...

"These 'off worlds' -- to use the terminology of Blade Runner -- are often imagineered as replica Southern Californias. Thus, 'Beverley Hills' does not only exist in the 90210 zip code; it is also, with Utopia and Dreamland, a suburb of Cairo, an affluent private city whose 'inhabitants can keep their distance from the sight and severity of poverty and violence and political Islam which is seemingly permeating the localities.' Likewise, 'Orange County' is a gated estate of sprawling million-dollar California-style homes, designed by a Newport Beach architect and with Martha Stewart décor, on the northern outskirts of Beijing. (As the suburb's developer explained to an American reporter: 'People in the United States may think of Orange County as a place, but in China, people feel it is a brand name, something like Giorgio Armani.) Long Beach -- which the New York Times designated as 'the epicenter of faux L.A. in China' -- is also north of Beijing, astride a new six-lane super-highway. Palm Springs, meanwhile, is a heavily guarded enclave in Hong Kong where affluent residents can 'play tennis and stroll through the theme park, where Disney comic strip characters are surrounded by mock Greek columns and neo-classical pavilions.' Urban theorist Laura Ruggeri contrasts the expansive imported California lifestyles of residents in their large semi-detached homes with the living conditions of their Filipino maids, who sleep in chicken-coop-like sheds on the rooftops. [...] Lippo Karawaci in the Tangerang district, west of Jakarta, doesn't have an American name but is otherwise a copy of a West Coast suburb, boasting a more or less self-sufficient infrastructure with hospital, shopping mall, cinemas, sport and golf club, restaurant, and university. It also contains internally gated areas known locally as 'totally protected zones.'"

-- Planet of Slums