Boston has persevered through the bad old days to thrive, and more, to make a kind of statement about the good city. The good city is innovative and fun, it is prosperous, it strives for justice and sustainability, but above all, it is alive. -From the Introduction by Paul Grogan

The Good City presents a vivid new profile of Boston through the work of fifteen of the city's finest writers.

Robert Campbell and Jane Holtz Kay on Boston's embrace of lively urban density
James Miller on the city's intellectual history
Jack Beatty on Boston's colorful political past and present
Patricia Powell on the literary landscape and the immigrant experience
Susan Orlean on the city she left and now loves
John Hanson Mitchell on how nature revives the metropolis
Anita Diamant on Boston as a spiritual home
Scott Kirsner on Boston as a powerhouse of scientific and technological innovation
Alan Chong on the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the arts in Boston
Lynda Morgenroth on the city's neighborhoods
Michael Patrick MacDonald on gentrification and what it means to old neighborhoods like Southie
Derrick Jackson on Boston as a laboratory for advancing race relations
Howard Bryant on the city's obsession with sports
Irene Smalls on seeing the city through the eyes of a child.