Summer 2014

The Other Side of the City

This issue of Comment invites you to consider the renewal of North America’s urban social architecture. First, the voices in this issue press us to look beyond the glitz and gleam of the city and ask sobering, uncomfortable, necessary questions about sides of the city we don’t always consider. And second, this issue illuminates the unseen side of the city, the social infrastructure that undergirds it—human cultural creations, as critical as sewers, sanitation, and master plans.

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In The Print Issue

Poetry

Carl Sandburg

Chicago

Hog Butcher for the World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders: They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys. And they tell me […]

Editorial

James K.A. Smith

The Other Side of the City

The city is good AND broken.

Essay

James K.A. Smith

World View

An annotated reading of your world. Topics this issue include the predicament of the architect; pumping stations treated like cathedrals; and the features of what might be called "Calvinist" parenting.

Cardus

Headquarters

Updates from Cardus on the renewal of social architecture. In this issue, we explain our interest in the case Loyola High in Montreal is fighting in the Supreme Court of Canada.