Street Life Scene in a Dystopian Sci-Fi Megacity № 4

This one is titled “Shabby”.

As we move away from the core of the city where government and corporate interests entangle and mate, we reach the habitat of the elusive, nearly-nonexistent middle class. Given that dystopian societies such as this one form to a large measure on the backs of rampant inequality and its partner in crime, wanton corruption, it should come as no surprise that there is very little purchase to be found - and indeed very little purchasing power - between the masses of urban poor and their masters.

The sliver of middle-class that remains is mostly consisted of those few artisans whose livelihoods were too obscure or specialized to automate away. A smattering of small business-holders remain, operating bodegas and other shops in the ghettos further out on the city outskirts. But their lives are neither easy nor clean. Indeed, the privatized sanitation utilities only service the city center for free - everyone else must pay, money these folks don’t have.