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Big City 2: Los Angeles: Detail (c)

Closing Perspective on the Big-City Experience

Cities are a rich concentration of information. New York and Los Angeles anchor the East and West Coasts as extreme examples of tall and sprawl, while most cities are less extreme with a combination of density and surrounding suburbs.

It is not too late to reconsider electric streetcars or green energy city buses. Over the fall of 2015, I was in one of the combination cities that is an example of tall and sprawl, with advanced transportation. When visiting Denver, Colorado, for a family wedding, I was delighted to see the Sixteenth Street Mall in action. The city permanently closed the street to cars in favor of pedestrians and free buses that run on ecofriendly compressed natural gas. The 1.25-mile "mall" has over three hundred stores and fifty restaurants. Denver also offers shared transportation via car2go smart cars throughout the city. People register to drive the cars fo...

I am pleased to share these graphics as well as the drawings from my travels around the world over the past three decades. The ink sketches are all from field observations drawn on fold-out sketch books, most of which are about seven feet long. Given that there are thousands of images in the numerous drawing books, I hope that you enjoy the work that I have included here from Asia, Eastern Europe, North America, Central America, and many other places. In many cases, the drawings document design and innovation that are not landmarks. Overall, I enjoy seeing and celebrating the extraordinary in the ordinary. About the illustrator and author: Charlie Szoradi is an architect, inventor, and sustainability professional. He is passionate...