The Ideal City, attributed to Fra Carnevale, c. 1482. Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

The Ideal City, attributed to Fra Carnevale, c. 1482. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

The City

Volume III, Number 4 | fall 2010

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Painting of a sunlit plaza with people and a bell tower.

Preamble

City Light

By Lewis H. Lapham

When it comes to the medieval cathedral and mosque, the modern skyscraper and the slum, world history is city history.

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Painting of two statues in a grove of trees.

City of Seeds

By Daniel Mason

With an influx of people from all over the world, the city can become a hothouse for foreign flora.

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Map

City Narratives

The tumultuous histories of Algiers, Istanbul, Beijing, and Mexico City.

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c. 335 BC | Athens

Pledge of Allegiance

Athenian youth swear an oath.More

c. 1864 | London

Street Noise

Charles Babbage wages a war on street musicians.More

1520 | Tenochtitlán

Nothing Is Equal

Cortés extols the splendor of the Aztecs.More

Charts & Graphs

City Works

How to get a public project done.

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Image from Codex Manesse depicting a tournament of knights.

English architect Christopher Wren.

Mosaic portrait of a bearded man in red holding a book

Painting of François Rabelais.

Photograph of American writer Ralph Ellison.

British inventor and mathematician Charles Babbage.

Engraving of Roman author and administrator Pliny the Younger.

American composer George Gershwin.

I have never felt salvation in nature. I love cities above all.

—Michelangelo Antonioni, 1967

Engraving of Roman author and administrator Pliny the Younger.

German sociologist and philosopher Georg Simmel.

Pliny the Younger & Georg Simmel

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