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City Life: Urban Expectations in a New World
In City Life, Witold Rybczynski looks at what we want from cities, how they have evolved, and what accounts for their unique identities. In this vivid description of everything from the early colonial settlements to the advent of the skyscraper to the changes wrought by the automobile, the telephone, the airplane, and telecommuting, Rybczynski reveals how our urban spaces have been shaped by the landscapes and lifestyles of the New World.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1995
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634 people want to read
About the author
Witold Rybczynski
57 books179 followersWitold Rybczynski was born in Edinburgh, of Polish parentage, raised in London, and attended Jesuit schools in England and Canada. He studied architecture at McGill University in Montreal, where he also taught for twenty years. He is currently the Martin and Margy Meyerson Professor of Urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also co-edits the Wharton Real Estate Review. Rybczynski has designed and built houses as a registered architect, as well as doing practical experiments in low-cost housing, which took him to Mexico, Nigeria, India, the Philippines, and China.
(From www.witoldrybczynski.com)
(From www.witoldrybczynski.com)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
May 14, 2022
A little dated now, but Rybczynski is a sharp cookie, and a real scholar. He starts his story with the first European settlers, and takes the story up to the 1990s. Well-written and well researched. Recommended.
And it's worth checking out Rybczynski's backlist: He's still active at 79! Which isn't (sob) that much older than me....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold_...
I recommend starting with this book: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
"Last Harvest: How a Cornfield Became New Daleville: Real Estate Development in America from George Washington to the Builders of the Twenty-First Century...." Strong 4 stars!
And it's worth checking out Rybczynski's backlist: He's still active at 79! Which isn't (sob) that much older than me....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold_...
I recommend starting with this book: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
"Last Harvest: How a Cornfield Became New Daleville: Real Estate Development in America from George Washington to the Builders of the Twenty-First Century...." Strong 4 stars!
September 5, 2009
Rybczynski sets out with the task to create a description of what makes American cities American. He begins with a premise that there is a sort of American exceptionalism—that American cities are distinct. At the book's outset he posits that our cities are unlike the cities from which the builders of American cities came: Europe. While the author principally contrasts America to Europe, he also devotes a number of pages of exploring pre-conquest cities of Native Americans.
By “traditional” (ie: European) definitions, American cities may not be considered cities at all. “At least they are not real cities if one assumes that real cities have cathedrals and outdoor plazas, not parking garages and indoor shopping malls, that they have sidewalk cafes, not drive -through Pizza Huts, and movie theaters, not cineplexes, that real cities are beautiful, ordered, and high-minded, not raucus, unfinished, and commercial” (32).
But they're cities nonetheless, and it's clear that R. loves them. Some interesting American urban innovations and trends: the grid pattern (fore expediency), the “broad, tree-lined street,” the importance of green space (leading to the garden suburbs), and the primacy of the residence. Some of his ideas about the particularity of American cities is not surprising—for example, that so-called “market forces” play just an active role (if not more so) than actual urban planning in the design and evolution of the city. More poignant is the observation that the dominance of the market, added to a a notion of mobility, drives American cities to change more so that European counterparts. That is, it can be said that trends or “fashions,” change the development of American cities more so: “Eternal change is certainly the hallmark of American urban history” (34).
Like Kunstler, R. has a talent for uncovering the historical roots of today's development patterns. A good example is his explaining how the independent spirit of 17th century American settlements (due to the long distances between settlements, and their autonomous food production) carries on to day in the form of American cities being largely responsible for their own policy-making (and a lack of a federal urban policy).
Some complaints: R. glosses over the issue of sprawl and doesn't sufficiently problemitize it. Instead, he meditates on the “blurring boundary of city and suburb.” But there certainly is something Americana about sprawl—a discussion of it would have strengthened the book. Also, I had to laugh aloud (and the book's previous owner had written “Oh boy!” in the margin) when I read his rant, while discussing the virtues of shopping malls, “the right not to be subjected to outlandish conduct, not to be assaulted and intimidated by boorish adolescents, noisy drunks, and aggressive panhandlers. It does not seem much to ask” (210), and elsewhere, his complaint about “weird looking teenagers.”
Ultimately, R.'s concluding section is a bit flat, when he talks about the small places with urban attributes as approximating some ideal for American living. More interesting is his sections on the history of specific cities (Charleston, Savannah, Chicago) and movements (city beautiful, garden suburb).
By “traditional” (ie: European) definitions, American cities may not be considered cities at all. “At least they are not real cities if one assumes that real cities have cathedrals and outdoor plazas, not parking garages and indoor shopping malls, that they have sidewalk cafes, not drive -through Pizza Huts, and movie theaters, not cineplexes, that real cities are beautiful, ordered, and high-minded, not raucus, unfinished, and commercial” (32).
But they're cities nonetheless, and it's clear that R. loves them. Some interesting American urban innovations and trends: the grid pattern (fore expediency), the “broad, tree-lined street,” the importance of green space (leading to the garden suburbs), and the primacy of the residence. Some of his ideas about the particularity of American cities is not surprising—for example, that so-called “market forces” play just an active role (if not more so) than actual urban planning in the design and evolution of the city. More poignant is the observation that the dominance of the market, added to a a notion of mobility, drives American cities to change more so that European counterparts. That is, it can be said that trends or “fashions,” change the development of American cities more so: “Eternal change is certainly the hallmark of American urban history” (34).
Like Kunstler, R. has a talent for uncovering the historical roots of today's development patterns. A good example is his explaining how the independent spirit of 17th century American settlements (due to the long distances between settlements, and their autonomous food production) carries on to day in the form of American cities being largely responsible for their own policy-making (and a lack of a federal urban policy).
Some complaints: R. glosses over the issue of sprawl and doesn't sufficiently problemitize it. Instead, he meditates on the “blurring boundary of city and suburb.” But there certainly is something Americana about sprawl—a discussion of it would have strengthened the book. Also, I had to laugh aloud (and the book's previous owner had written “Oh boy!” in the margin) when I read his rant, while discussing the virtues of shopping malls, “the right not to be subjected to outlandish conduct, not to be assaulted and intimidated by boorish adolescents, noisy drunks, and aggressive panhandlers. It does not seem much to ask” (210), and elsewhere, his complaint about “weird looking teenagers.”
Ultimately, R.'s concluding section is a bit flat, when he talks about the small places with urban attributes as approximating some ideal for American living. More interesting is his sections on the history of specific cities (Charleston, Savannah, Chicago) and movements (city beautiful, garden suburb).
August 21, 2008
Why aren't American cities laid out like those in Europe?
February 18, 2016
City Life begins with a question that seems almost a complaint: Why aren't our cities (in North America) like Europe's cities? The author is in Paris, and his journey there reminds him of decades earlier when he was in the same place--and it seemed very much the same--the same beautiful old buildings and small streets and grand history. In the United States, by contrast, a city has been torn down and re-erected each decade. The places we treasure are temporal, our cities hardly of historical relevance. The complaint did not seem a worthy one, and this beginning made me think that the book was going to be one focused on why Europe's cities are so much better than ours--theoretical and snobbish.
But the introduction does not do the book justice. Really, Rybczynski is interested in knowing why our cities are not the same, and to answer that, he delves into history. The book, as it turns out, ends up being a history of the city--and of city planning. (And later in the book, he even notes that Europe's cities have begun to mimic American cities, as many of the revolutionary changes that cause our cities to be as they are have happened across the Atlantic as well.)
Rybczynski introduces us to three basic models for the city historically (first denoted by Kevin Lynch): the cosmic, the practical, and the organic. Cosmic cities would include those of the ancient Southeastern Ceremonial Complex and of the Aztecs and Incas. The city was centered around a mound or a temple. Religious practices forge the plan for the city--or governmental practices, as in the case of Washington, D.C. The practical city generally follows a grid created for maximum ease of commerce and expansion. Most North American cities fall into this model. The last model, the organic, would be typical of older European cities whose "grid" goes back to the Middle Ages--streets do not follow a rigid geometric plan. Rather, they grow organically as the population settles. To these three models Rybczynski adds a fourth, the automobile city. Modern spread-out cities with wide, long-curving streets are typical of these sort--Phoenix and Houston.
Rybczynski then turns to the Middle Ages and the concept of open and closed towns, walled and unwalled, and the cause for these differences in time and space--nobles looking to protect their station, serfs seeking protection, merchants looking to sell goods. From there, he goes to the colonial town, created differently for each culture, but for the English in three basic types: organic (informal, winding streets, as in Boston); gridlike with open squares (as in Cambridge); and linear (with one main street, as in Providence).
Grids soon became typical of city planning in the United States, as they were a means to keep towns organized even as they grew at phenomenal rates. After all, squares are easy to parcel out and sell.
Individual chapters cover the early growth and planning of New York and Chicago, the former mostly through the eyes of Tocqueville, on his visit to America, the latter through the eyes of the City Beautiful movement and the Chicago World's Fair. Rybczynski has some very different views on the City Beautiful movement from Jane Jacobs, who largely condemned it. As Rybczynski notes, the founders of that movement actually did pay attention to how cities worked and looked for council among city administrators. The World's Fair, however, had a large impact on the city and on American architecture in general, as its largely classical style was copied for permanent buildings elsewhere, as were the tendency to gather grand governmental structures together in complexes for great display (something Jacobs largely criticizes).
But Rybczynski largely criticizes the Radiant City concept espoused by Le Corbusier, which Jacobs also despised. That plan essentially put towers in the middle of parks. Le Corbusier, as it turns out, was more a philosopher than a planner, and he spoke a good, conceited game without having a lot of actual knowledge. Nevertheless, his ideas were put into practice in some places to disastrous effect, as in some public housing in the Chicago area, where crime has run rampant since. Part of this dynamic is social (the ACLU sued to prevent those who ran the complex from interviewing possible renters with the idea of managing proper diversity among the units; once that happened, increasing problems became part of a downward spiral); however, part of it rests in Jacobs's own ideas--if there isn't a crowd of people on the street and a diversity of use for parks, an area is less attractive and often less safe.
From there, Rybczynski delves into the growth of the suburb, which is largely due to the car. As people could settle farther out, in the country, they did so, and city centers began to decline. Suburbia is complex. In many cases, suburbs themselves end up with centers of their own, so that work doesn't always happen in the city. Also, with the advent of the car, shopping malls sprang up, placing all retail in a single location that people could drive to and then walk around within. Of particular importance here was the supermarket, allowing people to shop for a week or two rather than shopping for a day or two at a time. I was surprised to learn how recent the (indoor) shopping mall really is--going from about eight in the nation in 1950 to thousands by the 1960s. That malls are privately owned raises social questions as well, since unlike public downtown streets, limitations can be placed on free speech and assembly.
Cities themselves are largely growing smaller as their surroundings fill out, creating larger and larger metropolitan areas (both in land and population). The complex mix of cities and edge cities is the future.
But the introduction does not do the book justice. Really, Rybczynski is interested in knowing why our cities are not the same, and to answer that, he delves into history. The book, as it turns out, ends up being a history of the city--and of city planning. (And later in the book, he even notes that Europe's cities have begun to mimic American cities, as many of the revolutionary changes that cause our cities to be as they are have happened across the Atlantic as well.)
Rybczynski introduces us to three basic models for the city historically (first denoted by Kevin Lynch): the cosmic, the practical, and the organic. Cosmic cities would include those of the ancient Southeastern Ceremonial Complex and of the Aztecs and Incas. The city was centered around a mound or a temple. Religious practices forge the plan for the city--or governmental practices, as in the case of Washington, D.C. The practical city generally follows a grid created for maximum ease of commerce and expansion. Most North American cities fall into this model. The last model, the organic, would be typical of older European cities whose "grid" goes back to the Middle Ages--streets do not follow a rigid geometric plan. Rather, they grow organically as the population settles. To these three models Rybczynski adds a fourth, the automobile city. Modern spread-out cities with wide, long-curving streets are typical of these sort--Phoenix and Houston.
Rybczynski then turns to the Middle Ages and the concept of open and closed towns, walled and unwalled, and the cause for these differences in time and space--nobles looking to protect their station, serfs seeking protection, merchants looking to sell goods. From there, he goes to the colonial town, created differently for each culture, but for the English in three basic types: organic (informal, winding streets, as in Boston); gridlike with open squares (as in Cambridge); and linear (with one main street, as in Providence).
Grids soon became typical of city planning in the United States, as they were a means to keep towns organized even as they grew at phenomenal rates. After all, squares are easy to parcel out and sell.
Individual chapters cover the early growth and planning of New York and Chicago, the former mostly through the eyes of Tocqueville, on his visit to America, the latter through the eyes of the City Beautiful movement and the Chicago World's Fair. Rybczynski has some very different views on the City Beautiful movement from Jane Jacobs, who largely condemned it. As Rybczynski notes, the founders of that movement actually did pay attention to how cities worked and looked for council among city administrators. The World's Fair, however, had a large impact on the city and on American architecture in general, as its largely classical style was copied for permanent buildings elsewhere, as were the tendency to gather grand governmental structures together in complexes for great display (something Jacobs largely criticizes).
But Rybczynski largely criticizes the Radiant City concept espoused by Le Corbusier, which Jacobs also despised. That plan essentially put towers in the middle of parks. Le Corbusier, as it turns out, was more a philosopher than a planner, and he spoke a good, conceited game without having a lot of actual knowledge. Nevertheless, his ideas were put into practice in some places to disastrous effect, as in some public housing in the Chicago area, where crime has run rampant since. Part of this dynamic is social (the ACLU sued to prevent those who ran the complex from interviewing possible renters with the idea of managing proper diversity among the units; once that happened, increasing problems became part of a downward spiral); however, part of it rests in Jacobs's own ideas--if there isn't a crowd of people on the street and a diversity of use for parks, an area is less attractive and often less safe.
From there, Rybczynski delves into the growth of the suburb, which is largely due to the car. As people could settle farther out, in the country, they did so, and city centers began to decline. Suburbia is complex. In many cases, suburbs themselves end up with centers of their own, so that work doesn't always happen in the city. Also, with the advent of the car, shopping malls sprang up, placing all retail in a single location that people could drive to and then walk around within. Of particular importance here was the supermarket, allowing people to shop for a week or two rather than shopping for a day or two at a time. I was surprised to learn how recent the (indoor) shopping mall really is--going from about eight in the nation in 1950 to thousands by the 1960s. That malls are privately owned raises social questions as well, since unlike public downtown streets, limitations can be placed on free speech and assembly.
Cities themselves are largely growing smaller as their surroundings fill out, creating larger and larger metropolitan areas (both in land and population). The complex mix of cities and edge cities is the future.
April 26, 2025
Slightly dated as the book was published in 1995, but the 30 year difference isn’t really felt until the last two chapters. The book sets out to explain why modern North American and European cities feel so different how and the conditions of their development effected this. The text is a mix between popular and academic writing and I would recommend as a starting place for someone interested in urban development. I found this book appealing because it covered many examples I had discussed in my current term of university, but the since the book is covering a large time span and many geographic regions don’t expect a lot of depth all the time.
October 18, 2020
There are lots of interesting insights about cities, especially their planning and architecture in this small book.. It's easy reading and well researched. It's even enjoyable. But I kept seeing shortcomings. There's lots of verbal descriptions, but not a single photo or drawing. Perhaps the author doesn't believe a picture's worth a thousand words. Other omissions are even more important. The word segregation never appears. There's a brief discussion of Afro-American migration and definitely a description why urban renewal and housing projects were gigantic failures. But not a word about redlining, restricted covenants, the prohibitions in FHA mortgages and the GI bill. Not a word about Robert Moses. And other over sights, Atlanta and Portland barely mentioned. I wanted more.
Eventually the title seemed too simplistic. Perhaps it should have been City Life from an Architect's Point of View. At the end of the book the author's biases became very clear. He praises the small town which he defines as having a population of about 10,000. Really? I think of a small town as having a population of 50,000 to 100,000. Yes this is worth reading. Just expect to feel hungry at the end.
Eventually the title seemed too simplistic. Perhaps it should have been City Life from an Architect's Point of View. At the end of the book the author's biases became very clear. He praises the small town which he defines as having a population of about 10,000. Really? I think of a small town as having a population of 50,000 to 100,000. Yes this is worth reading. Just expect to feel hungry at the end.
April 1, 2018
Rybczynski’s timing could not have been worse: writing in 1995, he just precedes the effect that the internet will have on the economy, Clinton-era crime legislation will have on cleaning up cities, and on the surge of Millennials and businesses who look to move back into the center of cities. Rybczynski has the wisdom not to stake claims, but instead chooses to analyze observations and flesh out historical trends in a way that now appears outdated (he speaks of malls as potential new downtowns), that are nonetheless well reasoned and informative. I would recommend reading this article as a companion piece to the book, both tackling what role cities have from very different historical perspectives: https://www.buzzfeed.com/annehelenpet...
November 10, 2021
A good overview of urban history of various cities in America, arguing that cultural, social, political, economic forces determine what makes a city run/work as much as it is dependent on architectural and physical planning. Each chapter generally covers a different city - near the end the author's focus is more on smoothing out the artificial divide between city and suburb (he seems to be a fan of what is known as a garden suburb, which combines elements of the accessibility of a city with the close-knit feel of a smaller town).
I had wished that the writing would be somewhat more scintillating, but otherwise nice to read.
I had wished that the writing would be somewhat more scintillating, but otherwise nice to read.
July 1, 2007
Pretty much a round up of the classics, maybe it is jist dated (1995?) but there was nothing new here for me: white city, check; garden city, check; Le Corbusier is a dick, check.
July 3, 2013
A decent, non-academic overview of the forces that have shaped the built environment in the United States, although there's little for the reader to really sink his or her teeth into.
June 14, 2024
A history of American urban centers
Sometimes it’s nice to jump out of your usual clothes, get off the usual tracks and visit a completely new place. In the same way, I like on occasion to read “something completely different”, as the newscaster on Monty Python always said. That’s why I enjoyed reading CITY LIFE—because I’ve scarcely ever read a book on the topic of urban landscapes and architecture, city planning and different histories of urban growth. It was all quite new to me, though of course I’ve lived in or just outside cities most of my life: I never read about urban design or thought much about it. If you live in Washington D.C., New Delhi, Canberra or Brasilia, urban planning is hard to miss, maybe if you live in a Levittown too. But in an old New England small town that has been swallowed in Boston’s suburbia, “planning” is not a word heard often. “Regulation” is more common, the rules to control developers who would like to squeeze every penny out of a name/location that would be trashed if left uncontrolled.
Why don’t American cities look much like European ones, even though architectural traditions might have remained unchanged as they crossed the Atlantic? More space in the New World, less control over building, no medieval traditions—American cities were shaped by rapidly expanding populations, commercial ties that outweighed military considerations by far, little royal control beyond 1775, slavery and plantation agriculture (big landowners often lived on their estates rather than congregating in cities), and then, as the first cities began to expand—the railways, the telephone, radio and television, the mass use of automobiles, and finally, the computer and Internet. How could American cities possibly look like those of old Europe? There, the old cities had to adjust to new trends and inventions while in America, expanding cities grew propelled by those new things. American cities, big and small, tend to be very homogenous. The same things go on in them, the same services exist, you can buy most of the same products—only the scale varies, while European cities differed a lot until after WW II. A neighborhood in Lisbon or Amsterdam would not be mistaken for one in London, while a Dallas suburb might not differ substantially from a Chicago one.
Rybczyinski examines the American urban landscape over the centuries from early times to the 1990s. He looks at architectural styles, innovations, and both mistakes and successes in terms of the directions people took in organizing, building, and maintaining cities. Some, like Chicago, Philadelphia and New York get more coverage than some others like Boston, San Francisco or Miami. All in all though, it is an interesting book that I would gladly give five stars if I felt that it would be of interest to everyone. Perhaps, though, it’s not for a casual reader, though it is well-written and was interesting to me.
Sometimes it’s nice to jump out of your usual clothes, get off the usual tracks and visit a completely new place. In the same way, I like on occasion to read “something completely different”, as the newscaster on Monty Python always said. That’s why I enjoyed reading CITY LIFE—because I’ve scarcely ever read a book on the topic of urban landscapes and architecture, city planning and different histories of urban growth. It was all quite new to me, though of course I’ve lived in or just outside cities most of my life: I never read about urban design or thought much about it. If you live in Washington D.C., New Delhi, Canberra or Brasilia, urban planning is hard to miss, maybe if you live in a Levittown too. But in an old New England small town that has been swallowed in Boston’s suburbia, “planning” is not a word heard often. “Regulation” is more common, the rules to control developers who would like to squeeze every penny out of a name/location that would be trashed if left uncontrolled.
Why don’t American cities look much like European ones, even though architectural traditions might have remained unchanged as they crossed the Atlantic? More space in the New World, less control over building, no medieval traditions—American cities were shaped by rapidly expanding populations, commercial ties that outweighed military considerations by far, little royal control beyond 1775, slavery and plantation agriculture (big landowners often lived on their estates rather than congregating in cities), and then, as the first cities began to expand—the railways, the telephone, radio and television, the mass use of automobiles, and finally, the computer and Internet. How could American cities possibly look like those of old Europe? There, the old cities had to adjust to new trends and inventions while in America, expanding cities grew propelled by those new things. American cities, big and small, tend to be very homogenous. The same things go on in them, the same services exist, you can buy most of the same products—only the scale varies, while European cities differed a lot until after WW II. A neighborhood in Lisbon or Amsterdam would not be mistaken for one in London, while a Dallas suburb might not differ substantially from a Chicago one.
Rybczyinski examines the American urban landscape over the centuries from early times to the 1990s. He looks at architectural styles, innovations, and both mistakes and successes in terms of the directions people took in organizing, building, and maintaining cities. Some, like Chicago, Philadelphia and New York get more coverage than some others like Boston, San Francisco or Miami. All in all though, it is an interesting book that I would gladly give five stars if I felt that it would be of interest to everyone. Perhaps, though, it’s not for a casual reader, though it is well-written and was interesting to me.
July 19, 2020
I picked up a copy of City Life from a table of remaindered titles, and it clicked immediately with my interest in Jane Jacobs, urban neighbourhoods, urban walkability, and one's sense of belonging. More specifically, I am interested in how the design of our commercial and residential streetscapes and their characteristic architecture influences how frequently people encounter each other in public space, how safe we feel moving through it, how people behave while they are there, and how all these factors influence the sense of community that we develop as neighbours and citizens.
City Life looks at how North American cities have developed and how they have been shaped by technology. Rybczynski is a clear and thoughtful writer, who can help us understand more about how cities work and to recognize the cultural and architectural treasures to be found there.
City Life looks at how North American cities have developed and how they have been shaped by technology. Rybczynski is a clear and thoughtful writer, who can help us understand more about how cities work and to recognize the cultural and architectural treasures to be found there.
November 8, 2024
"City Life" is fun to read if you enjoy history. It is primarily about how cities developed in the United States and also, to an extent, in Canada, as the author is Canadian. The beginning gives a general overview of urban life throughout recorded history, then focuses on Europe for a time, as European planning, trends, and architecture have some influence on how things progressed in America. However, it seems that the biggest influence on where and how urban areas were built and populated was changing technology, not just in construction but also in transportation and communication. These shifts affected how and where people lived, and often had an impact on an urban center's degree of prosperity or decline. It goes as far as the early 1990's when the colossal Mall of America was built in Bloomington, Minnesota. Good stuff!
November 10, 2020
Breezy, easy-to-read book on how city development evolved, and how it differs in the US from Europe (with a slight, very slight, nod to Asian cities). A good though dated overview of urban development, surburban growth post automobile, the hollowing out of downtown retail after shopping malls. It was written 20-plus years ago so it misses the efforts of the last 10-15 years to reinvigorate downtowns with housing, restaurants, retail, etc. Not a technical treatise on city panning, it's almost more about architecture and philanthropic visions than anything.
July 2, 2023
A sweeping yet light touch survey of American city form from settlement to the last decade of the 20th century. So much work in this field starts by snubbing the dispersed city of our age - Witold does not go there and takes that consumer choice at face value and tries to show its tradition across time and space.
A refreshing, independent perspective - scholastic but not steeped in biases of the current planning thought. In the years now after COVID - as settlement patterns continue changing and pick up in pace - the conversation here is renewed in relevancy.
A refreshing, independent perspective - scholastic but not steeped in biases of the current planning thought. In the years now after COVID - as settlement patterns continue changing and pick up in pace - the conversation here is renewed in relevancy.
February 1, 2021
I really did appreciate the attention to detail in the history of major cities (New York, Chicago) as well as the different designs and configurations cities and been built using. Towards the end of the book, the narrative suffered from a historical perspective of cities to the author’s predictions for the future, which I Tim cutoff have been omitted. It is interesting to think about the landscape of American cities and how they have and have not changed since the book was published in 1995.
March 3, 2023
For anyone who finds urban planning interesting, I would recommend this book.
The author takes you through the city planning that occurred during the colonization of North America. You learn about the visions the city planners and architects had, and how those cities evolved with time - population booms, the introduction of widespread car use, etc.
He also writes about the evolution of suburbs and downtowns after the introduction of shopping centers which I found very interesting.
The author takes you through the city planning that occurred during the colonization of North America. You learn about the visions the city planners and architects had, and how those cities evolved with time - population booms, the introduction of widespread car use, etc.
He also writes about the evolution of suburbs and downtowns after the introduction of shopping centers which I found very interesting.
September 7, 2019
He does a very good job with historical analysis, however when he tried to project into the future it becomes very Richard Florida like. I’d read this book for history which was incredibly interesting but skip the future projections. The book is dated and all his future projections are incorrect.
November 9, 2025
Interesting but not fascinating. It has a lot of interesting anectodes about urbanism in North America but it's honestly not transcendent.
February 14, 2020
City Life provides readers in 2017 (or thereabouts) with two kinds of pleasure. First, there is the pleasure of learning about why cities are the way they are. More specifically, Rybczynski focuses on elucidating why cities are laid out the way they are and how they grew. There are brief allusions to the social character of cities, but maybe not as many as you would expect from a book with the title "City Life." Rybczynski is an architect and a scholar, but he writes like a historian of urban planning. In fact, many of the book's best insights are borrowed from city planners, such as the insight (from planner Kevin Lynch) that cities conform to one of three conceptual models: the "cosmic" (in which the spatial layout of city elements is symbolic, an outgrowth of religious rituals and beliefs), the "practical" (city as machine), and the "organic" (think London or Boston: disorderly, meandering, evolving in an ad-hoc fashion). Rybczynski's historical account focuses primarily on North American cities and their connections to older European cities. It's a whirlwind account, not as thorough as hardcore urban scholars might desire, though he stops to consider a few underappreciated cities like Annapolis and Chicago's short-lived "White City."
The second pleasure comes from how spectacularly wrong Rybczynski is about the future of cities. It's not really his fault. Predicting the future of large-scale human endeavors is a fool's game, though the failed guesses tell you plenty about the time at which they were formulated while reminding you of how quickly things can change. At least Rybczynski wasn't actually designing a city, unlike planner and perennial punching-bag Le Corbusier who, it seems we can all agree, did as much to ruin the urban landscape as anyone.
The book was written in the mid-1990's, a time during which North American urban centers were in steep decline and "white flight" to the suburbs had been happening for so long that it became taken for granted. Rybczynski essentially says that downtowns are not and will not be where city life - that eclectic mix of people, ideas, commerce, and art that define civic existence - resides. He's not so pessimistic as to predict the downfall of civic life as we knew it. This isn't the kind of self-righteous dystopian screed that predicts doom mostly just to give us the pleasure of shaking our fists at someone - corporate fat cats, politicians keen on social engineering, etc. Instead, he says that civic life lives on, and will continue to live on, in shopping malls and suburban sprawl.
I'm all for unorthodox arguments, especially if they help me to appreciate something I'd written off a long time ago. Still, I couldn't help but chuckle and shake my head as Rybczynski praised malls for their orderliness and cleanliness, claiming that they were the most plausible heir to the legacy of Parisian promenades. As I read the book, The New York Times chronicled the utter collapse of the suburban shopping mall while in The Atlantic, Richard Florida lamented the forced exodus of African Americans to rundown suburbs. Reading City Life made me happy Rybczynski was wrong about the ascendance of shopping malls, made me eager to see the next chapter in the development of American cities at a time when we're thinking less about efficiency and more about creating shared space, about reversing gentrification, about increasing bike lanes and affordable housing. Planners, developers, and citizens will try not to repeat the mistakes of the past, though that's no guarantee that they won't make new ones. Still, it's useful to read this book if for no other reason than to renew your faith that America (or at least parts of America) can reverse its course.
The second pleasure comes from how spectacularly wrong Rybczynski is about the future of cities. It's not really his fault. Predicting the future of large-scale human endeavors is a fool's game, though the failed guesses tell you plenty about the time at which they were formulated while reminding you of how quickly things can change. At least Rybczynski wasn't actually designing a city, unlike planner and perennial punching-bag Le Corbusier who, it seems we can all agree, did as much to ruin the urban landscape as anyone.
The book was written in the mid-1990's, a time during which North American urban centers were in steep decline and "white flight" to the suburbs had been happening for so long that it became taken for granted. Rybczynski essentially says that downtowns are not and will not be where city life - that eclectic mix of people, ideas, commerce, and art that define civic existence - resides. He's not so pessimistic as to predict the downfall of civic life as we knew it. This isn't the kind of self-righteous dystopian screed that predicts doom mostly just to give us the pleasure of shaking our fists at someone - corporate fat cats, politicians keen on social engineering, etc. Instead, he says that civic life lives on, and will continue to live on, in shopping malls and suburban sprawl.
I'm all for unorthodox arguments, especially if they help me to appreciate something I'd written off a long time ago. Still, I couldn't help but chuckle and shake my head as Rybczynski praised malls for their orderliness and cleanliness, claiming that they were the most plausible heir to the legacy of Parisian promenades. As I read the book, The New York Times chronicled the utter collapse of the suburban shopping mall while in The Atlantic, Richard Florida lamented the forced exodus of African Americans to rundown suburbs. Reading City Life made me happy Rybczynski was wrong about the ascendance of shopping malls, made me eager to see the next chapter in the development of American cities at a time when we're thinking less about efficiency and more about creating shared space, about reversing gentrification, about increasing bike lanes and affordable housing. Planners, developers, and citizens will try not to repeat the mistakes of the past, though that's no guarantee that they won't make new ones. Still, it's useful to read this book if for no other reason than to renew your faith that America (or at least parts of America) can reverse its course.
December 10, 2015
I liked Rybczynski’s first book “Home” which observed how comfort, family life, privacy, efficiency (damn those Victorians) and work have shaped the idea of home.
“City Life” is an excellent overview of how Americans have evolved the modern culture of cities which remains, I think, one of our few last exports to the rest of the world.
He makes many useful observations:
•The evolving definition of city, or town or burg. The word city comes from towns that had bishopric seats, and had nothing to do with population. In general, it had religious connotations. gulp.
•That Americans simply brought their urban culture to the rural communities. Therefore, it follows that we don’t have the parallel culture like much of Europe but instead in this country share many of the same ideas and attitudes across regions.
So maybe there is hope for us. (More likely, much of what we now share across this nation starts with American Idol and ends with WalMart.)
•That many universities were built by architects as self-contained towns with a rich patron to bankroll the ideas and little or no opposition to their ideas. That made me pause; since almost all architects and planners come from those environs it occurs to me that their last experience of village life before designing new ones are these mock towns that believe wholeheartedly in the built environment and in a sort of medieval spires/gothic fortress view of life.
Uh oh.
But the most important part of this book for me is his chapter on housing for the poor and the great migration (great meaning whole bunches) of African-Americans to the Northern manufacturing areas. As we need to remember, the post war boom was basically over by the mid-1960s and yet no changes were made in the policies of the US for those who had migrated to where the jobs once were. Housing for the poor reflected that missed opportunity and still does.
I wish this part was longer but at least he attempts to add it to the conversation. I agree that accessibility to many things is still the main reason for city life but I am not sure that I agree that with wireless accessibility, fewer physical cities may need to exist. That may be true, although I feel that theory has been preached since the 19th century (and its advent of the ”annihilation of time and distance”) with the invention of the telegraph, railroads and photography, yet cities continued to grow in importance and size in that very time.
I also wish there was more on the immigrant experience and how it has changed in America and therefore changed cities too. I know that in my own city of New Orleans newly arriving immigrants are now moving to the suburbs of Jefferson Parish as soon as they arrive and not to the city center which worries me. I’d like to hear some perspective on that.
Rybczynski writes well for a wide audience and gives concrete examples of places that illustrate his points.
You can do worse than reading this primer, especially if you are new to the subject or like me, if you prefer less academic views of heavy subjects.
December 22, 2014
1) "...there is something fleeting about the American city, as if it were a temporary venue for diversion, a place to find entertaining novelty, at least for a time, before settling down elsewhere. The historian John Lukacs has written about Americans' recklessness: the tendency to want to move around, not only from one part of the country to another, but from one neighborhood to another, even from one house to another. For such a mobile people, street corners would be appealing. The permanence of residence that was and is the stable foundation of European cities has always been absent in America, and accommodation to this transience has had an effect on the way that cities evolve and are altered. Lukacs speculates that this restlessness may have something to do with the vast, open continent itself."
2) "The original parts of these campuses, where buildings, landscaping, and public plazas complement each other, remain the most fully realized examples of the civic art ideal and probably its most tangible legacy. These academic enclaves, many of which were built from scratch, gave architects the opportunity to design what were in effect small, self-contained towns. With the advantage of a private (and rich) patron and without the constraints imposed by zoning, commercial interests, multiple landowners, and municipal politics, architects could build large, comprehensively planned environments on a scale and with a consistency impossible in the city itself."
3) "Families ate lunch in the food court, a sunny space that almost felt like the outdoors thanks to the fairly large trees and the natural light filtering through the stretched fabric roof. The large open area, which was the convivial focus of the mall, was full of tables and seating; on the periphery were counters whose colorful overhead signs proclaimed a variety of take-away foods: Tex-Mex, Chinese, Italian, Middle Eastern. People carried their trays to the tables. Because there was no physical boundary between the eating area and the surrounding mall, the impression was of a giant sidewalk café.
I suppose that some people would find this an unsophisticated version of urbanity (although you could get a reasonable espresso here), and some of my academic colleagues would refer darkly to 'hyperconsumerism' and artificial reality. But I was more encouraged than depressed by the Plattsburgh mall. I saw people rubbing shoulders and meeting their fellow citizens in a noncombative environment---not behind the wheel of a car, but on foot. As for hyperconsumerism, commercial forces have always formed the center of the American city---the old downtown no less than the new---and it is unclear to me why sitting on a bench in a mall should be considered any more artificial than a bench in the park. Admittedly, I still liked to walk down Margaret Street, but it was a nostalgic urge. When I wanted to be part of a crowd, I went to the mall."
2) "The original parts of these campuses, where buildings, landscaping, and public plazas complement each other, remain the most fully realized examples of the civic art ideal and probably its most tangible legacy. These academic enclaves, many of which were built from scratch, gave architects the opportunity to design what were in effect small, self-contained towns. With the advantage of a private (and rich) patron and without the constraints imposed by zoning, commercial interests, multiple landowners, and municipal politics, architects could build large, comprehensively planned environments on a scale and with a consistency impossible in the city itself."
3) "Families ate lunch in the food court, a sunny space that almost felt like the outdoors thanks to the fairly large trees and the natural light filtering through the stretched fabric roof. The large open area, which was the convivial focus of the mall, was full of tables and seating; on the periphery were counters whose colorful overhead signs proclaimed a variety of take-away foods: Tex-Mex, Chinese, Italian, Middle Eastern. People carried their trays to the tables. Because there was no physical boundary between the eating area and the surrounding mall, the impression was of a giant sidewalk café.
I suppose that some people would find this an unsophisticated version of urbanity (although you could get a reasonable espresso here), and some of my academic colleagues would refer darkly to 'hyperconsumerism' and artificial reality. But I was more encouraged than depressed by the Plattsburgh mall. I saw people rubbing shoulders and meeting their fellow citizens in a noncombative environment---not behind the wheel of a car, but on foot. As for hyperconsumerism, commercial forces have always formed the center of the American city---the old downtown no less than the new---and it is unclear to me why sitting on a bench in a mall should be considered any more artificial than a bench in the park. Admittedly, I still liked to walk down Margaret Street, but it was a nostalgic urge. When I wanted to be part of a crowd, I went to the mall."
June 20, 2019
Interesting history and factoids. The last couple (few?) chapters deal with personal taste and date the book more than anything else does.
It is a very broad and general overview of city planning and cities as spaces for social and architectural infrastructure, good for reading just to spend time thinking about city design.
The book does delve into the intersectionality of the great migration and what it meant for urban housing. The mentions of Levittown totally skip over any discriminatory practices though there is mention of the GI Bill and other incentives for purchase in planned suburban communities.
The discussion of how cities became what they were in 1995 (pub date) is well researched and interesting, but once we move into the book's final beats, the author stumbles into a bramble of perceived small-town nostalgia (wherein he speaks to how others are drawn to the suburbs...which feels not really relevant today - but this was, I think, at the height of mall culture).
Anyways, the history covered in the book is good but once it moves into personal commentary and conjecture about the future, the book - with its understandable lack of insight into climate change and perpetual gentrification - offers chapters that are super-skippable.
It is a very broad and general overview of city planning and cities as spaces for social and architectural infrastructure, good for reading just to spend time thinking about city design.
The book does delve into the intersectionality of the great migration and what it meant for urban housing. The mentions of Levittown totally skip over any discriminatory practices though there is mention of the GI Bill and other incentives for purchase in planned suburban communities.
The discussion of how cities became what they were in 1995 (pub date) is well researched and interesting, but once we move into the book's final beats, the author stumbles into a bramble of perceived small-town nostalgia (wherein he speaks to how others are drawn to the suburbs...which feels not really relevant today - but this was, I think, at the height of mall culture).
Anyways, the history covered in the book is good but once it moves into personal commentary and conjecture about the future, the book - with its understandable lack of insight into climate change and perpetual gentrification - offers chapters that are super-skippable.
March 8, 2021
City Life is a well written and entertaining look at how a distinctive American city evolved. The portions on the colonial cities and on the early 19C are the best. The city beautiful movement discussion is interesting as well but too focused on Chicago for a book on all of America. When it comes to the collapse of cities and the growth of suburbs he focuses almost entirely on garden city suburbs like Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia which are interesting and which he holds up as a model for future American cities but spends almost no time on the more common homogenous suburbs spawned by Levittown. The discussion on malls isn't very substantive and also feels irrelevant in 2020. The book was written in 1994 and shows us how easy it is to mistake the present for the permenant. It's interesting to see how much things have changed. There's no conception that in 30 years New York and San Francisco and other productive American cities would face housing crises driven by under development. Malls were still a refuge from quality of life crimes that Giuliani was about to enforce in his drive to make New York livable. Nor is there any concept that Houston would outstrip Philadelphia as the third largest city. Houston barely makes it into the book at all. Still I found it a valuable introduction. Reading analysis from only thirty years ago stimulates your thinking. He's may not have predicted the future but he's not a prisoner of the obsessions of our times either. If you're interested in how American cities developed why not start here.
October 13, 2008
How did American cities develop? Why are they the way they are, and how did they get that way? How and why are they different from European cities?
All of these questions, and others, are answered in this history of urban America. The author sprinkles personal observations into his narrative, but the bulk of the writing is academic and historical.
This book isn't as dry as one would imagine. It's fascinating to read about the layout and (brief) history of cities you know, like Chicago, and cities you don't, like Woodstock, Virginia.
Rybczynski discusses the internal and external forces that shaped American cities - the need to move about, the desire for space, and ever-changing technology. Successes and failures alike are analyzed. Finally, in the last chapter, Rybczynski states his opinion about the future of the North American city.
What did he say about the future of the North American city? You'll have to read to find out.
All of these questions, and others, are answered in this history of urban America. The author sprinkles personal observations into his narrative, but the bulk of the writing is academic and historical.
This book isn't as dry as one would imagine. It's fascinating to read about the layout and (brief) history of cities you know, like Chicago, and cities you don't, like Woodstock, Virginia.
Rybczynski discusses the internal and external forces that shaped American cities - the need to move about, the desire for space, and ever-changing technology. Successes and failures alike are analyzed. Finally, in the last chapter, Rybczynski states his opinion about the future of the North American city.
What did he say about the future of the North American city? You'll have to read to find out.
May 24, 2013
Every North American visiting Europe asks: "Why aren't our cities like theirs?" The author gives a clear, easily-read account of North American urban history, and shows that the roots of our cities' current situation are much deeper and more complex than simply the proliferation of the automobile. Surprising to me, the suburbs of the early 20th century were well-planned, had pedestrian scale, contributed to a sense of community, and accommodated automobiles. But unfortunately, the gap made by the depression & World War 2 caused this good suburban tradition to become lost.
The author makes an interesting comparison between two early 20th century suburbs: 1) traditional in urban design and housing styles, and 2) 'modern' in design and style. Suburb 1 remained a viable community to publication (1995) while suburb 2 fell into disrepair and crime. Maybe designers have more accountability that we realize.
The author makes an interesting comparison between two early 20th century suburbs: 1) traditional in urban design and housing styles, and 2) 'modern' in design and style. Suburb 1 remained a viable community to publication (1995) while suburb 2 fell into disrepair and crime. Maybe designers have more accountability that we realize.
April 17, 2010
This was a good book. It was an interesting look at the history of how cities have developed. I really appreciated the realistic look at LeCorbusier. The guy wanted to tear down half of Paris and just start over. The history of the shopping mall at the end of the book probably wasn't necessary. I understand that shopping malls have had an effect on the city, but I don't think you need to know the entire history of shopping malls to understand their effect on cities. Also, at times, the book, which was written in the 90's, dated itself. There has been a reemergence of cities. Populations did dip in the 80's and 90's as people moved out, but they started to move back in just a few years later. Also, many downtowns have found ways to revitalize themselves.
All in all, it was still a good history of cities.
All in all, it was still a good history of cities.
September 10, 2013
Being a look at the history of how American cities came to be built the way they are -- unlike European ones.
It touches on everything from the three basic ways of laying out a city -- cosmic, where the structure is thought to mirror the universe in some way, and where you are bound to put important things on hills even if you build the hills as well as the structure; practical, with a neat grid pattern (though the intrusion of existing geography can often make it look less neat); and organic, where the streets are narrow and winding because they weren't planned, they just grew -- to the rise of shopping malls in modern America.
In between it discusses the impact of streets, why the parks in American cities are so much larger, the effect of the car, the history of the garden suburb, the importance of the elevator, and much more.
It touches on everything from the three basic ways of laying out a city -- cosmic, where the structure is thought to mirror the universe in some way, and where you are bound to put important things on hills even if you build the hills as well as the structure; practical, with a neat grid pattern (though the intrusion of existing geography can often make it look less neat); and organic, where the streets are narrow and winding because they weren't planned, they just grew -- to the rise of shopping malls in modern America.
In between it discusses the impact of streets, why the parks in American cities are so much larger, the effect of the car, the history of the garden suburb, the importance of the elevator, and much more.
March 5, 2014
If I were more interested in urban planning, I'd keep this one on my shelf.
This book helped me clarify my interests in other world enterprises, such as linguistics: Russian/Chinese, and beauty: oboe performance/orthodontia.
Economics is a passing interest, as well, so before I gave it up I sought in the index what Rybczynski had to say about the Great Depression. It wasn't very descriptive, though.
I just like typing Rybczynski. It's not hard if you recall y is a vowel sometimes and cz is a common enough rendering of Č, a letter I encountered sometimes when studying eastern European languages such as Serbian-Croatian.
I just picked this book up in passing to see if it would spark interest. Not really. That's fine, though, since now I'm clearer on what interests me.
This book helped me clarify my interests in other world enterprises, such as linguistics: Russian/Chinese, and beauty: oboe performance/orthodontia.
Economics is a passing interest, as well, so before I gave it up I sought in the index what Rybczynski had to say about the Great Depression. It wasn't very descriptive, though.
I just like typing Rybczynski. It's not hard if you recall y is a vowel sometimes and cz is a common enough rendering of Č, a letter I encountered sometimes when studying eastern European languages such as Serbian-Croatian.
I just picked this book up in passing to see if it would spark interest. Not really. That's fine, though, since now I'm clearer on what interests me.
June 26, 2008
I've had this on the shelf for years, and I finally got to it. Coincidentally, I had just been wondering why towns (like Champaign-Urbana, Illinois) behave so perversely, and this gave me some clues. It's a good, not-too-scholarly introduction to the evolution of the North American town/city/suburb (Canadian & U.S. at least, though not Mexican).
The only thing is, things have already changed a lot since it was published in 1995 (pbk. 1996)--little things like the Internet/telecommuting, CO2 emissions, and Wal-Mart were not yet on the radar screen. (Well, maybe Wal-Mart was.) Plus, the immigration situation had not heated up yet. So a new edition would be great, Witold!
The only thing is, things have already changed a lot since it was published in 1995 (pbk. 1996)--little things like the Internet/telecommuting, CO2 emissions, and Wal-Mart were not yet on the radar screen. (Well, maybe Wal-Mart was.) Plus, the immigration situation had not heated up yet. So a new edition would be great, Witold!
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