The City: A Global History, by Joel Kotkin

This book is a short one, but a worthy one, in that it synthesizes a great deal of understanding about cities to give a biography of the cities, as it were, finding common patterns across cultures while also demonstrating cultural differences where they exist. As cities have themselves risen and fallen, from the time they have been founded, cities have been enduringly popular nevertheless, except in those ages were civilization fell to such an extent that there was no agricultural surplus for cities to feed on. From their beginning, cities have been parasitic in a fashion, ruled by elites who have sought to combine elements of sacred space and commercial space while providing security, and at best cities have provided a home for the sort of cultured people who help make art possible as well as provide for trade and education and scientific development. This book is written by someone who is a confirmed urbanist, but also someone who is an honest chronicler of the history of the city nevertheless.

The contents of this book vary across many cultures and over the span of time from the beginnings of the city in the Fertile Crescent to contemporary developments. Some cities are ignored, like Cahoika, and the cities of pre-Columbian America are not focused on to the extent as the cities of Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and East and South Asia, which receive consistent and frequent commentary. The chapters are largely chronological and geographical, discussing cities based on their common socioeconomic and cultural roots and the similar patterns that they were governed by. The author has a bit of a grudge against early Christians for being hostile to earthly cities because of their loyalty to heavenly cities, but such an antichristian bias is lamentably common, as is the fact that the author is deeply critical of both the tendencies towards suburbanization that are present around the world and the attempts at cities to attract hipster residents without seeking to appeal to those with familial and commercial loyalties to a given city as opposed to merely a cultural one [1].

Overall, this book makes for somewhat ominous reading. Given that the author is quick to praise the city-building of such diverse peoples as the pagan Phoenecians, medieval Muslims, and contemporary Chinese, and also quick to point out that for cities to endure there needs to be security, a thriving commercial life that allows for a good standard of living for citizens, as well as sacred space that provides a sense of belonging and rootedness. By these standards, contemporary cities fail miserably, and the author is quick to note the many ways they fail—by catering to a faddish elite, by failing to provide basic infrastructure for citizens or any sort of hope at good wages or safety, and by failing to provide any sort of spiritual core, which the author is only concerned exists in some fashion as he is not a believer in any meaningful sense. This book is a worthwhile look at the ways that human cities have behaved, as a way of pointing out how the heavenly city exceeds them all, but still responds to the needs of people nevertheless.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/12/11/he-waited-for-the-city/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/01/14/not-everyone-wants-to-live-in-a-city-on-a-hill/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/01/30/coming-to-your-city/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/01/12/feels-like-a-coming-of-age/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2013/01/27/the-irony-of-hipsterdom/