Book Review: Messy Cities: Why We Can't Plan Everything

TLDR: “Uneven, like most anthologies” Appropriately, I started this book just after having returned from five days in New York City. I was there for a two-day conference in Brooklyn, but I stayed in Tribeca, and spent some time walking the streets of that neighborhood and Soho. Between those sojourns and the subway to Brooklyn each morning, I got pretty good dose of a “messy city.” I’m going to document the book in real-time below. It’s an anthology, so each chapter is a self-contained essay. Introduction Whomever wrote the introduction started off by talking about “desire lines” or “desire paths,” which are paths worn into the ground by where people actual want to want, rather than that’s planned. I enjoyed this quote: They are the paths we take rather than the paths we are given. And that really sets up the entire book. The goal of this collection is to show that messiness is an essential element of the city… Messy urbanism needs championing, because out minds and instincts tend to…