About City Guides
City Guides are compact, highly selective introductions to cities where I have lived or visited. Unlike traditional city guidebooks that endeavor to name all the popular sites and implicitly claim to provide an unbiased or objective view of the city, these simple guides are not in any way "definitive" but merely reflect one person's experience of the city. They are works in progress, still evolving and updated.
Perspective
Among other influences, my perspective has been indelibly shaped by my experience as a white, cisgender male, the only child in a family of middle class privilege, who came of age in the Southern California of the 1960s. I have tried to compensate in part for this inherent bias by engaging in conversations and visiting places that broaden and deepen my understanding of the varied ways the city's story can be experienced and told.
Content
The guides introduce the city as a place to navigate, to discover and to transform. The guides also include brief orientation and profiles sections.
The questions I bring to a city concern how this particular urban place awakens, nurtures or challenges the human spirit. I look for what it is that helps to define the city (the iconic places), as well places that capture the city’s story, that nourish the body (including restaurants and cafes) or expand the spirit by creating a sense of community (such as our public spaces, boulevards and parks). I am also interested in identifying organizations in the city that work for social justice in creative and compassionate ways.
Urban Issues
Cities today face significant challenges in addressing issues of racism, equity, discrimination based upon sexual identity, income disparity, homelessness, accessibility, gentrification, displacement and poverty. Almost all of these challenges have deep roots in the story of the city. As the guides evolve over time I hope to briefly explore how these most challenging issues are being engaged by a city and its neighborhoods.
Why the Guides are Written
In the end the guides represent simply one way to begin—or further—your exploration of the city being introduced. More significantly, the guides are written to inspire you the reader to reflect on how you might introduce the city where you live and how you are working to make that city a more just, sustainable and vibrant place for all urban residents.
I invite you to contact me with your thoughts, reflections or additions to the guides.
-- Stephen Schneider