Cities Are Good for You : Bloomsbury : 9781408843482 : 140884348X : 24 Apr 2014 : The 21st century will be the age of the city. Already over 50% of the world population live in urban centres and over the coming decades this percentage will increase. Blending anecdote, fact and first hand encounters - from exploring the slums of Mumbai, to visiting roof-top farms in Brooklyn and attending secret dinner parties in Paris, to riding the bus in Latin America - Leo Hollis reveals that we have misunderstood how cities work for too long. Upending long-held assumptions and challenging accepted wisdom, he explores: why cities can never be rational, organised places; how we can walk in a crowd without bumping into people, and if we can design places that make people want to kiss; whether we have the right solution to the problem of the slums; how ants, slime mould and traffic jams can make us rethink congestion. And above all, the unexpected reasons why living in the city can make us fitter, ric