管世界在不断发展，公认的世界城市却或多或少保持不变。的确，某些事物，例如接触视觉艺术，自然是受限的。经典的绘画作品很少，而大都会艺术博物馆中的一幅画作不可能同时出现在圣保罗艺术博物馆。但正如经济学家所指出的，大多数使城市生活美好的事物是非竞争性的。
We are left with a puzzle, then. In the end, a total city relies on three things: raw numbers of people (nearer 10mn than 5mn, I suggest), openness (a foreign-born share of perhaps a third), and enough wealth to sustain all those amenities. It follows that a world that has undergone steep population growth, mass migration and steady enrichment throughout my life should have thrown up, I don’t know, a dozen or so uncontested total cities by now. Instead, consensus falls apart after one or two. Given the present reversals of globalisation, it is conceivable that no one reading this will live to see another.
那么我们面临一个谜题。最终，一个全面的城市依赖于三个因素：人口数量（我建议接近1000万而不是500万），开放性（外国出生人口占比约三分之一），以及足够的财富来维持所有这些设施。由此可见，在我一生中，经历了人口激增、大规模移民和持续富裕的世界，现在应该已经出现了十几个无争议的全面城市。然而，事实上，在提出一两个公认的全面城市之后，共识就会瓦解。考虑到当前全球化的逆转，可以想象没有人在阅读这篇文章时会活到看到另一个全面城市的出现。
Email Janan at [email protected]
给嘉南发电子邮件[email protected]
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