Nonfiction. " This book celebrates the fact that we live in the most glorious of all human creations, a city, with living streets, more like ancient Athens or Samarkhand or Calcutta than like the aggregate office block/parking lot/shopping malls that once were modern American cities and still bear their names. Read it to understand why San Francisco is still alive - and how we have to defend it"-Joan Holden, San Francisco Mime Troupe.