Vishaan Chakrabarti is an architect based in New York City. He is the founder of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU) and the author of two books.
His first book, published in 2013, was A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for an Urban America. And as the title suggests, it was about the virtues of dense urban agglomerations. You know, the kind of cities that I like and have good bike lanes.
His second book, which just came out, is called The Architecture of Urbanity: Designing for Nature, Culture, and Joy. In this one, he talks about the role of architecture and urbanism in fighting both climate change and social division.
Below is an excerpt from a recent interview in Bloomberg where he discusses the book's theme of "social friction." This snippet is also a timely follow-up to yesterday's post about autonomous vehicles: