Street Ballet

Let's go!

I've had this blog in mind for what seems like years now. I didn't want to start it until I felt like I could do it right, hopefully I have given it the right amount of time to bloom. Street Ballet is a blog about cities, about how they are designed, how they work, how great they are, their histories, their rhythms, their peoples. It's me thinking aloud, or perhaps to reflect the photo, my tags and scribblings on the city surface. For those who knew me through Pound for Pound, hopefully you will give this a chance too, as I am even more passionate about these subjects than I am with disco and dance and house.

The title comes from a term coined by one of my heroes and inspirations for this blog, Jane Jacobs. This site is dedicated to her memory and her writings, which have had the most profound influence on me. It's also dedicated to all of the other people who have thought and written about cities and urban life - Walter Benjamin, Henri Lefevbre, David Harvey, Luc Sante, Lewis Mumford, Michael Sorkin, Mitchell Duneier, Dalton Conley, Mike Davis, Edward Soja, Rebecca Solnit and many others. To the artists and filmakers and novelists as well - John Dos Passos, Richard Price, Jules Dassin, David Goodis, Raymond Chandler, Martin Scorcese and many more.

It's dedicated to anyone and everyone who currently lives in a city, whether it's Philadelphia, New York, San Fran, Sao Paolo, Budapest or Bombay, who loves their city and strives to make those places a little better each day. It's dedicated to the people who didn't run in the 60s and 70s, who stayed and survived and kept our US cities alive. Most of all, it's dedicated to my parents, who gave me the greatest gift by raising me in Philadelphia and making me a city kid.