I LOVE MY CITY

Almost 70% of us will live in a city by 2050, so our urban past, present, and future are topics of interest.

Good questions are posed in this book translated from French, beginning with where and when cities were first constructed, but answers are often general: “a long time ago,” “often…near rivers, seas, or oceans.” Although suburbs are ancient, the authors begin their look at the suburbs “at the end of the 19th century.” A sunny view of environmental responsibility prevails; threats like crime, overcrowding, or disease go unmentioned (or are mentioned only briefly), and the very greatest, climate change, is glossed over. The pages on public services have useful diagrams but fail to cite water shortages or to tell us how many (or few) global urbanites have access to potable water and sanitation; nuclear energy is not cited as an energy source, though coal is. Many brief summaries contain vast generalizations (“the city makes sure its roads and parking lots are well maintained”). A depiction of slums misleadingly shows large masonry houses in good repair, but the soft-edged illustrations are innovative, clear, and amusing. Humanized cat-citizens join diverse, funny-looking people in droll spreads. Famous landmarks form an unbroken cityscape on one spread, while people of various ethnicities, origins, and time periods make one continuous crowd on another. Information is integrated into the illustration layouts.

An ambitious but somewhat generic guide to urban environments.