The Virtues of Cities [The Mayor's Institute on City Design]

Alex Krieger We want to spread out, we want to stand apart. Few such dreams support city making, which traditionally has meant making places that endure. Partly because of our uncertain Virtues relationship to the city. We Americans have long shown an ambivalence towards the city. We have been ambivalent about the value of urbanity to our culture, about the appropriate form that the city should take and, especially, about where one individuals are best placed in Americans always dream of having a good place to live, but their dreams do not often enough include the city. How is a good place to live imagined? People dream of a charming porch, a conversation held across a trimly kept yard, a bicycle leaning against a picket fence, lots of green space or a stately home. As enticing as these evocations are, they do not depict a city very well. PLACesiO:2