Terrorism, the Worker and the City

Chapter 4Terror and the Mediated City

Los Angeles certainly looks, sounds and smells familiar, with its wattle, bottlebrush and gum trees lining the freeways, but now that the barbarians are at the gates, the wheels are really falling off Tinsel Town. Post-September 11, the happy pills aren’t working, the table-thumping televangelists are being taken seriously, the fearful are fleeing to Lake Tahoe, and the driving wounded are looking shell-shocked and exposed, as if a golden horde of Mongols had just galloped through their Bircher-muesli breakfasts.

(Hirst, 2003: 9–10)

Introduction

In the post-9/11 world, Los Angeles (LA) and Melbourne are not so different. What is more, it is likely that LA and Melbourne are not the only cities filled with ...