The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition

In many ways, James Kunstler's "The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition" is simply one long bash against big cities. London is "sordid", Mexico City is a "hypertrophied organism", Las Vegas a "dubious urbanoid organism", Atlanta is a "galaxy of Edge City projects tied together by freeways and gruesome collector streets." Paris, Boston, Berlin and Rome don't fare much better. Good golly, it almost makes you wonder why we city-dwellers have actually chosen to live here. A book subtitled "Notes" is entitled to be personal, random and subjective. Taken as such, there's a good deal here to inform, entertain and warn: Just don't expect objectivity or sensible suggestions for improvement. Kunstler sees the urban future given over to "tarantulas, buzzards and rats." But many of we city-dwellers live where we do because of the complicated histories behind our places of abode and the disordered messiness of the buildings, streets, parks and people. "The City in Mind" feeds that craving by telling some genuinely interesting stories about the background of these cities. Kunstler uses Rome to digress on classical architecture, Mexico City to retell the history of Mexican Indian civilization and its effect on modern urban bureaucracy, and Berlin to tie a community's self-image to its choice of architecture. The problem is that, since he concentrates only on a few aspects of each city's development - and usually negative aspects, at that - readers not personally familiar with these cities are going to get a very distorted view of them. I know most of these cities, I've lived in more than one, but I still don't trust the picture presented of the couple I haven't personally visited.At least one can't accuse the author of a foolish consistency. The chapter on Mexico City describes in some sympathetic detail the possible reasons behind the Aztecs' docility in the face of Spanish assault. But another chapter fails to identify the exact same phenomenon in Atlanta suburbanites who are faced with the carnage caused by automobiles sharing space with humans. He condemns Boston's plan to use the 27-acre site over the Big Dig for a huge "open space", but is as "shocked" as a Victorian maiden when startled by another man enjoying London's Hampstead Heath who steps into his path from behind one of the trees in a "thicket of real woods." I suspect that most of the negative reviews of this book have come from people who have seen their favorite cities gored by Kunstler. It's fine for us to complain about our cities, is the attitude, but we just don't appreciate visitors from Saratoga Springs doing the same thing. That's unnecessarily defensive. Our cities have burned to the ground (Atlanta and London), been bombed into smithereens (Berlin), and fallen on hard times (Rome and Paris). They will survive a curmudgeon.

I feel sorry for all those people here that give this book a poor review. It appears that it didn't match their expectations, or they just didn't "get it". I had never even heard of this author before, let alone read any of his other works, so I couldn't be disappointed.This book is not trying to be comprehensive in its critique of cities. In fact, some of the chapters on cities don't necessarily have much to do with the cities themselves. Instead the author rambles on delightfully with a tapestry of anecdotes, sometimes about people, sometimes about places, set in the past, the present, and even the future. It might all seem a little bit disconnected unless you catch on to the underlying themes, his very strong opinions regarding what makes cities livable and unlivable places. He cares a lot--he is not just insulting I.M. Pei and others for the sake of getting attention.

Kunstler outrages and delights in equal measure. The scorn he elicits usually derives from a misunderstanding of professional urbanologists and/or real estate hustlers. Kunstler is not Mumford, Whyte, Bacon, Jacobs, Calthorpe or any kind of high-toned practictioner of academic urbanism. He's a social critic who correctly locates our psychospiritual malaise in the abomination known as suburbia. That he's a Jeremiah in this woebegone wilderness goes without saying. His role, such as it is, cannot be prophylactic - the damage is far too systemic and severe. He can, however, make this subject available to the layman where it properly belongs. The human habitat can and ought to be a political concern of the first order. Kunstler's rhetoric implies this and ennobles our feeble protests against the crush of economic and architectural pornography.

After subjecting the built enviroment in the United States to pathological examination (in "The Geography of Nowhere"), then suggesting possible approaches to therapy in ("Home From Nowhere"), Mr. Kunstler now turns to epidemiology. His observations and insights into the past and present of several U.S. and foreign cities are--as usual--dead on. The chapter on the transformation of Paris from fetid medieval antheap to 'City of Light' in the 19th century by Baron Haussmann and his patron, Louis Napoleon is the best short account I've seen. To read it is to see the falsity of the legend depicting the Emperor as a vain and gullible dolt.That characterization better fits many of our own citizens today, to judge from the author's chapter about the Atlanta metro area. (Houston would have served just as well, believe me.) His accounts of two-fisted boodlers (journalist/editor Thomas Frank's phrase) plowing up and paving over everything in sight (in vain, it turns out--traffic congestion just gets worse), local government hacks refusing to enforce such weak regulations as exist, and the mentally apathetic and physically obese boobs--uh, citizens--who imagine all this is for the best in the best of all possible worlds--all of this is rendered like a Daumier drawing in words.No one sane expects American cities to duplicate the look and layout of European ones (which have a much higher population density on average). But with imported petroleum now running over fifty percent of total annual U.S. consumption, even the most slack-jawed watcher of TV news from the Mideast should realize how precarious and unsustainable current land use and transportation patterns are. Even if they are not sitting in traffic on I-75 for three hours every day behind the wheel of an armor-plated SUV.Kunstler is no harsher in his appraisal of the American scene than was Lewis Mumford forty years ago in "The City in History". But we're supposed to have learned something since then. That we haven't seems due to a) the propensity--more marked now than ever--of the American public to act like spoiled children who learn nothing, even from hard experience; and b) the fact that corporate PR (i.e., everything from advertising to think-tank talking heads) fights good sense--even the evidence of one's senses--tooth and nail. If Kunstler's sarcasm can help sting certain bovine/impotent portions of the citizenry into cerebral activity, then perhaps this is a favor to thank him for instead of an injury to nurse.

Any review of a James Howard Kunstler book must nearly by necessity begin with a tip of the hat to his "Nowhere" books, to acknowledge their quality, to (perhaps) lend an air of authority to the reviewer, but most of all to place in context his current offering. The City in Mind enlarges and deepens the concern he voiced in those previous books for the human condition, as it is affected by our man-made environment, specifically living arrangements such as cities and, even more particularly in those prior works - suburbs. While continuing to skewer our domestic "National Automobile Slum" which made his "Nowhere" books famous (look out Atlanta), Mr. Kunstler presents a broad and rich discussion of eight cities both domestic and foreign, in chapters devoted to, and named after, each city in question.Kunstler describes the historical evolution of each metropolis as it developed through the geography, culture, personalities, and psychology particular to it. In so doing he provides an explanation for the current condition of each, and attempts a prognosis. In earlier days, Kunstler wrote novels (Embarrassment of Riches, etc.), so he knows how to tell a story. And the story of each of these cities is vivid - so vivid in fact that Kunstler could easily bring his ample literary skills to bear on writing history and do it in a way that would enthrall people who otherwise find it lifeless. For example, the first chapter on Paris describes the massive renovation undertaken by Louis Napoleon and his able administrator Haussmann. Those for whom this era in the life of one of the world's most beloved cities is unknown (like me) will find the fascinating details provided (funding projects via convoluted financial schemes, providing water to the City of Light via Roman-like aqueducts) a revelation. Or read about the institutionalized Aztec cult of human sacrifice and cannibalism for a real eye-opener.From a broad description of the history of each city, Kunstler increases the resolution, focusing on aspects of urban and architectural design. He provides insight into why and how design principles, primarily the classical rules as developed by the Greeks and Romans, can enhance our surroundings where they are employed, or damage them where they are not. These aesthetic considerations are complemented by Kunstler's appreciation for tougher realities, such as the threats imposed by the peaking of global oil production on places like Las Vegas, or the scarcity of fresh water to places like Mexico City. In any case, his message is clear - we must change our man-made environment or risk those things we value most.No review would be complete without a mention of the mode of Kunstler's writing style used in the service of exposing the dreadful effects of malconfigured urban and suburban landscapes, a style termed "wickedly mordant" elsewhere. This description is too restrictive: one that I prefer is savagely eloquent, a phrase that captures the uplifting, positive aspects