Good City

Boston has persevered through the bad old days to thrive, and more, to make a kind of statement about the good city. The good city is innovative and fun, it is prosperous, it strives for justice and sustainability, but above all, it is alive. -From the Introduction by Paul GroganThe Good City presents a vivid new profile of Boston through the work of fifteen of the city's finest writers. Robert Campbell and Jane Holtz Kay on Boston's embrace of lively urban densityJames Miller on the city's intellectual historyJack Beatty on Boston's colorful political past and presentPatricia Powell on the literary landscape and the immigrant experienceSusan Orlean on the city she left and now lovesJohn Hanson Mitchell on how nature revives the metropolisAnita Diamant on Boston as a spiritual home Scott Kirsner on Boston as a powerhouse of scientific and technological innovationAlan Chong on the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the arts in BostonLynda Morgenroth on the city's neighborhoodsMichael Patrick MacDonald on gentrification and what it means to old neighborhoods like SouthieDerrick Jackson on Boston as a laboratory for advancing race relationsHoward Bryant on the city's obsession with sportsIrene Smalls on seeing the city through the eyes of a child.