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 people and carriages in the road next to a park.

Urban Scrawl

By Jamie James

The city novel begins with a young person arriving from the provinces—and the world rising up to greet them.

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Map

City Narratives

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

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c. 1200 BC | Athens

Commonwealth

Theseus unifies Attica.More

c. 1250 | Saba

Luxury

Rumi calls for a moment of silence.More

1898 | London

Mixed Media

Ebenezer Howard and the marriage of town and country.More

Charts & Graphs

When in Rome

Statutes still on the books.

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American novelist Richard Powers.

Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa.

Black and white photograph of historian and man of letters Henry Adams.

British urban planner Ebenezer Howard.

American novelist and journalist John Hersey.

There is a city in which you find everything you desire—handsome people, pleasures, ornaments of every kind—all that the natural person craves. However, you cannot find a single wise person there.

—Rumi, c. 1250

Engraving of Roman author and administrator Pliny the Younger.

German sociologist and philosopher Georg Simmel.

Pliny the Younger & Georg Simmel

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