Skyscrapers
I was talking with Erika the other day about the role of skyscrapers in a city's imaginative and ritual life, and I had an insight I liked: To a city visitor, skyscrapers are an intimidating, belittling presence--they exemplify the massive indifference of the enormous civic, economic, cultural machine around you. To the city dweller they have the opposite effect, because he identifies with the city, and so their qualities become his own.