If we accept the assertion that people's identity is inevitably not only physically shaped by the very architecture of their locale, but also psychologically by their diverse sets of cultural values, we have to accept the fact, that especially city life is first and foremost heterogeneous, if anything.

Especially in an increasingly globalized world, governments, therefore, are facing difficulties to assert control over decidedly diverse populations, thus being faced with a social state of hybridity. In order to maintain social order, and to exercise social control, a plethora of socio-political measures are implemented, which often defy the very hybridity, which is at the foundation of city life.

The German-American philosopher, sociologist, and political theorist Herbert Marcuse and his concept of repressive desublimation, emphasize that postwar mass culture and the power of the media, especially when state-run, serves to reinforce political suppression, while laying the foundation for social unrest. As a result, a populace finds itself trapped in an environment that negates today's ever-changing ways of life, which are as manyfold as a locale's populace.