We soon after catch up to what is actually the present, and it turns out that the monologue that had been going on up until this point was actually a speech Batman had been delivering to a room full of investors as Bruce Wayne. In it, Wayne states that trying to identify what Gotham "is" is meaningless since all anyone will ever do is project their own problems or issues onto it. He instead encourages everyone to look to the future and ask themselves what Gotham can be. He encourages the investors to put money towards renovating some of the most run down portions of Gotham City.