Anand Giridharadas

It’s election time, so once again cities are being maligned in American life as dens of iniquity and wastelands of disorder. Last night at the Brooklyn Public Library, I congratulated everyone for making it there through the gauntlet of these mean streets, and I talked about how cities should stand up for themselves: far from being the places so often caricatured, they have the challenges they do in part because they are holding the weight of so much intolerance and cruelty in other parts of this country, holding so many people who tried and failed to be accepted and cared for elsewhere.