A Paean to public architecture and the buildings and places that bring us together, Eric Klinenberg’s Palaces for the People shows how modest undertakings and subtle, insightful design can strengthen communities. The book makes the connection between the much decried decline of civic life and the spaces that help us support each other—especially in neighborhoods where social connections have been severed by population decline, joblessness, abandonment, and disinvestment.
In Palaces for the People, Klinenberg, a sociologist and director of New York University’s Institute for Public Knowledge, builds upon his 2002 book, Heat Wave. That work reported social isolation and neighborhood breakdown as key reasons so many people died in Chicago during one torrid week in the summer of 1995. He found many fewer deaths in areas with strong communal ties forged by shared gathering places.
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