To mark the recent pub­li­ca­tion of the US edi­tion of City, I’ve been inter­viewed by the Atlantic Cities and Kirkus Reviews.

Nate Berg of Atlantic Cities writes:

“Mim­ic­k­ing the trav­el­er’s guide­book for­mat, Smith breaks the city down into famil­iar but loose seg­ments: cus­toms, where to stay, get­ting around, and so on. But unlike the typ­i­cal hotel sug­ges­tions and tip­ping advice you might get in a tourist guide, Smith uses these lens­es to explore into such com­mon facets of urban­i­ty as lan­guages, fes­ti­vals, hous­ing, eth­nic enclaves, archi­tec­tur­al styles, street food and pick­pock­ets. Each sec­tion explores the his­to­ry of these urban ele­ments, their devel­op­ment over time, their inter­pre­ta­tion in lit­er­a­ture and the cul­tur­al shifts they’ve cre­at­ed. The book wise­ly avoids a straight­for­ward nar­ra­tive and approach­es the city as it is: a wide vari­ety of inter­con­nect­ed parts that co-evolved into an ecosys­tem.”

Clay­ton Moore of Kirkus Reviews asked me why I chose to explore the con­cept of cities rather than con­cen­trate on one city. I replied:

“There are already some won­der­ful biogra­phies of spe­cif­ic cities. Peter Ackroyd’s Lon­don and Alexan­dra Richie’s his­to­ry of Berlin, Faust’s Metrop­o­lis, spring to mind imme­di­ate­ly. But I want­ed to do some­thing dif­fer­ent. Name­ly, to explore our endur­ing love affair with cities and to try to iden­ti­fy the essen­tial fea­tures that explain the glob­al suc­cess of cities and city life. I want­ed to write a book that cap­tured some­thing of our urban DNA.”

Read the inter­views at the Atlantic Cities and Kirkus Reviews web­sites.