Hackworth rode past marble villas built by Iraqi Jews in previous 
centuries, past the hotel where Nixon had once stayed, past the high-rise 
enclaves that Western businessmen had used as the beachheads of the 
post-Communist development that had led to the squalid affluence of the Coastal 
Republic. He rode past nightclubs the size of stadiums; jai-alai pits where 
stunned refugees gaped at the jostling of the bettors; side streets filled with 
boutiques, one street for fine goods made from alligators, another for furs, 
another for leathers; a nanotech district consisting of tiny businesses that 
did bespoke engineering; fruit and vegetable stands; a cul-de-sac where 
peddlers sold antiques from little
carts, one specializing in cinnabar boxes, another in Maoist kitsch. Each time 
the density began to wane and he thought he must be reaching the edge of the 
city, he would come to another edge city of miniature three-story strip malls 
and it would begin again.