Invisible City

What happens when a city returns to nature? Where do the people go? What if the 1.5 million inhabitants of Guadalajara decided today that they wanted to go elsewhere? Maybe they go home, pack up their books, wrap their glassware in newspaper, place everything in boxes and ship it all off to some other place. Then, they begin unscrewing lightbulbs, taking doors off their hinges, removing windows from their sashes. They tear down the brick walls and stack the materials in crates. Then they pull up their driveways, waiting momentarily while a truck rolls  the street up like a giant rug. Someone plucks the streetlights from their bases, and another collects manholes (and not just the covers). Entire buildings are dismantled, parking lots removed, soil replaced, and all signs of civilization are secreted away. Maybe overnight.

And then the sun rises and nature has made her comeback. The grasses spring up for the first time in decades underneath a foundation that no longer exists. Rabbits make homes in abandoned storm sewers. The people, meanwhile, have all gone to holiday in Puerto Vallarta, bringing their lamps and their grocery stores and gas stations with them. They bring the office, because we may be here a while.

Then, while they are gone, what once was Guadalajara begins to be remade. Smaller, fresher, more compact. Instead of sprawling suburbs, mid-rise buildings sprawl to the heavens. Tall towers mark the locations of highly dense neighborhoods and business districts. Everything seems to cling fast to a serpentine pathway- a spline of cars, trains, and pedestrians. The inhabitants of New Puerto Vallarta begin the exodus back to their ancestral homes, only now the scene is much different; the city is very narrow, and everything is walkable from one of these new transit hubs. Buildings are organized much the same way, as elevators and escalators and stairs take people first to sky gardens, then to their destination. Over time the new city of Guadalajara will fill in with all its previous inhabitants, and will add another 300,000 in babies and curious onlookers. But the city they return to now offers stunning views of natural forests and riparian streams infilled with serene agriculture (enough to feed the entire city).