Conville & Walsh

Can living in the city make you healthier? Can you build a public square that makes people want to kiss? What can slime mould tell us about the way we organise traffic? Is the city becoming more feminine? Are slums a good thing?

CITIES ARE GOOD FOR YOU is a manifesto for modern urban living. In 2007 for the first time in history more people live in the city than the country, heralding the 21st century as the Age of The City. And as we face the challenges of climate change, peak oil, and population growth, cities are becoming our only hope for a better future. Leo Hollis looks at the many ideas that are changing our perception of the city and shows, with examples from around the world, that the urban life is perhaps our best chance for survival, culminating in a radical new idea of what a city of the 21st century will be.

As well as an exciting, and sometimes counter-intuitive survey of the advantages of urban living, CITIES ARE GOOD FOR YOU is a rallying cry for a new kind of citizenship. At the heart of the book, Hollis makes an argument for trust as the essential civic value that is too often forgotten, and shows how this can be understood and nurtured. Thought-provoking, engaging as well as constantly surprising, this book establishes Leo Hollis as one of our most exciting urban thinkers whose ideas will change the way we live our lives in the future.