Books on Cities
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"You can't have Bach, Mozart and Beethoven as your favorite composers," Michael Tilson Thomas once declared. "They simply define what music is." By the…
Colin Marshall
Jan 16Comment 1Share
When the coronavirus pandemic arrived in the United States, Michael Sorkin became one of its earliest high-profile casualties. He died in New York City…
Colin Marshall
Jan 4CommentShare
When you hear something described as "only in L.A.," rest assured of its being neither unique to nor representative of Los Angeles. Take, mundane thoug…
Colin Marshall
Dec 15, 2020CommentShare
When Rem Koolhaas published Delirious New York in 1978, he hadn't yet built his best-known work. Central China Television Headquarters was 35 years awa…
Colin Marshall
Dec 4, 2020CommentShare
Anyone with an interest in American cities today has heard of Walk Score. Launched in 2007, the web site calculates the proximity of any given address …
Colin Marshall
Nov 15, 2020CommentShare
Andrei Codrescu moved to New Orleans in 1985, and Hurricane Katrina followed two decades later. "New Orleans will be rebuilt, but it will never again b…
Colin Marshall
Nov 3, 2020Comment 1Share
The publisher of Owen Hatherley's Trans-Europe Express: Tours of a Lost Continent sent me a copy addressed to "Colin Marshall, Cities Writer." Though I…
Colin Marshall
Oct 19, 2020CommentShare
When urban theorists speak of "reading" the city, they usually leave the mechanics of the act to the reader's imagination. In 1977, Christopher Alexand…
Colin Marshall
Oct 4, 2020CommentShare
I wonder: have I ever described the city as "humankind's greatest invention"? It's not impossible, given the proclamation's tempting combination of bol…
Colin Marshall
Sep 20, 2020CommentShare
An introduction to Books on Cities, my new Substack newsletter
Colin Marshall
Sep 3, 2020CommentShare
Welcome to Books on Cities by me, Colin Marshall. Seoul-based essayist and broadcaster on cities, language, and culture, currently at work on a book ab…
Colin Marshall
Sep 1, 2020CommentShare
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