How to Build a City

'A thoughtful, open-hearted, deeply reported book about what we need to live. In How To Build A City, Bennett roams the world in search of answers to some of the most profound questions of our present and our future' - CAL FLYN A moveable city in the Arctic Circle. Tower blocks tackling loneliness in Tokyo. Helsinki's sprawling underground metropolis. And Ukraine's bomb-resistant bedrooms. These places, and many more, are among the strange and dazzling solutions responding to our uncertain world. Gabriella Bennett takes readers on a globe-trotting journey to learn how we are reimagining home and embracing the challenges of contemporary living. From political instability to wildfires, flooding and an increased pressure on materials and space, the built environment is under threat like never before. It must change - and it is. We'll travel to the frontier cities of this urban revolution and discover how people are transforming their communities in surprising ways. Celebrating human ingenuity and resilience, How to Build a City is a remarkable investigation into where we'll live and why it matters.

Gabriella Bennett is a journalist specialising in housing, architecture, travel and design. She writes a weekly column for The Times and her broadcasting credits include This Morning, Countryfile and Debate Night. In 2021 she was named Travel Writer of the Year at the Scottish Press Awards and Regional Journalist of the Year at the UK Property Press Awards for her investigations into the cladding crisis. She lives in Perthshire.