Here's a bound volume of a magazine called The American City, A Monthly Review of Municipal Problems and Civic Betterment. It's from the Peru, Indiana library, where such things were once earnestly kept and pressed between hard covers and shelved. It's now 101 years old.
Who is it for? City managers.
Do you imagine that the urban (or even small town) architecture you take for granted simply grows from virtually nothing, like in The Great Walls of Samaris? The mayor and the legislature allocate money for the things every burg needs: streetlights, fire trucks, street sweepers, playground equipment, water fountains, and it's the city manager's job to get a good price for the stuff and make the necessary purchases.
The principle behind the ones I've seen appears to be swirling candy wrappers and stray Rite Aid flyers into an enormous dust devil from the gutter onto the sidewalk. Has the city manager done a good job of finding an efficient model street sweeper, or has he done a terrible job and these are lemons? How would you know?
Also, hygiene is a very important consideration in devising a playground for the young. They're the city's future, after all, and even if you're trying to save money, that concern is paramount:
"I live in a town where people think it's okay to let their dogs drink from the water fountains," I was about to write. Then I got a little closer to the back of the book.
