Book review: Palaces for the People

Eric Klinenberg at CNU34Twenty-first century social infrastructures are already reviving civic life in nations across the planet: public plazas in low-lying cities that double as massive water storage systems during extreme weather events; massive levees and berms that masquerade as bike paths and parks. Americans should have all these things. (Klinenberg 2018: 293)Eric Klinenberg, Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life (Broadway, 2018), 293 pp.(7/3/2026) There is supposed to be a theory of human evolution where we humans have since hunter-gatherer days differed in our response to strangers. Some see strangers as inherently dangerous, a threat to our precarious food supply; others see strangers as bringing welcome variety, so we could trade lunches or at least hear new jokes. Both of these perspectives are adaptive--some strangers are dangerous--but decades of auto-centric development has left us with a…