Your Entire City Is an Instagram Playground Now

A few years ago, back when Tilda Swinton was taking naps at the Museum of Modern Art and every place was racing to build a Rain Room, it seemed as though museums had a problem. An infection. A social contagion. Cutting-edge institutions known for making tastes had turned to chasing trends—or rather, likes and faves.

Now the galleries have been upended by a bigger social platform: cities themselves. Nobody needs institutions to deliver Instagram-ready social tableaus now that mayors, developers, and entrepreneurs have gotten in on the game. If the decade is drawing to a close with a revival of fascism and a decline in crucial societal norms, you wouldn’t know it from glancing around any downtown in America. Cities have never looked more twee.