Cities can’t win. When they do well, people resent them as citadels of inequality; when they do badly, they are cesspools of hopelessness. In the seventies and eighties, the seemingly permanent urban crisis became the verdict that American civilization had passed on itself. Forty years later, cities mostly thrive, crime has been in vertiginous decline, the young cluster together in old neighborhoods [...] —and so big cities turn into hateful centers of self-absorbed privilege. — newyorker.com
5 Comments
Started interesting but then utterly fails at understanding automobile politics - claiming that the rise of the automobile was about "fashion." Absurd piece.
durp...horrible article
"Cities can't win." Win what, exactly? Constant appreciation or consistent commentary among successive generations of opinion writers? No? Boo hoo.
I got news: cities win. They win by their very existence and persistence, warts and all. But in those terms, a few cities lose: Youngstown, Ohio and Detroit and other urban centers which have declined and lost population in recent decades. But cities are, significantly, sites of human activity. Those left behind, alongside adventurous newcomers, try new forms of development and community building in response to new challenges. Is everyone happy there, or do all experience things uniformly? Of course not. But some people are drawn to such places, enjoy experimentation, and the cities may experience some level of change and/or resurgence. Cities win.
^I think this was a rhetorical device. He means cities do win, right?
I mean, this is pretty typical of the New Yorker to write romantic pro-New York pieces... nothing exactly new here.
They should call them schities
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