This study contributes to the debate about the future of the city. London, Paris, New York, Tokyo and Los Angeles are the ultimate 100-mile cities, set apart by an economic supremacy derived chiefly from their sheer size. With the airline door replacing the city gate, and the shopping mall becoming a civic space, the industrial city has mutated within the space of a single generation, into a completely new species - standardized, monolithic, corporate urban sprawls. This book is a portrait of these monuments to capitalism.