Tangle is interesting because it adds texture to the experience of living in a city - but it comes about organically. In Singapore, where I live, the city cente

Tangle is interesting because it adds texture to the experience of living in a city - but it comes about organically. In Singapore, where I live, the city center is fairly interesting, but the urban public-housing neighbourhoods outside the core are mostly uniform in appearance and lack the variety of forms and colors that would consitute tangle. Everything is similarly arranged on a flat landscape of housing blocks and patches of green spaces; wiring and services are all hidden behind walls or underground to keep things "neat" - the place was built by conformist public planners. There's a minimum of shops scattered around these areas, because inhabitants are presumed not to want the bustle and risks of crowds near their homes. In contrast, the major Japanese (& European & American) cities have much more variation and exposed complexity - more tangle. Their neighborhoods weren't planned to the same extent, with the same drive towards neatness and hidden complexity. Thus density alone doesn't generate tangle: age and the organic bolting-on of new layers/services is required as well. This man would have us living in the chaotic, multilayered megacities of dystopian sci-fi - Kowloon Walled Cities writ large and cast into the future. It's not an entirely unpleasant vision.