Often cities under the global spotlight use their landscape as a stage. The idea of a living performance is unique and at times problematic. We see this every other year with the winter and summer Olympics. Cities spend years working to prepare their city as all eyes will be on how well they can “perform”. In this article, author Anne Rademacher puts Kathmandu under a microscope. Soon after the state of Nepal declared a state of emergency, it had to host many South Asian countries for a major trade conference. Within days, many dilapidated housing complexes were leveled and new urban parks rapidly created. As with the Olympics, the long-term implications of the performance landscape after the performance has ended can often leave cities with inefficient and a landscape that is too-purpose built to be sustainable. This is not just a problem Kathmandu faces, but Kathmandu’s unique status as a place in need creates a unique problem. Globalization, in this instance, forced Kathmandu to compete with other global cities. In reality, the city is not on the scale of other global cities and normally, wouldn’t have to compete with the resource-privileged communities around the world. In fact, in a time when resources were strained, they had to be diverted away from crisis-alleviation and instead to meeting the demands of a global society.