Though I miss the days when a great new piece of non-fiction that I was DYING to read came out what seemed like every month – I admit, after a little trip down memory lane while grabbing those last links, I’m sorely tempted to change the topic of this post to ramble on about how much I loved Super Specials, which twin you liked better, and favorite fictional characters (I’m sure I was a Mary Anne, but I WANTED to be a Dawn, you?) – I like to mix it up with some non-fiction these days. Saving 1980’s serial fiction for another day, here are a few of my favorites with regards to cities, human nature, and business (I have much nerdier business book recommendations, these were just the ones I thought could interest those who don't actually enjoy geeking out on entrepreneurial theory). My CliffsNotes/commentary are free! Don't whip out your library cards all at once, now.

Starting with social science-ish, then into business and cities....

Traffic, Tom Vanderbilt
At times he hits you over the head with repeat information, but your mind will be blown when you realize how obvious it is that streets are safer with fewer signs and more comingling of pedestrians, automobiles, and cyclists. (HT to my dad for the recommendation.)

Anything by Malcolm Gladwell
Seriously, anything. Blink, The Tipping Point, Outliers, What the Dog Saw. Always a fascinating read.

Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Ditto.

Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert
Think you know what makes you happy? According to Daniel Gilbert, you’re probably wrong.

How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie
Yes, seriously. This book changed my life. Not only is it applicable to business, but somewhere between reading this book and some other stuff I was reading at the time, I finally got the message that being right or getting your way isn’t always the number one goal in life. You could be the smartest, most right-est person ever, but does it matter if your coworkers hate you and you alienate your friends and family? I’m not saying to be a pushover or not stand up for something you truly believe in (by all means, stand by your rightness if your spouse is verbally abusing you or your boss wants you to do something unethical). But chances are, there will be very few instances where someone else admits that you’re right, and all you do is kill your work or personal relationships. It’s like when someone steps out in front of a speeding car and says “They won’t hit me, they’ll go to jail.” Sure, that may be absolutely true. But if you’re dead, how much does that matter? Besides, people tend to listen to your side more often when they like you and think you are reasonable.

Paul Graham's Essays
As much as I hated research papers in school, when I find a topic of interest or a writer I like, I tend to spend hours (okay, days, sometimes months...) obsessively consuming every related piece of information I can find. One recent binge was sparked by a tip-off to entrepreneur/investor/programmer Paul Graham’s essays on startups, investing, and business in general. While some of the essays are quite long, they’re very well written, not dry in the least, and offer some unique insights. (One in particular, “Any really good new idea will seem bad to most people; otherwise someone would already be doing it” I repeat like a mantra to myself. Then again, bad ideas also seem bad to most people....) Here are a few of my favorites:

• The Trouble With Segway
  Is the Segway not more popular because you look like a lazy dork riding one? This is probably the most humorous of Graham’s articles.
• How Not to Die
  Will your business make you rich if you can just hang in there – “not die” – long enough?
• Subject: AirBNB
  Real emails about whether or not to invest in airbnb (now famously backed by a fortune). Best remark: “Our two junior team members were enthusiastic. The three "old guys" didn't get it.”
• Trolls
  “When someone is being an asshole it's usually uncertain even in their own mind how much is deliberate. That is arguably one of the defining qualities of an asshole.”
• Are software patents evil?
  This you may only find worthwhile if you have a particular interest in patents, which I happen to at the moment, but it also has some theories on the way big businesses think about startups. Best quote: “Fortunately for startups, big companies are extremely good at denial. If you take the trouble to attack them from an oblique angle, they'll meet you half-way and maneuver to keep you in their blind spot. To sue a startup would mean admitting it was dangerous, and that often means seeing something the big company doesn't want to see.”
• Cities and Ambition
  What message does your city send? “Some people know at 16 what sort of work they're going to do, but in most ambitious kids, ambition seems to precede anything specific to be ambitious about. They know they want to do something great. They just haven't decided yet whether they're going to be a rock star or a brain surgeon. There's nothing wrong with that. But it means if you have this most common type of ambition, you'll probably have to figure out where to live by trial and error. You'll probably have to find the city where you feel at home to know what sort of ambition you have.”
• Can You Buy a Silicon Valley? Maybe.
  Can you manufacture the next Silicon Valley in your city? (This makes me think, in particular, of Cincinnati’s economic development efforts and whether or not they’ll work.)
• Why Startup Hubs Work

Triumph of the City, Edward Gleaser; and Richard Florida’s Books (Who’s Your City, The Rise of the Creative Class, The Flight of the Creative Class, The Great Reset)
I’m embarrassed to say that it’s tough for me to sort out these books (with the exception of The Great Reset) because they use a lot of the same research, they just each go in a slightly different direction. However, they are each worth a read if you like interesting insights on cities (i.e., living in a city is actually better for the environment than living in the country or the suburbs; theories on whether there’s a point to trying to “save” cities, especially those in the Rust Belt, or if their life cycle is just over). I mentioned Who’s Your City in a previous post. The unfortunate thing about Florida’s books is that their topics sound so promising but they aren’t very well executed. The writing is just a bit too term-paperish for me. I enjoyed The Great Reset the most – it was a quick read and didn’t feel weighed down by extraneous information like the others. I was also intrigued by the argument that the economy could be helped by reducing the size of the financial sector. Not because money traders are greedy bastards, as the Occupy movement would argue, but because, he says, it’s meant to serve other sectors, not be its own, and it hurts economic advancement by pulling the brightest minds away from more innovative careers such as engineering. He supports this with this quote from NYU economist, Nouriel Roubini, describing the possible positive outcome of the financial bubble bursting: “When you have more financial engineers than computer engineers, you know that the brightest minds have gone into something where, probably, the margin was excessive. Maybe some of these bright people are going to do something entrepreneurial, more creative, or go into government. I think that’s actually a good change.”

Devil in the White City, Erik Larson
The title of this is a big misleading, since the story doesn’t revolve around the “Devil” in question (H.H. Holmes, a serial killer who once lived in Chicago) as much as one might think. It primarily follows the planning and execution of the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago and tells Holmes’ story in parallel. The language is flowery and it can be a bit plodding at times, but it’s a pretty good read, with lots of interesting historical details that would have been boring had they come in textbook-form. My favorite still-relevant-today quote (it was a “matter of chronic anger” for me, too, when I did design...I guess modern jobs didn’t invent the moving target): "Suppose that you had been commissioned to build a really grand opera house; that after the construction work had been nearly completed and your scheme of decoration fully designed you should be instructed that the building was to be used on Sundays as a Baptist Tabernacle, and that suitable place must be made for a huge organ, a pulpit and a dipping pool. Then at intervals afterwards, you should be advised that it must be so refitted and furnished that parts of it could be used for a court room, a jail, a concert hall, hotel, skating rink, for surgical cliniques, for a circus, dog show, drill room, ball room, railway station and shot tower? [That] is what is nearly always going on with public parks. Pardon me if I overwhelm you; it is a matter of chronic anger with me." -Frederick Law Olmsted, the "father of American landscape architecture" and co-designer of Central Park, in a letter to architect Henry Van Brunt.

In the city, traffic is overhyped. Sure, it can be bad, but even after living here for over a year – and visiting countless times before that – the worst traffic I’ve ever been in in my life was still in Newport, Kentucky...population: 15k - that’s 1/200th of the population of Chicago, for you number crunchers. (Sidelight: While sitting there, we were rear-ended – by someone going all of about three mph – and when the driver got out to inspect the bumpers, he invited us to a kegger. Our reply: “No thanks, we’re 28.”)

In the suburbs, there just aren’t as many people to be out on the roads. But they all want to be on the roads at the SAME DAMN TIME AS ME.

In the city, you don’t even need to drive as much anyways. That’s why you choose your neighborhood wisely. I don’t need to drive to get to the beach, the zoo, my favorite restaurant – or 20 others nearby – the post office, the library, the movie theater, the bank, the park, or a coffee shop: they’re all within walking distance.

In the suburbs, I’ve known people who won’t walk to their own mailbox.

In the city, I’m still awed by the scale of the landscape. You can you walk to most places, but if you CAN’T walk there, it’s probably not a place that you frequent. I live only three miles from downtown and the “Magnificent Mile,” yet going there is a well thought-out expedition. Most of my friends live within 2-3 miles of me, yet I only see them maybe once a month. And going to the suburbs of Chicago? Well, you’d better have a damn good reason and an entire day to devote to the outing. A suburb in Chicago is like that next casino on the Vegas Strip: it looks close, but it takes forever to get there.

In the suburbs, you’ll go more than three miles just to get to the cheapest gas station.

In the city, the street grid system is a beautiful thing. Not that I’d ever move someplace for that reason, but it’s an underrated bonus. I hadn’t lived here long when I realized that I wasn’t worried about getting lost at all when I turned down a different street on my walk home. For runners (or walkers), it’s easy to know how many miles you’ve gone just by counting blocks.

In the city, we’ve also got 18 miles of lakefront trails if you want a change of scenery.

In the city, not only can you walk to almost everything you need on a daily basis, there’s never a shortage of things to do or – when you live in a place that’s actually a destination for so many people – shortage of people to do them with. However, you’re not the only one who thinks living near all this is a good idea...

In the suburbs, it doesn’t cost you your first-born to buy a single-family home. And, as much of a pain as it became in the end, I do miss owning the place I reside in and residing in the place I own.

In the suburbs, central air and dishwashers are not luxury add-ons.

In the city, public transportation is a viable option for many trips. One thing I love about Chicago specifically is that you can use public transportation equally as much as you can drive (unlike New York City, where no sane person owns a car; or Los Angeles where everyone drives everywhere, at all hours of the day, every day of the week, all the time). There are real grocery stores and Home Depots and shopping centers with actual parking lots.

In the suburbs, people warn you about places that have a bus stop. The poor people might get you if you live too close to a bus stop! On the other hand...

In the city, public transportation isn’t always as great as it seems to be. If you were always late before, wait until you have to deal with a bus or a train schedule. The bus you need is never running at the time you need it. The place you need to go is in a train dead zone. Or you have to take three buses and two trains to get there. So you drive, but...

In the city, there’s no place to park. And even when you find a spot, you have to be two steps ahead of the ticket-givers. Whatever it is that you think they won’t ticket you for, they will. Buying a resident pass for your ward helps, but they’re only enforced at certain times of the day (or, rather, at night, as is usually the case), and it hardly makes a difference if seven people are illegally parked on your street anyhow. So when contemplating going somewhere that involves driving, my argument usually goes like this: Oh, it’s not a bad drive there. But parking could be terrible. Or it might be fine. But what if it’s so bad that I drive around for hours and hours and never find a spot? Then I’ve just wasted time and gas. So I’ll just stay at home. Contrary to the fact that there's a ton to do in a city - and the belief that, because of that, if you live there, you party every night - for me, it actually makes for a lot of evenings in.

In the city, a middle-aged man riding to work on a bike rides among the other eco-friendly or health-conscious city dwellers.

In the suburbs, a middle-aged man riding to work on a bike has a DUI.

In the city, you’re always surrounded by people. This is a positive for me, but it’s hard to explain if you don’t like the feeling of people being around. The weirdest thing is – while I’m a social person and at no point in my life would I have ever considered myself a “loner” at all - I love being alone. I enjoy living alone and I like being around people when I want to be and not a moment more. I was like this even as a kid. I can remember being maybe eight and being torn because while I was happy my best friend was sleeping over, I also just kind of wanted her to go away so I could read a book (though I’m not still in touch with her to confirm, I think she knew this and was remarkably cool about it for that age). In any case, what’s weird about it is that I LOVE the feeling of people being around all the time. I think it’s because I always feel part of something; never lonesome. It’s as close as I can get to the feeling of being in college again, where you and everyone around you automatically had something in common. On the other hand, people are always around you. Even when they’re drunk and shouting outside of your window at 2am. Even when they’re the neighbors below you, blasting music and slamming doors. Even when it’s the kids across the street, screaming non-stop for hours for no apparent reason while their parents pretend they can’t hear.

In the suburbs...well, I’ve had my fair share of obnoxious neighbors there as well. At least in a suburb there are usually more opportunities to put space between you and the offenders. There’s no such thing as acreage in the city...unless you’ve got enough money to buy out and bulldoze a small neighborhood to make your own.

In the city, four-year olds compete with other four-year-olds in interviews to get into THE School so they’re not shut out of an academic career.

In the suburbs, four-year-olds compete with other four-year-olds to get on THE Football Team so they’re not shut out of an athletic career.

In the city, you have access to almost every kind of resource you can imagine. Sport leagues, social clubs, business organizations...if there's not already a Chicago chapter, you’re certain to find enough like-minded people here to start one. When I first moved here, I was most excited about the business opportunities – tons of startups come out of Chicago, right? – but what I didn’t previously consider is what makes me most sad when I think about living somewhere else: giving up access to resources that I just can’t enjoy remotely and may never be able to take part in again, at least not on a regular basis. I’ve trained with three separate organizations up here in circus arts, for instance, and other locations are somewhat limited in their offerings (by that I mean, limited to a number of zero).

In the suburbs, there are business resources to be found if you know where to look, and there is far less competition for them – tons of startups come out of Chicago, right? When I tell other entrepreneurs who have worked both in Chicago and smaller regions that I feel like business connections in Chicago are less interested in me and my business than they are in a place like Dayton, they confirm having similar experiences. These businesses have found success by starting someplace other than Chicago and coming back to the city once they’ve gotten some footing in their business.

As I've discussed previously, perhaps there’s no place that has the perfect confluence of resources and respite, individuality and belonging. If I could live in a suburban neighborhood where my Chicago neighborhood was just two blocks around the corner, I would. Evanston, IL, just on the north edge of Chicago, probably comes closest to this “cityburbs” description (though see above about having to sell your first-born to live there).  Smaller cities that are trendy, quirky, or have an angle that makes them special, like Austin, Texas,or Portland, Oregon (or anyone who flies the “Keep ____ Weird” banner), also likely have areas that fit the bill. Hell, even Indianapolis or Columbus or any number of other Midwest cities might be in the game if they had a unique vibe to set them apart. Keep Hinckley Weird, anyone?