quick with pointers about what living in a city can, should and shouldn't be about. ( )

Part of a review I wrote due to appear in Freedom Magazine, March 2011.

Matt Hern lives in Vancouver, Canada. Vancouver has major endorsements like Expo 86, the Commonwealth games and as recently as 2010 the Winter Olympics and Paralympics under its belt, but on top of that with Melbourne, a business review recently granted the city has being a top example of a ‘livable city’. The darkside however is Vancouver has the lowest minimum wage, the highest rate of child poverty, chronic homelessness, the highest rents and housing costs in Canada (pg 207) and like every other city it’s the flux of capital which influences its development rather than its inhabitants.
Matt’s book isn’t really about Vancouver, though. Well it is and it isn’t. Matt is looking at the city he lives in and is drawing out parallels to other places he’s visited. By contrasting two different places in the world he is creating a lynchpin to look at and isolate themes one by one that affects us all where we live. And for the most part this works quite well.
But before he does that, he sets his stall out and thereby the tone of the book. Firstly he his resoundingly in favour of city dwelling, “the only chance the world has for an ecological future is for the vast bulk of us to live in the city.” (pg 9) Secondly he argues, “cities need to be full of solid, distinct and comprehensible places” (pg 9) and thirdly he calls for a rejection of global capitalism and neo-liberalism.
There are, he argues, possibilities of living densely, shortening unnecessary transport journeys, reducing our collective carbon footprint, and sharing energy and resources (pg 16). These are all ecologically sound, and are preferable to humans encroaching on what little is left of the natural world. So humans for the most part - can and should stay where they are. The task for city dwellers, and a key premise of the book is what adjustments can we make to the city to challenge the excess and power that prevails alongside the poverty and despair, but also overt any challenges that may come our way.
The book is based on nine essays covering a different city and a comparative insight. Six are in North America (I will include Hawaii), the remaining are in Greece, Turkey and Kurdistan. Laced with the essays are some pretty nice location shots to guide you. ( )