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An evocative, candid reveal of the media and design worlds by an award-winning journalist and activist urban planner in search of the soul of cities and himself.
From the stoops of Brooklyn and the streets of East Harlem to the newsrooms of New York and Los Angeles, from the freeways of Southern California to the shores of Malibu, An Urban Odyssey traverses the award-winning author’s seven decades in the media and the public and private sectors, as well as his time teaching and advocating for a more, equitable, livable city. Here, Sam Hall Kaplan regales readers with personal tales of his time at the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and Fox Television, among others, interspersed with anecdotes of a host of the famed and ill-famed. A rollicking reveal of the vainglorious media and design worlds, candid and compelling.
“Kaplan lets his words speak for themselves… putting the emphasis on the people he met and places he experienced, as part of a long life devoted to improving architecture and urbanism for the greater public.”
— John Hill, Architecture Books
“An Urban Odyssey: A Critic’s Search for the Soul of Cities and Self is Kaplan's well-earned celebration of his own career and an uncannily comprehensive history of planning and development in Los Angeles. Kaplan's chops as a beat reporter and objective observer are undeniable. Kaplan holds forth on the good, bad, and absurd in land use with a well-earned authority.”
—Josh Stephens, California Planning & Development Report
“This is an engaging and highly readable memoir, written with the author’s characteristic acerbic wit. Whether or not one agrees with the author’s views on urban planning, his book offers a look at an extraordinary life, well lived.”
— Suzanne Guldimann, Topanga New Times
“A Zelig of urbanism, Kaplan has rubbed shoulders—and rankled egos—with seemingly every major player in modern urban design and architecture. His very enjoyable memoir outlines his consistent mission that planning and architecture need to serve the public. Kaplan has no fear of losing a job or access, as his first allegiance is to the greater community. He always considers the full scope of a building’s effect on its users—workers, builders, patrons—before any artistic gesture. Stalwartly writing his mind—paying no heed to trend or hype—Kaplan consistently maintains that if something looks good but isn’t user-friendly, then it isn’t architecture.”
— Julie D. Taylor, Hon. AIA/LA, Society of Architectural Historians/Southern California Chapter
“One of the finest journalists of his generation.”
— Tom Johnson, former CNN President & Publisher of the LA Times
“Unapologetic populist.”
— John Rabe, Award-winning radio host and producer
Sam Hall Kaplan is a renowned print and broadcast journalist, activist urban planner, and teacher, who in a seventy-year career has been a New York Times reporter, Los Angeles Times design critic, and Emmy Award-winning television commentator. His books include The Dream Deferred, L.A Lost & Found, and L.A. Follies.
Introduction
1. The Stoop, and City Beyond
2. Jobs and Bosses
3. Wide-Eyed and Bushy-Tailed
4. City Desk Diversions
5. Saint Jane of Planning
6. Good Times, Bad Times
7. Reality Bites
8. Dreams Deferred
9. Jumping Rock to Rock
10. Los Angeles Beckons
11. Welcome to the Land of Sunshine and Shadows
12. “L. A.’s The Place”
13. Persevering Preservation
14. Planning, for Better or Worse
15. The Art and Angst of Architecture
16. Moving On
17. Disney Hall and its Discontents
18. Critic at Bay
19. Tough Love Urban
20. Teaching as a Delight
21. Ever the Iconoclast
22. Community Planning Challenged
23. Critic Unbound
24. Reading Architecture
25. Misanthropic Malibu
26. The Fire and the Aftermath
27. Democracy’s Soft Underbelly
28. Going Forward
Afterthoughts
Index
About the Author