Moving Beyond "Urbanist"

It's Time to Reassess a Tired Label

I’ve always lived in cities. But that doesn’t necessarily make me an “urbanist,” much less an “urbanizer.”

I began to be called an “urbanist” after my fifth book, Straphanger: Saving Ourselves and Our Cities from the Automobile was published in 2012. I didn’t bother objecting to the label. I’d spent much of my writing career roaming the cities of the wor…