The quintessential Victorian city, of course, is London. Fortunately, the Victorians loved to analyze their surroundings, and preserve it for posterity. (Take this report from Vol. III: "The street musicians are of two kinds, the skilful and the blind.")

As time went on, the concept of cities changed. The vision of the shining city of the future lasted throughout the 20th century, through the space age of the 1950s (and its echo in the 1970s) and the electronic revolution of the '90s. But where are we now, in the 21st century? Not only are we missing our jetpacks, the cities aren't looking too healthy. Some are actually labeled as feral. Victorian London was none too pretty itself, however. Today, with our dystopian "parasite projects" for the homeless and telescoping urinals on the streets (and just try to tell me these don't look like Doctor Who's Tardis) and the spooky, cavernous g-cans silently yawning under the lights and sounds of Tokyo, we may not really be all that far from the Victorian city of old.