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In the story, a scientist discovers that cities have more or less a gestalt consciousness, and that they communicate with each other indirectly through people. He decodes this communication, and begins communicating with a city by having people wear colored t-shirts and go to particular places.

The city he communicates with experiences a sudden and rapid downturn...he "asks" the city why, and the city indicates that the other cities think that "he" is crazy. Why? Because he hears voices from nowhere! Your voice!

Cool story...may have been in Amazing Stories, or Asimov...possibly Omni.

I believe I read it in the mid to late eighties, and it was a short piece in an anthology. I remember the anthology being the smaller, paperback-size like Asimov was, I think. It was definitely a researcher who dispatched volunteers with t-shirts...contemporary, non-fantasy setting. I'm nearly 100% sure on the t-shirt aspect.

UPDATE: from user @andrew, a much better synopsis that fit with my fuzzy memory:

Five years ago on an SF mailing list someone was looking for a story with this description:

Guy in bar is very depressed. Bartender asks him what's bothering him. Guy replies, "New York is going to kill us." First bartender thinks he's talking about an upcoming sporting event. Nope. Then bartender thinks he means that there's going to be some sort of rioting. "Did I say a bunch of people from New York are going to come here and kill a bunch of people?"

The guy tells his story: He's a sociologist who, looking at large-scale data on patterns of movement through the city, realized there was a pattern, and, after intensive study, cracked the code: Patterns of people moving in public areas actually formed an "uber-language," the massmind of the city itself speaking. Having figured out the language, he then runs an experiment, paying crowds of homeless people to move from place to place in the city, and begins asking the massmind questions.

The conversations take weeks, even months, but he's learning about the literal mind of the city. It's fascinating work. It's ground-breaking. Then, one day, the city has turned surly, and it answers him with hostility. When he inquires, the city tells him that other cities have sentenced it to death. New York City will be its executioner. "But, I don't understand. Why would they do that?" "Because I'm insane," the city tells him. "What do you mean? How can you possibly be insane. You seem perfectly rational." "I'm insane. I hear voices. I hear you.

Chris B. Behrens
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    I've been looking all over for this story. You gave a good description but it doesn't seem to be enough to pull up the story. Is there anything else you can think of or can you attempt to remember the title? I've found similar stories but nothing matching your specifics. Otherwise I'm tempted to say write the story and publish it and wait for someone to tell you who you ripped off. – Kevin Howell Feb 13 '12 at 17:47
  • Not the answer but the first story in Grey Area by Will Self is along similar lines, and you can read it for free on his website: http://will-self.com/category/books/grey-area/ – Alistair Buxton Apr 30 '12 at 09:44
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    Reminds me of Jack Hawksmoor from 'The Authority' – Chetter Hummin Jul 26 '12 at 03:36
  • Maggie Furey's 'Aurian' series of books features mountains that have distinct consciousness', and can communicate with each other. This isn't the answer to your question, but they are an interesting series of books along a similar theme. – monkeymatrix Jan 28 '13 at 11:00
  • @ChrisB.Behrens You never accepted skymandr's answer, but you haven't commented on it either. Should we assume, then, that Fritz Leiber's "The Pale Brown Thing" (or its expansion into a novel) is definitely not the story you were looking for? – user14111 Oct 12 '15 at 08:24
  • Yes, that is not it. It was definitely a researcher who dispatched volunteers with t-shirts...contemporary, non-fantasy setting. – Chris B. Behrens Oct 12 '15 at 20:48
  • Reminds me of a part of Godel, Escher, Bach: Ctrl+F "conversations with ant colonies" http://themindi.blogspot.com/2007/02/chapter-11-prelude-ant-fugue.html – radomaj Jun 02 '16 at 03:18
  • I read GEB years ago...it is a bit similar, but I'm nearly 100% sure on the t-shirt aspect. – Chris B. Behrens Jun 02 '16 at 04:57
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    I presume from your bounty that you've carefully ruled out all of the existing answers and suggestions in comments...? – Valorum Oct 12 '20 at 15:47
  • I have. None of these feature a contemporary non-fantasy setting, a researcher, t-shirts or any of the basic frame that I've laid out here. – Chris B. Behrens Oct 12 '20 at 16:12
  • Two stories that don't quite fit, but do have surprising similarities are "Oh the Things those Galaxies Say" (https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?906694) about a scientist who learns to communicate with the Milky Way, which is concerned that it is ill, since it's got these radio signals coming from planets - and it's called Dr. Andromeda to come to fix the problem, and "Leviathan Wept" https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?194451 in which antiterrorism experts begin to suspect that humans are beginning to form superorganisms whose goals mere humans can't understand (no t-shirts, though) – Andrew Mar 14 '24 at 21:32
  • Five years ago on an SF mailing list someone was looking for a story with this description - possibly your story: Guy in bar is very depressed. Bartender asks him what's bothering him.

    Guy replies, "New York is going to kill us."

    First bartender thinks he's talking about an upcoming sporting event. Nope. Then bartender thinks he means that there's going to be some sort of rioting. "Did I say a bunch of people from New York are going to come here and kill a bunch of people?"

     – Andrew Mar 15 '24 at 13:51
  • Continued:The guy tells his story: He's a sociologist who, looking at large-scale data on patterns of movement through the city, realized there was a pattern, nad, after intensive study, cracked the code: Patterns of people moving in public areas actually formed an "uber-language," the massmind of the city itself speaking. Having figured out the language, he then runs an experiment, paying crowds of homeless people to move from place to place in the city, and begins asking the massmind questions. – Andrew Mar 15 '24 at 13:53
  • Continued: The conversations take weeks, even months, but he's learning about the literal mind of the city. It's fascinating work. It's ground-breaking. Then, one day, the city has turned surly, and it answers him with hostility. When he inquires, the city tells him that other cities have sentenced it to death. New York City will be its executioner.

    "But, I don't understand. Why would they do that?"

    "Because I'm insane," the city tells him.

    "What do you mean? How can you possibly be insane. You seem perfectly rational."

    "I'm insane. I hear voices. I hear you."

     – Andrew Mar 15 '24 at 13:53
  • That's 100% it. Was there any response from the list? – Chris B. Behrens Mar 15 '24 at 22:04
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    Unfortunately not, but I pinged the guy looking for it to see if he had any other memories of it. Could it have been published in one of the "Destinies" books (https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?9127) which were a hybrid of magazine and anthology – Andrew Mar 15 '24 at 22:46
  • Timeframe seems to be right. – Chris B. Behrens Mar 15 '24 at 23:15
  • This has jogged my memory a little bit. It's possible it might have been in Dragon magazine... I'll see if I can search that. – Chris B. Behrens Mar 16 '24 at 03:05
  • List of Dragon contents here https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?19249 – Andrew Mar 16 '24 at 11:40
  • The fellow from the mailing list suggests Amazing, Analog, F&SF, Asimovs, or possibly Omni was where he read it. – Andrew Mar 16 '24 at 22:54
  • Nothing found in Dragon. – Chris B. Behrens Mar 26 '24 at 15:49

3 Answers3

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I'm not confident at this answer, but since I can't post it as a comment, I'll post it as an answer:

Though far from a perfect match, what you describe seems to have many elements in common with Fritz Leiber's "Our Lady of Darkness", or the short story "The Pale Brown Thing" on which the novel was based.

It features an occult science called "Megapolismancy", but that science is more used for predicting and controlling cities, than communicating with them. That being said, I have not read the short story version, which may be different.

Community
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skymandr
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This is "Street Talk" (1986) by J.B. Allen, published in Amazing Stories, July 1986.

It's a very short story, so I'm not going to quote a lot, but it's definitely a match.

Using coloured shirts to send a message:

"Yeah. I went out and bought two hundred and fifty-six shirts, based on a code I had the computer build from a message I wanted to send. It was a copy of the 'What was that?' signal.

"I handed them out with a shot of rye and a bus ticket. All that day I hovered over the computer output, feverish with anticipation. Then it came. The printer came on:

WHAT WAS THAT 'WHAT WAS THAT'?

Atlanta, not New York, is going to kill the city:

THEY'VE DECIDED TO KILL ME.

"I reread the message a dozen times. It couldn't be a joke, even if a city could joke. Evidently the other cities had passed sentence on poor old LA. It was to be executed.

WHO? WHEN?

ATLANTA HAS A CONTRACT ON ME. SOON, VERY SOON.

The final line of the story is the city's explanation for why it will be killed:

I HEAR VOICES FROM NOWHERE. YOUR VOICE.

You can read the entire story in its original publication at the Internet Archive.

DavidW
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    Congratulations - that has been driving me nuts for (more than) thirteen years. – Chris B. Behrens Mar 26 '24 at 16:51
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    @ChrisB.Behrens You're welcome. I haven't diligently gone through old story-id questions, so I hadn't seen this before now... – DavidW Mar 26 '24 at 21:15
  • With permission, I can tell you the name of my friend who was looking for this story some years ago (see comments below the question): It's Jonathan Andrew Sheen. This is of note, because he wrote the story that's right after "Street Talk" in that issue of Amazing. I'm embarrassed, because I had previously identified a story for him that was also in that issue, but didn't think to look very carefully at that issue for this one. – Andrew Mar 26 '24 at 22:47
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Could it be City Come a-Walkin' by John Shirley, circa 1980?

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1123715.City_Come_a_Walkin_ http://www.darkecho.com/JohnShirley/city.html

Dosco Jones
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