I have posted your observations about Burning Man elsewhere, and heard objections that Black Rock City is nothing at all like a slum or shanty town. It seems very similar to me, but lacking a good sociological reference or set of definitions, I’m not sure what to say to critics of that particular angle in your essay.

Obviously, I couldn’t agree more, which is why cities themselves are one of our seven categories of tools on Worldchanging, and why most of our work turns on the pivot of metropolitan regions.

I think it’s worth remembering, though, that while some aspects of urban life seem pretty timeless — the pattern language sort of spatial aspects of human community — all of the rest is changing with a speed never before seen. It’s not just that most people live in cities; it’s that those cities are quickly becoming unrecognizable in multiple ways compared to the urban experience of even 30 years ago. And I think they’re just at the beginning of a curve of change brought on by three trends: 1) suffusing space with information, and place with networked connection to other places; 2) very real limits on energy and materials availability; 3) a growing post-industrial sense of the value of time and experiences.