Why are we losing the fight for livable cities — and how can we win it back?

More and more people feel that their city has become a hostile territory. Homes that are impossible to inhabit, prices that are out of reach, spaces that can no longer be shared, even conversations we can no longer hold. Cities are ceasing to be communities where people meet and interact, and are increasingly treated as products. Administrations, obsessed with international prestige, design strategies and brands to attract tourists and investors, while neglecting the daily lives of residents, promoting fairer economic development, and fostering accessible culture. Urban life is further affected by the split between digital and physical realities, polarization, loneliness, population aging, and the environmental crisis.

This was all once city is a critical analysis of the processes driving our urban areas toward this drift. But it is more than that — perhaps much more: a bold, defiant, even rebellious book that proposes ideas and actions capable of transforming and improving the places we inhabit. In a time when the world seems caught in an authoritarian, nationalist, and individualist storm, this essay champions the urgent need to fight, with both determination and hope, for the form of connection and coexistence we call the “city.”

PEDRO BRAVO has spent over ten years studying and writing about cities for media outlets such as El País, elDiario.es, and others, while also advising cities on communication strategies. His books published by
Debate include Silence!