Los Angeles: Bon or Mal?

Earlier this month in the pages of the Atlantic, Bernard-Henri Levy proclaimed that Los Angeles “will die,” mostly because, unlike great European cities, we don’t have a central plaza where you can go have your caricature drawn and get pooped on by pigeons. But on Sunday at the Hammer, Michel Houellebecq opined that “the future is cities like L.A.,” and old-world cities like Paris and New York will decline. (For those who don’t know, philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy and novelist Michel Houellebecq are two of the leading public intellectuals in France.)