Cities : Idle speculations on their future
Being an American of Swedish origin, continuously going back and forth between Houston, Los Angeles and Stockholm, allows us to distance ourselves from the urban fact – literally and figuratively – and to speak with discernment. Three categories of cities seem to converge on this increasingly widespread idea of a generic and globalized city. It is interesting to understand how they are generated. Is it the economic system, the administrative power, the populations, the general lack of interest in living together, or all of that, which guides the making of our cities? Lars Lerup is an architecture professor at the Rice School of Architecture in Houston.
