Feral Cities
Here's an interesting paper by Richard Norton discussing the concept of "feral cities":
"The most notable difference is that where the police forces of the state have sometimes opted not to enforce the rule of law in certain urban localities, in a feral city these forces will not be able to do so."

First thoughts include the opening scenes from Appleseed (really, any apoclyptic future story would do, heh).

Real-world examples could perhaps include a very dystopian description of the immigrant slums in East? France, that I read a few years ago (this may not have been it, but is similar): "The cités are thus social marginalization made concrete: bureaucratically planned from their windows to their roofs, with no history of their own or organic connection to anything that previously existed on their sites, they convey the impression that, in the event of serious trouble, they could be cut off from the rest of the world by switching off the trains and by blockading with a tank or two the highways that pass through them, (usually with a concrete wall on either side), from the rest of France to the better parts of Paris."

In the context of modelling security / military deployment and the global connectivity model* I could see how this scenario might be worth considering, but beyond that more thoughts to follow only if I get the time...

* I'm thinking Thomas Barnett here, but thats a whole other thing I haven't gotten around to writing about.
- posted by Tweck @ 8:18 AM