Aerotropolis, Live and In Concert

A week after launch, the Aerotropolis tour is gearing up with the first public reading on Monday at my local independent bookstore, BookCourt. The reading, which starts at 7 PM, is free and open to all, and there will be wine, I’m told (while supplies last). BookCourt is at 163 Court St. (at Pacific), barely a block from my house, and equally close to Floyd, where we’ll be repairing afterward. If you’re in New York that night (and not, at say SXSW – why do social media promoters fly to Austin every spring to hang out? Hmmm…) please come!

Monday’s reading will be followed on Wednesday by a private event in Atlanta (please email me if you’d like to attend; space is limited), and non-stop touring the week after that: Boston, Chicagoland, and Dallas will be up first.

In the meantime, the reviews keep coming in. Last weekend, The New York Times Book Review described the book as “ambitious,” “bracing,” intriguing,” and “to be congratulated for their bluntness and their provocations.” (Also: “overwrought and overstuffed.”)

The Telegraph reviewed it in conjunction with Ed Glaeser’s Triumph of the City: “As both of these fascinating books show, when we talk about the future we are more often talking about what is actually happening today… a vigorous charting out of the counter-intuitive territory that will turn many people’s idea of hell into an urban paradise.”

The Financial Times reviewed the book in this weekend’s edition, which concludes with: “All of which underlines the most interesting idea raised by this book. Past transport innovations – ships, trains and then cars – helped create many of our greatest cities, but in a world made flat by globalisation, their successors will be the ones that embrace the jet and the aerotropolis. Their residents may not think this is the way they want to live next, but they may not have much choice.” Exactly.

If you haven’t read last month’s WSJ essay or FTexcerpt yet, both Salon and Gizmodo published excerpts this week.

I also made several radio appearances, including NPR Marketplace, The Takeaway, and The Monocle Weekly, with Tyler Brule. Stay tuned for more to come.