Consider two architectures. One builds on contained units of improvised culture, packed close to one another, created by autonomously acting teams collaborating directly with another to build and rebuild. It depends on cheap communication and transport, broadly available as common infrastructure. One we call Manhattan; the other, microservices.

I have an article out on the parallels between these two designs, very much looking through the lens of architect Rem Koolhaus’ “retrospective manifesto” for New York. There are a number of parallel forces and parallel solutions in the two approaches, and some similar costs and trade-offs too, though software is not quite a city, and a city is not quite software.

References

Burke, A. (2025). Delirious Microservices. Diffractions Collective. https://diffractionscollective.com/2025/04/06/delirious-microservices-adam-burke/

Koolhaas, R. (2014). Delirious New York: a retroactive manifesto for Manhattan, 20th anniversary ed.