I've recently become fascinated by cities. Why we come to them; what makes us stay; what it's like once we're here; what makes us throw in the towel, or makes us stay; why they're so central and vital to so many things (e.g. commerce, art, innovation). I studied economic history in college and understandably cities played a pretty big role straight through—but for whatever reason I'm intellectually interested now in a way I wasn't before.

I've started in with some Steven Berlin Johnson, Jane Jacobs and William H. Whyte, watched Urbanized, and just finished a few Adam Gopniks, but I know I'm still at the beginning.

I'd love to hear your suggestions for books, essays, people, art, etc.

Thanks to @xberthet for these suggestions from Twitter! Four really great-looking TED talks...

Planetizen is a great link blog for urban studies/planning related news: planetizen.com

"The Power Broker" about Robert Moses is a must-read: amazon.com was the Michael Jordan of urban design (for better and worse).

Waste Land is a really interesting Netflix Instant watch: youtube.com

And JR is a cool urban artist: nytimes.com

I've always loved cities and thinking about how they, each as a place, developed differently. Understanding how the population, or early leaders, informed the growth of the city, which in turn, defined life, for better or worse. Or learning why a road went a certain way, and how it embodies larger trends.

Here are some books, could really start with any of them depending on your city of preference:

"The Power Broker," far more than a bio of Robert Mose, Caro's book tells the story of 20th century NYC.

"City of Quartz" by Mike Davis, more theoretical than Caro, but equally broad an attempt to understand a great, American city: L.A.

"Nature's Metropolis," just as good, William Cronon's book is a great environmental history of Chicago.

Beware of Mike David though, dude's a nut job. He's widely-known to be sensationalist within the urban planning community (see: en.wikipedia.org). Though very thought-provoking, most of his claims are a stretch (Gladwell-esque). Specifically, I take issue with his thoughts about L.A., though I'm from there and my godfather was director of planning for the city so I'm biased.

If you want to better understand Los Angeles, read Reyner Banham's "Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies" amazon.com

I was raised in Los Angeles and my godparents/family friends were all urban planners or architects, so I grew up thinking about this stuff a lot. Yet after reading Banham's book about Los Angeles I thought, "Wow, I never thought about it like that and he's SO right!" It's a really awesome read.

More on Banham/Four Ecologies...

Some more digestible places to start:

Eric Fisher's fantastic visualizations of diversity, based on 2010 census, in American cities. NYC, Chicago, Detroit are unbelievable.
bit.ly

Humans of New York - "The photographic census of NYC"
facebook.com

Tried to branch this but couldn't. Banham's book is also fantastic - but I think he overvalues the car, diluting the importance of other factors. It is just as important, when trying to understand what L.A. is and how it came to be, the role capitalism played.

The car was not the only factor of L.A.'s form, but rather the interests of individuals to spread industry out around the plain around various hubs and then their use the car to connect factories with the labor, the middle class - the American Dream. Fontana, Long Beach, Palmdale, and Glendale are all good examples of this.

Davis is way out there, employing lots of Marxist frameworks and also a socialist politically, but I found Quartz to be well researched and strong.