Conversations About Where We Live
In late 1985, the great writer and thinker Italo Calvino completed a collection of lectures he was scheduled to deliver at Harvard: the distinguished Charles Eliot Norton Lectures. He had five in hand, a subject for the sixth, and a title for the whole: Six Memos for the Next Millennium. On the threshold of his … Continue reading A Voice at the Window: a prologue
"Modernism is clearly expressed by…. the segregation of activities and peoples, the specialization and isolation of professions and the systems they create, the (rapid) centralization of ever larger (capitalist) institutions (and developments), and the monopoly of certain technologies, most notably the car." Peter Calthorpe, The Next American Metropolis. Campo de' Fiori We have just … Continue reading Home from Rome: Surely surviving Modernity
We have recently returned from a time in Charleston, SC and Williamsburg, VA. I wanted to offer a few thoughts about our travels and a few reactions to what we observed. I will begin in Charleston. Encountering any urban region in our time nearly always involves cars. This seems obvious: I note this as an … Continue reading A Time in the South: Charleston and Williamsburg
In the Old City, Ahmedabad. In February and March we spent a month visiting seven cities across India, from south to north, from west to east. Our time there was completely exceptional: invaluable, surprising, educational, revealing, depressing, infuriating, eye-opening and more. I continue to reflect on those days, and it has taken me until now … Continue reading Present City, Future City: India
72 Conkey is gone. The City of Rochester has torn this building down. The building was built in 1879. It was a corner grocery for 100 years. We have written previously, and at some length, about the struggle to save this building. Others have as well: http://www.rochestersubway.com. Working to build a better city here sometimes … Continue reading Gone
A procession begins in White City, in the summer of 1909. We speed through the spaces of our lives as quickly as we can - rushing through the city, rushing to the mall, rushing 20 or 30 miles without blinking an eye. We have to, after all - we have spread out all over the … Continue reading White City: Local Lives and a Century of Progress
Since we began posting here at A Town Square, in November of 2007, it has always been with an eye to using the blog as a research and development platform for a book, or something like a book. Who knows - maybe an HBO mini-series. The book, with a working title of The Next City: … Continue reading Sneak Peek
Image from flickr. "Once we accept that our cities will not be like the cities of the past, it will become possible to see what they might become." Witold Rybczynski, City Life. When he wrote those words in 1995, Rybczynski was actually "glimpsing the urban future," and seeing it as a low-density and low-rise city, amorphous and … Continue reading American Urbanism: Shovel-ready
Lisbon, Cadiz, Casablanca - some of our recent destinations. In each of these cities there is at least one district, or urban quarter, that is dense, rich, bustling with activity, alive, completely walkable, and as ever, fragile. Each faces pressure from gentrification, adjacent development, cars. (Only the Old Medina is so dense that cars are excluded, … Continue reading Vernacular Urbanism, Part IV: Density and Use
A slum in Manila. "All cities are mad: but the madness is gallant. All cities are beautiful: but the beauty is grim." Christopher Morley, Where the Blue Begins. I continue to search for a vernacular urbanism for the next city. After some reflection, I have concluded that what I am looking for is an urbanism that is local … Continue reading Vernacular Urbanism, Part III
A Town Square 