The ideal city, a utopia of sorts, has been the goal of America since its founding. First we immigrated to find freedom to thrive in the new world, then we moved west to find it on the open frontier, we left cities for the suburban utopia, and finally, we redeveloped our blighted urban cores to create it from within. With each period in our history, we have attempted to create the ideal mix of town and country, but author Alex Krieger ends his book City on a Hill which covers all this and more with a hope that this pursuit “should continue to lose luster.” Listen to the end to hear Alex’s response to why he wrapped up a book on our endless pursuit of this goal in this manner.

Links:

• In the Boston Globe, read Krieger (with Matthew Kiefer) on the city’s new “gilded age”
• At the New York Daily News, read Krieger’s unpacking of the idea of the “American Dream”—on the occasion of a “destination” shopping mall of the same name’s grand opening in the New Jersey Meadowlands 
• Buy a copy of City on a Hill at the Harvard University Press

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