Book Recommendation

The Endless City 

By The London School of Economics and Deutsche Bank's Alfred Herrhausen Society

At the turn of the twenty-first century, the world is faced with an unprecedented challenge. It must address a fundamental shift in the world’s population towards the cities, and away from mankind’s rural roots. The book’s foundation statistic is that in 1900, 10 percent of the population lived in cities. Today, that figure has edged over 50 percent and by 2050, within the career span of many of today’s urban design practitioners, 75 percent of the world’s population will be urbanites. This means serious change.

The book is the outcome of two years of investigation into six different cities: New York, Shanghai, London, Mexico City, Johannesburg and Berlin. The cities chosen give a broad description of the shades of global urban change, yet because the book is so good, even after five hundred-odd pages it still feels as though there could have been room for a few more cities to really complete the picture.

The book’s power is in making vast quantities of data accessible and interesting to the coffee table browser, while its essays have enough depth to appeal to the professional urbanist. Definitely a worthy browse, even for the pretty graphics.