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There is no universal place

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No universal place, but flows that reach everywhere (Hong Kong financial district)

Flows reaching out (Portland, Maine)

We should not confuse the wide reach of systemic effects with the presumed creation of a homogenous universal place. There is no universal place, but there are wide flows and systems. Our local inhabitations are under pressure from systems of interaction that link events and consequences in ways independent of the norms that define place. There are vastly accelerated flows of capital, of signifiers, of communications, of people and products and chemicals. There are global economic flows; there are wide biological effects in the environment. We are not in any of these flows as in a place, though our places are deeply affected by those flows.