A number of people emailed me this past weekend saying that they appreciated the recent book recommendation -- something to read over the holidays. So here's another one: Metropolis -- A History of the City, Humankind's Greatest Invention.
Right now is probably the ideal time to read a book about the history of cities because it's a reminder of just how resilient cities are in the face of adversity. Even ones that have been utterly wiped out because of war or some other catastrophe have managed to successfully rebuild.
If you'd like to buy a copy, you can do that over here. This book was also featured in part two of a "book club" that The Urbanist is running on its radio show right now. So if you'd like to take it for a 30-minute spin instead, click here.
Love them or hate them (I happen to love them), Toronto's streetcars are part of this city's identity. Most North American cities got rid of their streetcars around the middle of the 20th century. But Toronto didn't. And that has left us with the largest first generation streetcar network in the Americas in terms of total track length, number of cars, and ridership. That's something. If you're also a fan of streetcars (or just like geeking out about cities), you may enjoy this little ode to Zürich’s tram network by Monocle. It's called, "My life as a tram."
Today, Monocle announced a new "City Series," which will take the form of a focused half-day summit. The objective is to explore the urban issues facing mayors, developers, investors, and citizens. The first summit will take place this November 4 (2019) in Chengdu -- the capital of the Sichuan province in China.
For those of you who aren't familiar with Chengdu, it's a modest Chinese city with over 14 million people in the administrative area and over 10 million people in the urban boundary (2014 figures). It is the 5th most populous agglomeration in China.
I can't vouch for the quality of this new series, since this will be the first one, but Monocle has been running a longer, multi-day, quality of life conference for a few years now. Mostly, I am intrigued by the selection of Chengdu as the inaugural city for this new series. I take it as evidence that interesting things are happening there.
Image: Monocle