(A special holiday-edition of the book photo from sunny Italy). This is one in a long list of book written by Alexander and collaborators about building and architecture. This book is essentially a case study in his building process adopted by a community in Mexico. Ultimately I think it's fair to say the project failed; in part due to the government. The thing I liked about this book is it showed "real-world" issues with the adoption of his process; insofar as not everyone engaged in the patterns and building process as he expected.

One interesting thing it has is a discussion of how to achieve his particular kind of building in a decentralised way; and it's quite practical and interesting. I think it's fun to see this kind of discussion, which is topical now, in a work that is quite old. That said, this book is probably not for you unless you happen to be particularly obsessed with Christopher Alexander and community-focused building.

This is a very interesting book. In part it's a discussion about gentrification, and what that looks like in a certain community; but it's also a discussion of racism, and the experiences of the black families.

One thing that hit me particularly hard was the observation that must participation in the local neighbourhood revolves around consumption. What I found challenging was to imagine how else it could be. And in particular, made me thoughtful of how, if I were to open a physical bookshop (as is my dream), I could make space for participation that doesn't require consumption.

In any case, I appreciated reading this for some interesting perspectives on how to think about urban planning and gentrification.

An interesting discussion around how cities are not constructed for the enjoyment of everyone, and are gendered in various ways. Also raises some interesting arguments around how hard it is to balance privileging different groups when deciding on improvements to urban infrastructure. Overall, I was left a bit unsatisfied and was hoping for a bit more exploration of some possible answers; but certainly would still recommend it to get motivated and understand the space of problems to solve!