Urban Arias

Some people hate them, others are terrified of them. Still others find them filthy, noisy, congested, ugly and downright uninhabitable. But those who choose to live in cities often have a far more complex relationship with their steel and glass environment--an attachment that often mingles irritation with affection, fear with calm, a desire to leave with the imperative to stay. This bond between city dwellers and their metropolitan milieux lies at the heart of Urban Arias. Downtowns, uptowns, midtowns; parks, ghettoes, museums--the rich gamut of what constitutes one of the oldest experiments in human habitation stands at the center of this special issue. Among the two dozen contributors to Urban Arias are Elizabeth Hand, Paul La Farge, Jonathan Lethem, Karen Russell and Luc Sante, along with a previously unpublished interview with Thomas Bernhard, in which the uneasy relationship between rural and urban life is discussed.