One of my all-time favorite audiobook experiences was the fall when I was listening to Jane Jacobs’s urbanist classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities while walking around Seattle. Very often, the audiobook would describe something I was looking directly at on my walk, and it began to feel like an audio tour of Seattle’s best and worst urban planning.
In his book 20 Minutes in Manhattan, Michael Sorkin brings up Jacobs’s book very often—to the point that it feels a little bit like meeting someone who also took a class taught by your favorite teacher. Sorkin is deeply informed by Jacobs and he applies her thoughts on urban planning and public spaces throughout this book.
I borrowed 20 Minutes in Manhattan from the Seattle Public Library as soon as I heard the premise: The book supposedly examines New York City’s urban design through the lens of Sorkin’s 20-minute walking commute through Manhattan from his home to his office. The premise of a blend of Jane Jacobs and Nicholson Baker’s miniaturist masterpiece The Mezzanine was instantly compelling to me.
Unfortunately, the book doesn’t adhere to the premise as strictly as I would like. There are plenty of Baker-like digressions on elevator codes and other forces that shape city life, but the book is instead just organized in a series of essays, using the titular commute as a way to collect and shape the argument.
Sorkin has a lot to say, and he’s a fount of knowledge about the way cities are put together, but there was no narrative thread that pulled me through this one—instead, by the end, I was ready to be done with the book. Still, my biggest regret about 20 Minutes in Manhattan is that there doesn’t seem to be an audiobook version. I would have loved to take this book with me on my commute and engage with it in conversation about the similarities and differences we find in our two very different cities.
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