I came across this essay just minutes after finishing up some work on the book I've been telling people I've been writing for the last year and a half. (I was writing on my iPad with Apple's wireless keyboard.) In it I have a little list of the enemies of humanity, people I need to remember to write about. On that list? Hitler. And Le Corbusier! Those are the only two on the list right now. This guy was pure evil. Read Amy's essay!

Thanks also to John Gruber at Daring Fireball – in my class at Drexel – who linked to Amy's most recent essay on the iPad. As an owner of the original Newton MessagePad – yes, the plain old MessagePad, not the MessagePad 100! – I really enjoyed that one too. (I've taken to saying, "It's a huge iPod Touch!" when people ask about mine.)

The important lesson is not that city planning is unimportant but, rather, that urban development should not be implemented by the public sector alone and that in a democracy, a vision of the future city will best emerge from the marketplace. (That it may turn out to be a messy vision, lacking a grand aesthetic, Jane Jacobs long ago acknowledged.)

Let people vote with their feet and their dollars unless there's a very good reason not to, and err on the side of doing as little as necessary.