• Single page /
• Email /
• Print

The Fall edition of Lapham’s Quarterly lays the foundations of the world's greatest cities, from the modern metropolis to the ancient polis. In the issue, Jane Jacobs leaves her keys with the neighbors; Hernán Cortés marvels at Tenochitlán, the Aztec city of gold; Italo Calvino wades through fantastical trash heaps; Charles Babbage rages against street musicians; Samuel Pepys watches the Great Fire consume London, Jorge Luis Borges wonders in what city he will be buried, and Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo gets his first glimpse of the lost city of Atlantis.

We’ve got charts and graphs that count the number of rats in New York, the price of a cup of coffee in Moscow, the average commute for someone living in Mexico City, and the relative calorie counts of street food from all over the world. As always, we have fantastic new essays, including Colin Dickey on the ancient and modern disposal of the city’s dead, Daniel Mason on the encroachment of nature into the city, and New Yorker staff writer George Packer on Dickensian living in the slums of Lagos.

Subscribe now to receive “The City” as your first issue.

• Single page /
• Email /
• Print