Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani has spent 20+ years working to understand what’s in a neighborhood by asking the question, ‘Where would you take someone on a guided tour of your neighborhood?’ In her 2024 book, The Cities We Need: Essential Stories of Everyday Places Viani walks us through the tours she participated in from dozens of her neighbors in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn and Mosswood in Oakland, CA, two cities she and her family spent time getting to know intimately. As a photographer, urbanist and keen storyteller Gabrielle brings to our attention important considerations that truly make you think hard about what makes a neighborhood.  What it means to be a part of a place or really what makes our everyday lives worth living.  

Our conversation made me think hard here at the Are We Here Yet? podcast about what kind of a society we want to build and who we want to be in the decades ahead.  How can we learn from our mistakes?  How can we appreciate the micro-moments that make our lives in a neighborhood worth living and how do we steward a place to provide that for all citizens?   

You know a book and a conversation is good when it leaves you asking more questions than providing answers.  And our conversation with Gabrielle was just such an experience.