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The city looms large in the fiction of author William Gibson. In the September issue of Scientific American, Gibson's essay, "Life in the Meta-City," details how cities increase "the number and randomization of potential human and cultural contacts" and how they serve as "vast, multilayered engines of choice." Cities that cease to provide choice--or which try to overcontrol their denizens--lose their spark and sometimes perish. In the interview that follows, Gibson shares his perceptions about existing cities and their links to his fiction.

Architecture and ambience have long played critical roles in marketing the world’s great wine regions. In past centuries, the denizens of Bordeaux, for instance, erected neoclassical ch