Ilya Varlamov has been talking about urbanism in his posts for years, urging mayors of various cities to listen to him. And Maxim Katz, better known as a politician and political blogger, actually did a lot together with Ilya on improvement and city-planning issues. In 2020 they joined forces and published a joint book, 100 Tips for a Mayor. So they wouldn’t have to repeat themselves over and over again, as the saying goes. It’s easier to write everything down once in a book and then hand it out as an instruction manual.
And the book really does contain exactly one hundred tips—one hundred chapters. Yes, some are a bit superficial, and at times there are small repetitions. But what won’t you do for a nice round number in the title.
At the same time, the authors chose a structured approach. The entire book is divided into several sections:
- Development
- Transport
- Public spaces
- Semi-public spaces
And many chapters are phrased explicitly as advice. For example, “Create mixed-use neighborhoods,” or “Don’t make one-way streets.” In each chapter-tip, they first develop and justify their idea, richly illustrating everything with photographs (so the book can easily be considered a photo album — there’s more photography here than text). After explaining the idea comes a section titled “How to do it right” — recommendations on the best approaches, as well as “Successful solutions” — examples of where, when, and by whom things were done well. More rarely there’s a chapter “Where this has been done here” (meaning in Russia, of course). Yes, there aren’t many success stories in the authors’ home country, but each one shows that with the will to do it, it can be done.
Both Ilya and Max have been interested and involved in urbanism for many years, and Ilya Varlamov is even an architect by training. They don’t just theorize — they actively work on improving urban environments in Russian cities (for example, they brought in international experts to prevent, in their view, unsuccessful redevelopment projects of Moscow’s transport network).
Because of this, the book feels deeply immersed in the subject, full of genuine concern and engagement. But personally, I can’t evaluate all these recommendations professionally. As an ordinary city resident, though, I probably agree with many of their ideas. Not all of them — but at the very least, I can clearly see why the authors consider those ideas the right ones.
And I think if mayors of all cities followed even half the advice in this book, our cities would definitely become not only more comfortable to live in, but also more aesthetically interesting.
However, if we evaluate the book as a book rather than a handbook for municipal officials, the initial excitement fades somewhere around the middle. As I already mentioned, you start noticing some repetition, certain chapters feel less obvious or less engaging. At times, they even come across as somewhat contrived.
That’s probably why my final verdict ended up being closer to “well, overall it’s fine.” But I would genuinely recommend this book to many people who work on public spaces or build transport systems.
I also caught myself thinking that some of the ideas go beyond the urban environment altogether and offer a new way of looking at how spaces are organized — even office spaces. You stop thinking in terms of “I need to seat 50 people here” and start thinking “how do I make this space comfortable for 50 people?”
So even though my rating isn’t “wow, amazing!”, the book is solid and genuinely interesting.
My rating: 3/5
