What are cities for and who are they for?

Should urban planners emphasize super dense development, or should cities be allowed to spread

in dispersed ways, the dreaded sprawl that so many fear for its purported environmental effects? Hello, I'm City Journal editor Brian Anderson.

Thanks for joining us for the 10 Blocks podcast featuring urban policy and cultural commentary

with City Journal editors, contributors, and special guests.

Joining me today to explore these and other questions is urbanist demographer and City Journal contributing editor Joel Cockin, who is executive director of a new think

tank, the Center for Opportunity Urbanism in Houston. His fascinating book, The Human

City argues for a reimagined urbanism for the 21st century. Thanks for coming by, Joel.

It's my pleasure. Now, Joel, you open the human city with a quote from Aristotle. A city

comes into being for the sake of life, but exists for the sake of living well.

What is meaningful for you in that observation from Aristotle?

Well, I just think it's one of those basic principles.

You know, why do we build cities?

What are cities for?

I mean, I think this is the question that is not asked very much.

Are cities built for aesthetic reasons?

Are they built because maybe they would

lower the carbon footprint? Or do we build them because we know, we just don't like, you know,

suburban areas and we only want a certain kind of form? I think you have to take it a much more

pragmatic view and say, okay, what works for what people, at what time, at what age, at what

income. And when you look at it that way, then you look at a combination of, yes, you can

have a thriving core economy, but you also need places that people can afford to live, and

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