how we shape cities, and cities shape us

The crowd is the flâneur’s indispensable counterpart: the crowd turns people into observable objects . In Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Man in the Crowd’ the protagonist pursues an intriguing figure through the streets of London for a whole night without ever being able to see his face: in big cities, one can stroll through busy streets without recognisin... See more

Greif situates fitness culture at the nexus of several contemporary threads: the relentless quantification of everything, the drive to optimize the self, the decline of public space—and, of course, “wellness,” as the concept has come to be known. We all want to be “well,” or should want to, at least. But why?

Stark reminder of the parlous state of afterdark subculture in so many cities around the world. In the UK, for instance, 75% of nightclubs have shut since 2005 (75%!) - and, truth be told, so much of what survives is very corporate and highly contrived.

They say nothing good happens after 2am (or is it midnight?), but in the case of creativity, that... See more

You are always internalizing the culture around you. Even when you wish you didn’t. So you better surround yourself with something you want inside—curate a culture.

People who live in large cities have larger egos because at night they can't see the stars

There is a gentrification that is happening to cities, and there is a gentrification that is happening to the emotions too, with a similarly homogenising, whitening, deadening effect. Amidst the glossiness of late capitalism, we are fed the notion that all difficult feeling - depression, anxiety, loneliness, rage - are simply a consequence of unset... See more

It's not only UK dance music of the Nineties that is associated with cities; the whole history of popular music is about urban scenes. It's no accident that Motown started in Detroit, house in Chicago, hip-hop in New York… Cities are pressure cookers which can synthesise influences

quickly and in a way that is both collective and idiosyncratic. Scen

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