PositiveThe New Yorker\" ... Sennett is as passionate as ever about the richness and complexity of public life, by which he means urban life. In Building and Dwelling, he rejects the comforts of clearly defined communities, of anything that smacks too strongly of \'we\' ... This points to one of the book’s peculiarities, which is its elision of the political. Sennett is brilliant on cities with established histories but less convincing on more emergent states of urbanity ... Typically idealistic, typically urbane, it’s a sentiment that’s well-timed for the disputes of our day.\