Cities 🌆
Spengler's (eerily) accurate predictions on the big cities
Introduction. Oswald Spengler, a German philosopher, published The Decline of the West in 1918. Ted Gioia, a contemporary culture critic, has noted that a hundred years later, many of Spengler's predictions have come true. Here are the eight most surprising ones 👇
How Cities Make Their Own Inhabitants Infertile
Cities are engines of economic growth and hotbeds for cultural activity. But they’re a double edged sword for countries as they reduce the fertility of their inhabitants.
Are pandemics good or bad for cities in the long term?
Richard Florida is one of America’s preeminent commentators on cities and urban change. His book The Rise of the Creative Class (2002) argued that cities rise or fall on their ability to attract creative knowledge workers.
Why do some buildings age like wine and others like milk?
I recently read an old but brilliant book: How Buildings Learn (1994) by Stewart Brand. Buildings exist in space, but also across time. Why do some buildings age like wine - but others like milk? A memo with multiple answers👇👇👇
Cities. They drain us of energy and are bad for the environment, right?
The Triumph Of The City is a fantastic book. It's full of rich data and counter-intuitive insights. In this Memo, find out why cities are the original internet, why urban density will save the planet, and more👇👇👇
How Jane Jacobs revolutionized the way we think about cities
Jane Jacobs didn’t need a degree to know what gives a space its identity. Her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities is considered one of the most influential works ever written on urban living. Why? Because it flew in the face of all conve
LA and London: why they’re surprisingly similar
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle make the epic decision to de-royalize. Then they decide to leave the UK. The last straw? They choose to settle not in the egalitarian niceness of Canada, nor the cultural “center of the world”, New York, but in Los Angeles.