Cities
Grid cities and tangled cities ask different things of the person walking them
A street plan is a record of how a city was made, and it decides whether you navigate by coordinates or by…
Cities
Places that reward a long stay, and how to read them once you are there.
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Cities
A city only becomes legible somewhere around the fourth day
The opening days of a stay are spent building a mental map, and most of what a short visit concludes about a place is decided before that map exists.
Cities
A transport network is the clearest portrait of how a city grew
Lines, interchanges and fare boundaries record decisions about where a city thought it was going, and the…
Cities
Opening hours are a city timetable and they are not decoration
When shops shut, when lunch happens and when dinner starts are set by law, climate and the shape of the…
Cities
Where you sleep decides which version of a city you are given
Choosing a base is a sampling decision, and the district you wake up in supplies most of the evidence you…
Cities
What a city eats changes by district, and the rent is usually why
Restaurants occupy whatever space they can afford with enough passing custom to fill it, and that one…
Cities
An hour in one room beats a morning through a whole museum
Attention in a gallery runs out long before the legs do, and a large collection is built on the assumption…
Cities
The same streets after dark are a different city
Darkness changes who is out, where it is possible to go and what a place sounds like, which makes a night…
Cities
A second city explains a country better than its capital does
Capitals are shaped by national institutions that distort everything around them, while the next city down…
Cities
Where a city lets you sit for nothing says who it is for
Somewhere to sit without buying anything is the cheapest infrastructure a city can provide, and whether it…
Cities
Where a city found its water decided how far it could grow
Drinking water is the one requirement a settlement can’t negotiate around, and the answer to where it came…
Cities
A demolished wall usually survives as a ring road and a set of gate names
Town walls shaped the plan inside them so thoroughly that removing the stone changes surprisingly little…