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Where would you take someone on a guided tour of your neighborhood? In The Cities We Need (MIT Press, 2024), photographer and urbanist Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani ’98 introduces us to the stories—at once political, complex, and eminently personable—of residents who answered this question in Brooklyn, New York, and Oakland, California. Their universal stories and Bendiner-Viani's evocative images illuminate what's at stake in our everyday places—from diners to churches to doughnut shops. In this culmination of two decades of research and art practice, Bendiner-Viani intertwines the personal, historical, and photographic to present us with placework, the way that unassuming places foster a sense of belonging and, in fact, do the essential work of helping us become communities.

In this unique book, Bendiner-Viani makes visible the ways in which seemingly unimportant places can lay the foundation for a functional interconnected society, so necessary for both public health and social justice. The Cities We Need explores both what we gain in these spaces and what we risk losing as they are threatened by gentrification, large-scale development, and, most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. Ultimately, Bendiner-Viani shows us how to understand ourselves as part of a shared society with a shared fate; she shows us that everyday places can be the spaces of liberation in which we can build the cities we need.