Words matter. Michael Sorkin knew this better than most. He could write circles around all of us and think and talk and muse twice as fast. A critic, architect, urban theorist, and educator, he pursued essential truths about our cities; he skewered self-serving power structures and advocated for humanistic policies and practices. His premature departure from his beloved, if unrepentant, Gotham leaves us with a library’s worth of profoundly influential words, but without the kind, charming, witty man who unleashed them, the brilliant polymath and proponent of an equitable, sustainable urban life. He leaves us — far too soon — with many extraordinary works. We were honored to publish with him.
