ABSTRACT
Love them or hate them, people care about cities. Boosters talk about “superstar cities” that are magnets for the creative class.1
They note that civilization itself is rooted both etymologically and historically in the city. Urbanity is a much desired attribute in an individual, denoting culture, education, and style. Theodore Parker, a Massachusetts divine of the mid-19th century, said that cities “have always been the fireplace of civilization, whence light and heat radiated out into the dark.”2 Kevin Lynch, in The Image of the City, observed, “Looking at cities can give a special pleasure, however commonplace the sight may be.”3 Such laudatory sentiments about cities date at least as far back as Sophocles, who wrote, “The highest achievements of man are language and wind-swift thought, and the city-dwelling habits.”4
