Perfect City ― An Urban Fixer's Global Search for Magic in the Modern Metropolis

What are cities for? How do they really work? What does our urban future hold?

"There is nobody better to help us build a more perfect city than Joe Berridge...Read it if you want to help build a great city or just live in one that is more perfect for you."
– Richard Florida, University of Toronto, Author of Rise of the Creative Class

There may not be such a thing as a perfect city, but all great cities have moments of perfection -- perfect streets or buildings, perfect places to raise a family or to relax with a coffee -- and all of them strive for perfection when they undertake grand projects/ Cities, more than ever, are the engines of our economies and the ecosystems in which our lives play out, which makes questions about the perfectibility of urban life all the more urgent.

Joe Berridge, one of the world's leading urban planners, takes us on an insider's tour of the world's largest and most diverse cities,from New York to London, Shanghai to Singapore, Toronto to Sydney, to examine what is working and not working, what is promising and what needs to be fixed in the contemporary megalopolis. We meet the people, politicians, and thinkers at the cutting edge of global city-making, and share their struggles and successes. We visit a succession of great urban innovations, stop by many of Joe's favorite restaurants, and leave with a startling view of the magical urban future that awaits us all.

Joe Berridge has played a key role in some of the largest and most complex urban regeneration campaigns in the world. He is an accomplished masterplanner of city centers, airports, waterfronts, and university campuses, with landmark projects in world capitals like New York City, London, and Toronto. Berridge has also contributed to the planning field in many other ways: lecturing at universities; serving on competition juries; and writing articles for The Globe and Mail, The Walrus, and the Literary Review of Canada. He is a recipient of the Toronto Arts Award, as well as a Fellow of the University of Toronto's Munk School of Public Policy.