What Makes a Great City

interplay between people and public realm, and how they have interacted throughout history to create great cities. To open the book, Garvin explains that a great public realm attracts and retains the people who make a city great. He describes exactly what the termpublic realm means, its most important characteristics, as well as providing examples of when and how these characteristics work, or dont. An entire chapter is devoted to a discussion of how particular components of the public realm (squares in London, parks in Minneapolis, and streets in Madrid) shape peoples daily lives. He concludes with a look at how twenty-first century initiatives in Paris, Houston, Atlanta, Brooklyn, and Toronto are making an already fine public realm even betterinitiatives that demonstrate what other cities can do to improve.What Makes a Great City will help readers understand that any city can be changed for the better and inspire entrepreneurs, public officials, and city residents to do it themselves. [Publisher's text]