(4) A city become deeply multi-cultural would not automatically theme all its places, but special themed places would still be possible.
For a place to be themed there has to be some ordinary everydayness for the theme to contrast with. What would happen a fully multi-cultural world? Imagine that everywhere in the city or nation, or in the world, became thoroughly multi-cultural. Imagine there was no longer any place that was specifically Guatamalan or Japanese. Everywhere had a deeply mixed population, so that while there was everyday agreement on things like stopping at red lights and how to use doorknobs, there was little agreement on what the stages of a person's life should be, or what it means to be masculine, or how and why one ought to give gifts, or on the appropriate everyday decor for a house or a restaurant. In such a world, could there still be themed places that were different from the everyday? Or would all places just be samples of other cultures? Could the difference between a themed place and a sample of another culture still be maintained?
There are two related questions here:
(a) Would multi-cultural social reality automatically theme everything? No, it would not. If, for instance, each subculture expressed itself in buildings of its own type, which were seen as odd by other subgroups, that would not be theming, only samples of difference;
(b) Would theming still be possible for special places in a totally multi-cultural world? Yes, but with restrictions. Consider a parallel question: If all restaurants were ethnic restaurants, could special themed restaurants continue? They could continue with their self-presentation of their self-presentation of otherness, but this would require more extreme effects, to separate themselves from ordinary restaurants that were just samples, not themed. (We can see this by comparing chinese and Chinese restaurants.)
The underlying issue is this: Would theming be hindered by the existence of many (mixed or separate) ordinary everyday realities?
(c) David Kolb, 1 August 2001