Lewis Mumford on The City

Explores the tension and mutual dependence of urban and rural areas. How can sprawling metropolitan regions maintain or restore the balance?

A study of the growing sterility, dullness and congestion that is destroying the vitality, variety and human scale that once made cities physically attractive and humanly creative.

Contrasts the squalor of the working poor with the relative safety and security of the wealthy, asking what can be done to address "the spirit of social hopelessness" that thrives in the overcrowded slums where cities' poorest residents live.

An outline of the prospects for the city and some suggestions to restore its role as the focus of man's highest achievements.