Antes todo esto era ciudad : Por qué la vida urbana se ha vuelto extraña y qué podemos hacer para transformarla

More and more people feel their city has become a hostile territory. Houses that are uninhabitable, prices that are unaffordable, spaces that can no longer be shared, even conversations that we are no longer able to have. Cities are ceasing to be communities where different people meet and are becoming products. Administrations, obsessed with international success, design strategies and brands to attract tourists and investors and forget to improve the daily lives of residents, foster fairer economic development, and facilitate accessible culture. Urban life is also affected by the blurring of the lines between the digital and physical worlds, polarization, loneliness, an aging population, and the environmental crisis. "This Was Once a City" is a critical analysis of the processes that are leading our cities down this path. But it is something more, perhaps much more: a nonconformist, courageous, and even rebellious book that proposes ideas and actions capable of transforming and improving the places we inhabit. At a time when the world seems immersed in an authoritarian, nationalist and individualistic storm, this essay defends the need to fight with firmness and hope in defense of that way of meeting and relating that we call "city".