The Well-Tempered City: What Modern Science, Ancient Civilizations, and Human Nature Teach Us About the Future of Urban Life

I propose six significant levels of pace and size in the working structure of a robust and adaptable civilization. From fast to slow the levels are: - Fashion/art - Commerce- Infrastructure- Governance- Culture- Nature

The story of humanity is an urban one, a slow 20,000 year drift towards a largely urban condition. A city does the same thing to individualism that a natural ecosystem does to a tree — thriving there is about living well with people who are not like you. Just as a tree revels in those multifarious interdependencies, so we do with cities.