For the Love of Cities: The Love Affair Between People and Their Places

by Peter Kageyama

The mutual love affair between people and their place is one of the most powerful influences in our lives, yet rarely thought of in terms of a relationship. As cities begin thinking of themselves as engaged in a relationship with their citizens, and citizens begin to consider their emotional connections with their places, we open up new possibilities in community, social and economic development by including the most powerful of motivators—the human heart—in our toolkit of city-making. The book explores what makes cities lovable, what motivates ordinary citizens to do extraordinary things for their places and how some cities, such as New Orleans, Detroit, and Cleveland are using that energy to fill in the gaps that “official” city makers have left as resources have disappeared. Meet those amazing people who are truly “in love” with their cities and learn how they are key to the future development of our communities.
Praise for the
What Kageyama has done is to introduce the vital piece into the urban discussion-- the matter of love; the piece without which all city building must fail, for “love” the corner stone of civic citizenship. It takes some bravura and acumen to champion the subject of love in the urban forum that wants to quantify, when only love qualifies and justifies the discussion of cities. Mr. Kageyama goes one step further. He provides precious indicators. Many city thinkers will follow suit, but for the time being, this is the essential book. Pier Giorgio Di Cicco
Poet Laureate Emeritus, Toronto, Ontario
Author of Municipal Manifestos for The Creative City For the Love of Cities succeeds in putting an exclamation point on the exceptional value of deepening the relationship that city dwellers feel for their neighborhoods by adding amenities such as parks, outdoor cafes, art galleries, trees, flowers and even sidewalks to create a meaningful sense of place. It also explores the often hidden added value of creative entrepreneurs in creating a sense of place that attracts, nurtures and retains citizens. The book is a love note from Author Peter Kageyama to cities everywhere that will prompt you to more closely examine your own relationship with where you live, work and play. Diane Egner
Publisher and Managing Editor, 83 Degrees Media
Former Book Editor, The Tampa Tribune For the Love of Cities is a must read for city changemakers.
Jeff Slobotski
Silicon Prairie News & Founder, Big Omaha Peter has captured something very important... love. When we love a city, we are committed to it, we engage with it, we care for it, we give our best to it. A city that is loved also gives back. It makes those who live there feel enriched. And so you have a virtuous cycle. Charles Landry
Author of The Creative A Toolkit for Urban Innovators and The Art of City Making

Genres: Urban Planning, Nonfiction, Cities, Urban, Urbanism, Sociology, Business

242 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2011

About the author

Peter Kageyama is the bestselling author of For the Love of Cities: The Love Affair Between People and Their Places, the follow ups, Love Where You Live: Creating Emotionally Engaging Places, and The Emotional Infrastructure of Places. In 2021, he released For the Love of Cities REVISITED, a revised and updated version of his award-winning book.

In 2023, his debut novel, Hunters Point, based in part upon the post-internment life of his parents, was released by St. Petersburg Press.

Peter is a special advisor to America In Bloom and was a Senior Fellow with the Alliance for Innovation, a national network of city leaders. He is an internationally sought-after community development consultant and grassroots engagement strategist who speaks about bottom-up community development and the amazing people who are making change happen around the world.

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wants to like this book after seeing Peter speak but it came up extremely flat. Imagine being at a museum with a tour guide who spends more time talking about himself and his views than the exhibits themselves. Abysmally under-researched and based off of conjecture. This book left me feeling like a middle schooler doing a book report on a movie versus actually spending time with the people and places this book references. While the ideas are inspiring, this poorly written narrative promotes itself and it’s website versus the individuals behind these powerful movements in their cities.

[Lori · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was given to us when we were going to neighborhood association leadership meetings. The author lives in Tampa, I think. The book was a bit repetitive and pretty elitist. It just talked about what makes cities nice places to live and what makes people love cities and basically it just kept saying there are very few people who do anything of value in a city. I guess the guy was trying to encourage people, but really he didn’t have any real ideas.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got to hear peter Kageyama give a keynote presentation at the Florida state planning conference, and he was wonderful. Inspiring, enthusiastic, human, completely likeable. His book is pretty similar, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Partway through I noticed an imbalance and started taking notes. I applied a version of the Bechdel test, recording the gender of the people Kageyama noted and quoted in the book. At the end, men were noted and/or quoted 151 times. Women, 50.

[Peter Wolfley · Rating 4 out of 5]

We got to witness firsthand the power that individuals have to change and improve their cities with the building of the All-Together Playground. There are some great tips in here for getting the "creators" together, increasing citizens' love for their city, and changing how people feel about your town. A must-read for anyone in local government.

[Caleb · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is 40 pages of good ideas stretched into a 200 page book. The ideas that people should love where they live and a few good leaders can make a difference are good, but his base of knowledge is limited to only a few cities and so you keep hearing the same anecdotes over and over again.

[Kyle Christian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I believe that this book can play an important role in recreation and leisure services, as well as in urban and city planning. It is a compelling collection of claims, anecdotes, and powerfully reflective questions. Reading this catalyzes two strong desires within me: First, I want to go out into my city and see everything that it has to offer. Secondly, I want to become a better engaged community member by contributing to my community.

There is a balanced irony, as my first desire is in tension with what Kageyama argues makes a city harder to love: simple consumer mentality. Yet it is in this tension which the second desire grows, and seeks to resolve the consumer mindset: we are to be co-creators in our community. We are to engage and bring to life a culture that emanates from us.

It is this shift from consumer to creator, a change in attitude and practice, that catalyzes us to love better our cities and communities. We are to go out and bring personality and culture to our cities.

There were many principles illuminated, and some very specific ideas brought in through sharing of what other cities have done but I found little to help me better see what my community’s culture is already like.

I enjoyed this book, and I found the constant reflection very helpful, my minor critique lay in a desire for a more scholarly, academic, and research focused book. While there were a number of news and web articles, I feel as if a number of claims were made, which though I agreed and can see why he would make them, were not always substantiated in a way that I found as academically credible as I would like.

But this book has done a fantastic job of tackling a complex topic in an engaging way. It is not technical. But it points to other sources who are able to more technical. It is not exhaustive. Rather it leaves a thirst for more exploration and thought about how to make my community a beloved community.

With that being said, this is a good read and I look forward to the following book “Love Where You Live.”

[Michael Lewyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book that I probably would have liked better a decade ago. Early in the book, Kageyama writes: "our communities must be functional and safe; that is the minimum threshold for success." But in 2021, most cities are struggling to meet that once-low bar, especially the star cities that Kageyama praises the most. So the book just doesn't seem that relevant to reality anymore.

Some other random thoughts about the book:
*Kageyama tries to measure lovability in a variety of silly ways. For example, he compares the number of Google hits for "I love city x" with hits for "I hate city x". But pretty similar cities seem to have very different scores. Akron has a positive/negative ratio of 106-1, indicating that people really love Akron. But Cleveland, a fairly similar place, has more negatives than positives, as does Detroit (a city that the author praises near the end of the book).
*Kageyama seems obsessed with dogs. But if people are having dogs instead of children, that suggests to me that they have no future and no dreams of a future.

[Catriona Reynolds · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book's ideas are super inspiring to me. I agree with other reviews that the writing/editing isn't fantastic, but I gained so much from the content that I still rated it 5stars.
One part I wonder about is that Kageyama differentiates between city councils and city co-creators, he doesn't touch on instances where they overlap; indeed, he seems to believe that they are mutually exclusive. As a council member, I identify more with the attitudes and approaches that he attributes to co-creators; however, I think I can use this book to inspire my council work.
I'm going to be keeping the concept of a love-affair with Homer centerstage.

[Zachary · Rating 3 out of 5]

The nominal thesis of the book, “how can we build cities that are not just livable but lovable” is intriguing, but its development leaves much to be desired. The majority of the book reads as an outdated (and at times, misguided) take on the power of the internet, entrepreneurship, and the problematic “creative class” concept (at times bordering on pro-gentrification ideas). Kageyama focuses more on highlighting entrepreneurs and their web2.0-era projects, with incredibly shaky rhetorical justification. Nevertheless provoked some thoughts about how the reader can give back more to the community and “fall in love” with the city.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting, easy to read treatise on why people feel good about some cities and what kinds of things can be done to make cities really attractive and fun places to live. He did not cover very well the problems of the cities that make them attractive for the entire population, or at different stages of life like the child raising time. Nevertheless, a worthwhile perspective that challenges the typical policy driven perspective.

[Wendy Johansen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not quite sure what I was expecting of this book; I had not heard of the author's movement to create more livable, loveable cities. But I picked it up because I live in a city, have lived in other cities, and have enjoyed living there, here. It was interesting, even if just a bit dated being 12 years old now. There were some good ideas. But there was repetition, and it was a bit disorganized. Perhaps his follow up book included some new ideas and additional cities.

[Sivakumar Thangavelu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very light and easy read on emotional aspects of the relationship between humans and cities. Very American centric and too many stories about Detroit and New Orleans. The first half is interesting and engaging, but the latter half seems dry and repetitive.

[Terry Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly inspirational. This book informs a lot of the great work many are trying to achieve in Elkhart County.

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Heavy on idealism, light on specifics. Disappointing. It isn't BAD, but other books are much better.

[Cath · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great introduction to making your city fun. His second book is better, but this will get you started.

[Joshua Gates · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really makes me want to travel the USA 🇺🇸 🤔 😫

[Margaret Kauchak Fiddler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice read- very inspiring in parts, but gets really repetitive in the second half. Still worth the read.

[steve hartell · Rating 5 out of 5]

New perspective on how we make cities great.

Challenge your traditional view of engagement with the community you live and work by reading this book. The book provides practical guidance on how to start small and grow an impact.

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book as part of the One Book, Many Voices project of IU East in Richmond. I found that it captures my (and my generation's) desire to invest in the places we are living. Kageyama is coming to Richmond as a guest speaker next week, and so I'm looking forward to hearing what he has to say.

Kageyama highlights the fact that cities have human capital they could be tapping for creative and exciting ideas that would draw others in and make a vibrant community for everyone. He also says we need to be doing projects and giving our energy and money to things that increase the "love" of cities by citizens, and offers many examples of places he sees this happening. This is easier in cities that are large enough to support creative ideas, but small enough that the work of he few can be felt by many (Think Indy, Cleveland, or Pittsburgh in our area). I want to be part of a community like that.

Fun side note, Kageyama uses McPherson, KS as an example several times - and even specifies that there is no "fear" in McPherson!

[BonSue Brandvik · Rating 4 out of 5]

"For the Love of Cities" is a non-fiction by Mr. Kageyama, that offers an interesting perspective about what it takes for a city to not only survive, but thrive. He offers a compelling argument that residents of a city are the ones who are responsible for retaining talent and supporting growth.

"For the Love of Cities" offers specific examples of things individuals have done... some big things, but mostly lots of small things... that improve the atmosphere of a city to the point that its citizens develop heartfelt emotion like love for their town/city. They come to believe their city is the best place to live, based on culture, safety, services, arts and more intangible things, like neighborly atmosphere. He discusses the rise and fall and current rebuilding of major cities like New Orleans and Detroit and how devoted residents can change the culture of a city -- often with little more than an investment of sweat equity and enthusiasm.

Mr. Kageyama is able to discuss planning and finances in a manner than a layperson such as myself can understand the issues at hand. After reading this book, I am inspired to become a member of the 1% who dedicate themselves to make their town more loveable.

[Adwoa · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was so much that was excellent about this book. (As an editor, I did cringe frequently - the number of missing modal and auxiliary verbs was so consistently high that it read like a kind of grammatical Swiss cheese.)

Still, Kageyama elegantly explores something I think we've all intrinsically known: that the relationship we have with our cities is of course both physical and emotional, but can also be romantic in its own way. We all have a narrative about the places we inhabit. I loved that the book pushed me to consider the value in not just reading that story - but writing it as well.

My thesis was on constructed identities in the urban milieu, and in the last chapter I got into the way that city writers invent the city as they live it. I wish this book had been around before my baccalaureate! It would have forced me to consider the ways in which we are all capable of that Escherian trick, drawing the places we want to live in into reality with our own two hands.

[Scottie · Rating 4 out of 5]

To be honest, I expected a rather fluff read from this book; I have no idea why that was my perception. Instead, I found a tool I'll be able to use in my work, a book I will reference often. Perhaps most helpful is Kageyama's labeling and categorizing of people, and cities.

Though I have been a community builder all my life, I have only recently realized it, so much of the urban planning jargon and approaches are still new to me. While Kageyama isn't the first person to look at the emotional connection people have with their cities and neighborhoods, I think he is probably the first to do it in an easy to read, palatable way. Just about anyone can pick up this book and be inspired.

[PattyMacDotComma · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit American chatty, Oprah/DrPhil-like upbeat promotion of promotion. Lots of good ideas, many familiar to me and other people, but delivered with such infectious enthusiasm that it's hard to stay mad.

I do get frustrated with so many exclamation points!!! and CAPITAL LETTERS!!! It reads like email spam, but it's more acceptable if you pretend it's transcripts from community and business workshops.

I look forward to seeing some of these ideas implemented in Coffs Harbour, NSW, Australia.

[Jeff Valluzzi · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lovely non-fiction about cities and what makes us love them. I will say that the conclusions were well-done, though the last quarter of the book was pretty repetitive and perhaps unnecessarily lengthy. I loved the interviews and real-world examples of "changers" in cities like Detroit and New Orleans.

Of course, after reading this now I want to move to a struggling city and strive to make a difference...

[Nancy Wenande · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED this book! With my position in city government it really helped my grasp ideas on how to engage different types of citizens in different ways. Great examples of what other communities, large and small, are doing to keep themselves growing and viable. This should be a "must read" for anyone entering city government. Thank you Peter for writing this enlightening book.

[Vin Nolan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an essential for anyone involved in economic or community development. It is an easy read that gives a great description of the soft side of building a great community, and the importance of what the author refers to as "co-creators". It describes the new paradigm for economic development in the new global economy.

[Danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really good book with a lot of fresh ideas about how to bring a community together. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to be inspired by someone else's passion. My only criticism is that it focuses on the medium sized cities and the younger class versus having to address aging demographics, but that is a minor point because the book was very well written.

[Brooke Dilling · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you love where you live? What makes a city loveable and engaging? who are the people who make that happen? and how does the city tap into the energy and skills of the people that love it? Fascinating book on how we continue to create and make our cities better. I'm left with many ideas for how to utilize this in my position working with a city agency.

[Audra Teel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Features interviews with local STL Style owner's Jeff and Randy Vines. Interesting read, not really eye-opening content, but the author is passionate about the subject of cities and the people who change them.

[Corey Friedrich · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first three quarters were inspiring, the last quarter seemed to quell my enthusiasm. The book could certainly use some editing; there were many wrong or missing words.