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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1905 | New York City

Honest Graft

How politicians make money.More

c. 1821 | Paris

Assaying a Crowd

Balzac gives an introduction to the world of necessary superfluities.More

c. 1200 BC | Athens

Commonwealth

Theseus unifies Attica.More

Charts & Graphs

Official and unofficial city slogans,

Welcome to...

Official and unofficial city slogans.

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American author and journalist Jamie James.

Mosaic portrait of a bearded man in red holding a book

Woody Allen in thick black rim glasses

American writer, editor, and translator Eliot Weinberger.

Essayist and novelist Pico Iyer.

Lewis Lapham at his desk

Portrait of Fyodor Dostoevsky

Cities are the abyss of the human species.

—Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1762

Engraving of Roman author and administrator Pliny the Younger.

German sociologist and philosopher Georg Simmel.

Pliny the Younger & Georg Simmel

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