WC Archive

Author Robert Neuwirth, a New York City native, took up residence in slums (or, as he terms them, "squatter cities") across the developing world -- among them, the Rocinha neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, Kibera in Nairobi and Sanjay Gandhi Nagar in north Mumbai -- for his new book Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, a New Urban World.He sees in these squatter cities parallels to medieval urban communities, and this parallel is the subject of a talk he is giving this coming Friday, June 10, in San Francisco, for the Long Now organization. The monthly Long Now seminars are always quite interesting, and admission is free (although a $10 donation is appreciated).

I try to attend these talks, and am always happy to chat with WorldChanging readers who run into me there. As always, a recording of the presentation will eventually be made available on the Long Now website.