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Who Is the City For? Architecture, Equity, and the Public Realm in Chicago
A vividly illustrated collaboration between two of Chicago’s most celebrated architecture critics casts a wise and unsparing eye on inequities in the built environment and attempts to rectify them.
From his high-profile battles with Donald Trump to his insightful celebrations of Frank Lloyd Wright and front-page takedowns of Chicago mega-projects like Lincoln Yards, Pulitzer Prize–winning architecture critic Blair Kamin has long informed and delighted readers with his illuminating commentary. Kamin’s newest collection, Who Is the City For? , does more than gather fifty-five of his most notable Chicago Tribune columns from the past it pairs his words with striking new images by photographer and architecture critic Lee Bey, Kamin’s former rival at the Chicago Sun-Times . Together, they paint a revealing portrait of Chicago that reaches beyond its glamorous downtown and dramatic buildings by renowned architects like Jeanne Gang to its culturally diverse neighborhoods, including modest structures associated with storied figures from the city’s Black history, such as Emmett Till.
At the book’s heart is its expansive approach to a central concept in contemporary political and architectural equity. Kamin argues for a broad understanding of the term, one that prioritizes both the shared spaces of the public realm and the urgent need to rebuild Black and brown neighborhoods devastated by decades of discrimination and disinvestment. “At best,” he writes in the book’s introduction, “the public realm can serve as an equalizing force, a democratizing force. It can spread life’s pleasures and confer dignity, irrespective of a person’s race, income, creed, or gender. In doing so, the public realm can promote the social contract — the notion that we are more than our individual selves, that our common humanity is made manifest in common ground.” Yet the reality in Chicago, as Who Is the City For? powerfully demonstrates, often falls painfully short of that ideal.
From his high-profile battles with Donald Trump to his insightful celebrations of Frank Lloyd Wright and front-page takedowns of Chicago mega-projects like Lincoln Yards, Pulitzer Prize–winning architecture critic Blair Kamin has long informed and delighted readers with his illuminating commentary. Kamin’s newest collection, Who Is the City For? , does more than gather fifty-five of his most notable Chicago Tribune columns from the past it pairs his words with striking new images by photographer and architecture critic Lee Bey, Kamin’s former rival at the Chicago Sun-Times . Together, they paint a revealing portrait of Chicago that reaches beyond its glamorous downtown and dramatic buildings by renowned architects like Jeanne Gang to its culturally diverse neighborhoods, including modest structures associated with storied figures from the city’s Black history, such as Emmett Till.
At the book’s heart is its expansive approach to a central concept in contemporary political and architectural equity. Kamin argues for a broad understanding of the term, one that prioritizes both the shared spaces of the public realm and the urgent need to rebuild Black and brown neighborhoods devastated by decades of discrimination and disinvestment. “At best,” he writes in the book’s introduction, “the public realm can serve as an equalizing force, a democratizing force. It can spread life’s pleasures and confer dignity, irrespective of a person’s race, income, creed, or gender. In doing so, the public realm can promote the social contract — the notion that we are more than our individual selves, that our common humanity is made manifest in common ground.” Yet the reality in Chicago, as Who Is the City For? powerfully demonstrates, often falls painfully short of that ideal.
312 pages, Hardcover
Published November 21, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 21, 2022
An excellent collection of essays written over the last twenty years that tells the story of Chicago's development, and how that development has favored the powerful and the wealthy. An excellent book for understanding how development projects have been planned in the last few years in Chicago, and what the path forward will require.
January 12, 2023
Liked the format of multiple articles from Kamin. He brings to the discussion important issues facing our city.
January 29, 2023
Who is the City For? is constructed around (see what I’ve done here?) a selection of 55 columns Blair Kamin wrote over the past decade as the architecture critic of the Chicago Tribune, a position he held for 28 years. But the book is much more than a cut-and-paste of newspaper columns about architecture in Chicago. It contains quite a bit of new writing by Kamin, principally in the introductions to the book’s chapters, and in very helpful “Postcripts” which appear at the end of almost every column. In these “Postcripts,” Kamen provides updates on the matters discussed in the columns.
Kamin has an expansive view of what constitutes fair game for an architecture critic. Yes, he discusses in some detail the appearance, functionality and other design features of many buildings, but his principal focus in this book is on whether particular building projects (including renovations) serve the needs and interests of the community. And, for Kamin, the community whose needs and interests are to be served is not just the immediate neighborhood, but the city as a whole. The term Kamin uses in this regard is “equity”, which he defines as meaning “fairness or justice in the way people are treated . . .” Particularly troubling for Kamin is development, whether consisting of commercial buildings, schools, parks, transportation facilities, whatever, which is focused on the wealthier (and whiter) parts of Chicago, including the downtown “Loop” area and the near North side of the city, without a corresponding amount of development occurring in the City’s poor (and mostly minority) neighborhoods.
But Kamen doesn’t just bemoan the lack of “equity” in the developments which shape the city; he delves into ways in which city planners and the private sector can address the shameful inequalities which exist in the city, and he points to many projects which have been undertaken, and continue to be taken, to this end. One thing that comes through Kamen’s writings is that, although Chicago’s leaders are far from perfect, considerable effort has been spent in developing and implementing solutions to the plight of Chicago’s marginalized neighborhoods. In the book, he points to a number of enlightened initiatives, including new low-income housing developments, improvements in public transportation, new public spaces (including parks), new libraries and the revitalization of business districts, which are being undertaken to assist these neighborhoods.
Kamen is a realist and readily acknowledges that the effects of generations of discriminatory practices are not easily overcome, but he also recognizes that actions by city planners and the private sector can make a difference.
I note that there is much, much more to Who is the City For? than what I’ve discussed above, and I wouldn’t want my army of readers (ha!) to think that this book is just about architecture and its relationship to social justice. I’ve focused my review on the aspects of the book which I believe distinguish it from a book one might expect to be written by an architecture critic, and I stress that Kamen’s book has loads of excellent observations on all sorts of architecture-related stuff in the Chicago area, much of which has no connection to issues of social justice.
I’d recommend this book to anyone who’s even remotely interested in recent developments in architecture in Chicago or in the role architecture (broadly defined) has played in the evolution of the city.
Kamin has an expansive view of what constitutes fair game for an architecture critic. Yes, he discusses in some detail the appearance, functionality and other design features of many buildings, but his principal focus in this book is on whether particular building projects (including renovations) serve the needs and interests of the community. And, for Kamin, the community whose needs and interests are to be served is not just the immediate neighborhood, but the city as a whole. The term Kamin uses in this regard is “equity”, which he defines as meaning “fairness or justice in the way people are treated . . .” Particularly troubling for Kamin is development, whether consisting of commercial buildings, schools, parks, transportation facilities, whatever, which is focused on the wealthier (and whiter) parts of Chicago, including the downtown “Loop” area and the near North side of the city, without a corresponding amount of development occurring in the City’s poor (and mostly minority) neighborhoods.
But Kamen doesn’t just bemoan the lack of “equity” in the developments which shape the city; he delves into ways in which city planners and the private sector can address the shameful inequalities which exist in the city, and he points to many projects which have been undertaken, and continue to be taken, to this end. One thing that comes through Kamen’s writings is that, although Chicago’s leaders are far from perfect, considerable effort has been spent in developing and implementing solutions to the plight of Chicago’s marginalized neighborhoods. In the book, he points to a number of enlightened initiatives, including new low-income housing developments, improvements in public transportation, new public spaces (including parks), new libraries and the revitalization of business districts, which are being undertaken to assist these neighborhoods.
Kamen is a realist and readily acknowledges that the effects of generations of discriminatory practices are not easily overcome, but he also recognizes that actions by city planners and the private sector can make a difference.
I note that there is much, much more to Who is the City For? than what I’ve discussed above, and I wouldn’t want my army of readers (ha!) to think that this book is just about architecture and its relationship to social justice. I’ve focused my review on the aspects of the book which I believe distinguish it from a book one might expect to be written by an architecture critic, and I stress that Kamen’s book has loads of excellent observations on all sorts of architecture-related stuff in the Chicago area, much of which has no connection to issues of social justice.
I’d recommend this book to anyone who’s even remotely interested in recent developments in architecture in Chicago or in the role architecture (broadly defined) has played in the evolution of the city.
May 5, 2023
Per Blair Kamin-- 'My aim is to open your eyes to, and raise your expectations for, the inescapable art of architecture, which does more than any other art to shape how we live.' And that he did. A particularly special book for Chicagoans.
May 23, 2023
I overestimated my desire to read architecture essays. But the photos are great and it's well worth skimming over to get at his questions of "who is the city for?" And if you like reading architecture essays then I'm sure it's amazing.
January 12, 2023
Sublime!
April 4, 2023
not really what i thought it was going to be, and hard to connect to the buildings/spaces without more pictures
June 20, 2024
needs more pictures
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews