To describe Stephen Friedman as a PhD. and professor of environmental and social psychology, and leave it at that, would be laughable. As a spinner of very tall tales and fantastical short stories, he surprised and amused us with his rich inner life. As a dear friend and honorary Schoolworks philosopher, his dry wit and off-beat wisdom infused our design language and conceptual frameworks; he made us think better.

Just over a year before his untimely death in 1990, he left us with a book - "City Moves; A User's Guide to the Way Cities Work", in which he presents his cogent thoughts about the essence of cities - what makes them the way they are and how we behave in them.

We offer it here in a section called "Growing Places", not only to honor Stephen's memory, but so that it might give those of you who don't live in cities, some insight into the predominantly urban outlook of the work done by Schoolworks shown in the web site. For those of us for whom cities are the soil that nourishes us and gives us energy, City Moves can help parse the experience of everyday life and place it in a broader context - a context of "understanding and delight".

Published by McGraw-Hill Available at AbeBooks.com ISBN 0070224315

Excerpt from last Page:

In the final analysis, we all have our own moves for dealing with the ciy, those strategies that we use every day in the landscape of urban America. If the Oxford English Dictionary includes in its definition of Move "a proposal or motion, a change of house or place of sojourn, the changing of the position of a piece in the course of a game, a device or trick or action calculated to secure some end, to shake or disturb," then what are the Moves that you make? All those things - books, observations, trips, information, images, and metaphors - that help you think about cities in new ways that bring both understanding and delight.

The author of "City Moves" would be grateful for your sharing some favorite strategies... And remember, just like the moves presented in this book, your suggestions can be highly specific and make reference to a particular city, or they can be more general strategies that are helpful in a wide variety of urban settings. It may be helpful to think about the situation where you're faced with the task of acquainting a visitor with urban America. Not all of it, but just that part of the scene that you find most interesting and intriguing. How would you go about doing it? How do YOU go about doing it, since everyone has undoubtedly found himself or herself in this position at one time or another.

There's the possibility of a sequel - something like "Son of City Moves Returns" or maybe a series of radio and television spots, a key club, a breakfast cereal, perhaps a T-shirt, or maybe even a Broadway show with with a big orchestra in the pit? And then there's all that computer software. Like almost everything else in urban life, city Moves are nothing if not ambitious in their aspirations. We see this as soon a we go to the top of a tall building and look down (Move#1).

This is the part you write. It's your Move....