In Welcome, Thinner City, the author challenges our preconceptions about the historical past, and about the state of our cities today. He shows, with a host of examples from several countries, that poor city dwellers can rehouse themselves, given the access to credit that the affluent take for granted. The experience of Italian cities is used to show the potential of a high-technology, small-workshop urban economy. While rooted thoroughly in the present, the book looks forward to the low-density, thinner and greener city of the twenty-first century. It is, in the author’s own words, a book that ‘supports no party and no programme, and is addressed to citizens of all parties and none, since an understanding of the issues involved in the crisis of the cities is a pre-requisite of citizenship