A Theory of Good City Form

What makes a good city?" might be a meaningless question. Cities are too complicated too far beyond our control and affect too many people who are subject to too many cultural variations to permit any rational answer. Cities like continents are simply huge facts of nature to which we must adapt. We study their origin and function because that is interesting to know and handy for making predictions. Someone might say "I like Boston but we all understand that this is merely a trivial preference, based on personal experience. Only a Sunday journalist rates Boston in comparison to Atlanta. Scholars analyze hard data, such as population, dollars, and traffic flow. This essay addresses that naive question, with all the qualifications, stratagems, and doubts that will soon be apparent. Decisions about urban policy, or the allocation of resources, or where to move, or how to build something, must use norms about good and bad. Short-range or long-range, broad or selfish, implicit or explicit, values are anrninevitable ingredient of decision. Without some sense of better, any action is perverse. When values lie unexamined, they are dangerous.