Question: Jonathan Raban opens Soft City with a description of losing himself in the city after a bit too much retsina in a kebab shop in the 1970's, and Walter Benjamin talks about the "intoxicated interpenetration of street and residence suchas comes about in theParis of the nineteenth century..." Is the city always hyperstimulating and intoxicating, or does contemporary development remove this quality and replace it with something more cold, calculating and clinical?

I think the sense of intoxication varies from city to city and really just depends on where you are. I have lived in urban places all over the U.S. and every city has a distinct feel and sometimes there are places and times that much more intoxicating. I think its hard not to feel a city in a way that invigorates your senses and sometimes produces an emotive response. I feel that, in America anyway, that the suburbs tend to be that dead sort of clinical feel with the strip malls and empty thoughtless space that pops up in a rush of development. There is a lack of identity and creative thought that goes into those spaces.

I think the age of the city has a lot to do with that feeling of intoxication. Personally if the city has a deep history I find it a lot more stimulating and almost overwhelming sometimes to take in. London is a great example of that feeling. I had visited older cities in less developed countries but because there is such a strong stratification of wealth and culture in a city like New York or London that i think it is mcuh more intoxicating. I also know that I am easily intoxicated. I love that I absorb and feel so much while visiting places and cities. My memories are full of the memory of smell and sight and emotion.

I think contemporary development only adds to the layers of a city. That development will age and although it may seem clinical and uninviting or uninteresting at first it will blend into the fabric and years from now we'll appreciate what it represents and for the time when it was built.