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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1898 | London

Mixed Media

Ebenezer Howard and the marriage of town and country.More

c. 1835 | London

Never Can There Come a Fog Too Thick

Charles Dickens on mud, fog, and the law.More

1844 | Manchester

Among the Best

Disraeli marvels at the glory that is Manchester.More

Charts & Graphs

City Works

How to get a public project done.

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Painting of François Rabelais.

Essayist and novelist Pico Iyer.

Italian poet and scholar Giovanni Boccaccio.

Engraving of Roman author and administrator Pliny the Younger.

There is no solitude in the world like that of the big city.

—Kathleen Norris, 1931

Engraving of Roman author and administrator Pliny the Younger.

German sociologist and philosopher Georg Simmel.

Pliny the Younger & Georg Simmel

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