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How to save our cities: leading architect on the fall of the neoliberal city

What has happen to New York since the Bloomberg era? What lessons can we draw lessons from a city that was home to both Jane Jacobs and Donald Trump? The city is no longer the place it once was. As the skyline becomes a selection of glittering luxury towers by international start architects, life on the street is becoming increasingly divided. In the aftermath of 9/11, Ground Zero has been handed over to the developers. The West Village has gentrified and become a playground for the rich. What, Michael Sorkin asks, is a radical architect and urban thinker with a vision of a fair and diverse city supposed to do?

In a series of brilliant portraits, essays and pieces he explores the ideas and the realities of urban living. This includes a searing attack on the corporate take over of Ground Zero, turning a place of memory into a shopping mall designed by staritects. What the ´poor door´ shows us about the growing divisions within the city. The importance of architects learning to draw. How the city survived hurricane Sandy and what it might face in the future.

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"Easily one of the best architecture critics around ... Sorkin is a flaneur with a sense of public purpose."
-Guardian

"America´s most invigorating writer on architecture."
-Observer

"Sorkin is one of the most intelligent writers on architecture today."
-Library Journal

Praise for Twenty Minutes in Manhattan:

"I am glad Sorkin doesn´t take the subway: this is the most brilliant epitome of Manhattan ever written."
-Mike Davis

"Michael Sorkin secures his claim to succeed Jane Jacobs ... He brings to bear an eye every bit as acute, a pen nearly as trenchant, and a political understanding perhaps a little bit more sophisticated of the never-ending struggle over New York´s neighbourhoods."
-Times Literary Supplement

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Michael Sorkin is an award-winning architect and Distinguished Professor of Architecture and Director of the Graduate Program in Urban Design at the City College of New York. In 2010, he received the American Academy of Arts and Letters award in architecture. For ten years, Sorkin was architecture critic for the The Village Voice, and he has written for Architectural Record, The New York Times, The Architectural Review, Mother Jones, Vanity Fair, the Wall Street Journal, Architectural Review, and the Nation . His books include Exquisite Corpses, After the World Trade Center, Twenty Minutes in Manhattan and All Over the Map .

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