In expressive prose and photographs, The Cities We Need reveals the powerful ways our everyday places support our shared belonging
Where would you take someone on a guided tour of your neighborhood? In The Cities We Need, photographer and urbanist Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani introduces us to the complex, political, and eminently personable stories of residents who answered this question in Brooklyn, New York, and Oakland, California. Their universal stories and Bendiner-Viani’s evocative images illuminate what’s at stake in our everyday places—from diners to churches to donut shops.
In fact, the narrative of The Cities We Need—and the central message that these everyday spaces are deeply meaningful, and increasingly at risk in our modern world—begins right on the front cover.
The black-and-white photograph on the cover of The Cities We Need is of the interior of a restaurant, with a woman standing at a counter on a landline phone with her back to the camera. A man sits at the counter, one hand poised over his plate of food and the other holding a newspaper open on his lap as he reads. The image was taken by Bendiner-Viani over 20 years ago in a diner in Brooklyn, New York called George’s—named after the two original owners, both of whom were named George.
In designing the physical object of the book, Bendiner-Viani knew this photograph was the perfect cover image from the start.
“This photograph has always stuck in my mind as one that felt core to what I was trying to do with my work,” she said. “It shows an everyday place, not fancy in any way—but it also shows something I loved about George’s, which was the counter. You could sit on a stool and talk to people behind the counter or to the people sitting next to you, with the waitstaff coming in and out. There was always movement and sound, and it was such a comfortable, real space for conversation.” So much of what George’s accomplished for its neighborhood, she said, had absolutely nothing to do with the food it served.
In keeping with the book’s effort to elevate the ordinary spaces in which we live our lives, the photo of the diner is carefully set on the cover; it’s centered in a clean, jewel-tone case, like a precious keepsake in a memory box. Even the typeface on the cover evokes richness with its dark mustard shade, verging on gold.
The careful attention to the cover setting also extends to the interior of the book itself.
“We spent a lot of time thinking about how to put the photographs and the text of the book on equal footing,” Bendiner-Viani said. “I wanted there to be a story you could experience by just looking at the photographs, or by just reading the oral histories. And of course, there is a different story present there by viewing both elements together.”
The photographs offer readers a moment to pause and reflect, while the text offers detail and richness to the story. Bendiner-Viani wanted the book to reflect the various rhythms of existing within, thinking about, or looking at cities. The overall effect of this care spent on interior design is that of a slow walk through a beloved neighborhood, alongside someone who knows every nook and cranny and feels a sense of belonging and community there.
Bendiner-Viani spent two decades researching and creating art for this project, and as it reached its final stages, time had already taken its toll on spaces featured in the book. George’s, the diner so lovingly depicted on the cover of The Cities We Need, went out of business in 2015 after decades as a hub of its neighborhood. The people featured in the photograph—who many neighbors were excited to identify when Bendiner-Viani shared the final product with the people she calls her “tour guides”—have moved on or away.
In many ways, George’s is a symbol of the book’s greater message. These seemingly unimportant places lay the foundation for a functional interconnected society, so necessary for both public health and social justice. And while The Cities We Need explores what we gain in these spaces, Bendiner-Viani also uncovers what we lose as spaces like George’s are threatened by gentrification, large-scale development, and most recently the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ultimately, Bendiner-Viani shows us how to understand ourselves as part of a shared society, with a shared fate; she shows us that everyday places can be the spaces of liberation in which we can build the cities we need.