Cities Are Just One Damn Thing Next to Another

There is an old saying, often attributed to philosopher Elbert Hubbard, that "Life is just one damn thing after another."

As an urbanist, I’d like to offer a slight, but profound, adjustment: Cities are just one damn thing next to another.

This is not a cynical statement; it is a declaration of purpose. A city's utility, its magic, and its overwhelming economic and social power stem from this single, simple concept: an assemblage of useful places designed to increase the ease of use through sheer, glorious proximity.

The great heresy of 20th-century planning was its rejection of this principle.

The Power of the Jumble

A city works because the place you live has a reciprocal relationship with the places you work, shop, and relax. The apartment above the bakery needs the baker, who needs the dry cleaner across the street, who needs the resident who works at the office tower two blocks away. The park needs the people who live next to it. The bar needs the homes that are close enough to walk back to.

A city is a continuous field of integrated, necessary collisions.

To accept that a city is "just one damn thing next to another" means accepting that a barbershop should be next to a house, which should be next to a micro-brewery, which should be next to a light manufacturer. This messy, sometimes noisy, often unpredictable arrangement is the very engine of social and economic capital. It reduces commute times to a walk, supports local businesses through immediate, predictable patronage, and provides the "eyes on the street" necessary for safety.

The Tyranny of Euclidean Zoning

This is why Euclidean Zoning—the sacred text of American planning—is not merely inefficient; it is anti-urban.

By segregating all human functions into rigid, separate zones (Residential here, Commercial there, Industrial miles away), we systematically destroy the continuity and usefulness of the urban assemblage.

• When you zone a huge area to be exclusively residential monoculture, you force the inhabitants to get into a car to perform every single other function of life. These residents don't need their neighbors; they need jobs, groceries, and recreation.

• When you create enormous office parks or shopping enclaves, they become deserted husks for 16 hours a day because there are no residents, no theaters, and no messy "damn things" next to them to provide life and continuous activity.

This segregation isn't just about appearance; it's a political act that creates enclaves of luxury and isolation while actively engineering inconvenience and dependency on the automobile for everyone else. It replaces the complex, adaptive ecosystem of the city with a series of disconnected projects.

The Call for Urban Heresy

We must shed the bizarre belief that the ultimate goal is to separate everything. Yes, we must outlaw activities that are genuinely destructive or polluting (no noxious industry next to a school). But if a use is permissible anywhere in the city, we must question why it is not permissible everywhere.

The true urbanist philosophy is one of relaxed utility—a radical permission to mix. We do not need vast, multi-block "new urbanist developments" to prove the concept; we need the flexibility to let the baker open his shop under the new condos, to let the artist live above the old warehouse, and to let the city evolve naturally as an unpredictable, continuous chain of necessary places.

The future of a functional, equitable city lies in its willingness to be a messy, useful jumble—a continuous, flowing series of one damn thing right next to the other.