Not Just City Comforts

Tuesday, May 15th, 2007 in Place by Will | 2 comments

David Sucher’s book, City Comforts is subtitled “How To Build an Urban Village.” The book is not just for cities. The things that make a city pleasant are the same things that make a town, a village, a hamlet, or any collection of homes pleasant.

Do not be put off by the title if you think of yourself as country folk. This book is helpful for the smallest of towns.

2 comments

  1. David Sucher on Thursday, May 17th, 2007 at 10:58 am

    Thanks! :) And what brought this on? Did some faux country folks start twanging about they “hate cities?”

    What I find disheartending is that there are so many younger people — like maybe under 40 — who grew up suburbs and simply do not know what a city is. Some have literally never been in one except to drive through. They think it’s all slums and minorities and so forth; I run into a lot of such folks on construction sites. Not real country folk of course as they live in the suburban fringe; But that’s what they fancy themselves to be — rural. Of course rural people know what a town is like i.e. a real walkable old-fashioned town. It’s ironic, eh?

  2. Will on Friday, May 18th, 2007 at 9:10 am

    Pretty much. There’re some who believe that because they’ve moved to the suburban fringe that they are in the country, and there are others who think that because they moved to the country first, that it hasn’t become the suburban fringe, so their ideas of how to preserve the rural character consist mainly of ensuring that it continues to sprawl.

    Apparently part of the rural charm is three-acre residential lots, no sewers, no sidewalks in town, and being required to drive between adjacent shopping plazas.

    Turning a collection of shopping plazas into a village doesn’t mean that we’ll all of a sudden be Poughkeepsie.

Comments are now closed.