John Kenneth Galbraith - Idea of the City

Shooting of much of THE IDEA OF THE CITY took place on location at Northwestern University, in Professor Galbraith's study in Cambridge, in New York and in Washington over several weeks. THE IDEA OF THE CITY is both anti-documentary and anti-lecture. Tracing the historical transition from the pre-industrial to the industrial city, Professor Galbraith explores the nature and the consequence of commitment to "economic efficiency" and its measurement by financial return to private owners. The forces already reshaping our cities are diagnosed, and a new, organic conception of the modern city is developed.
Professor Galbraith's ideas appear, flow, confront each other and the viewer, resolve and re-form in the sequence and manner of their own logic and urgency. The terrain is Galbraith himself as he traverses the city; his mind;, his style, his persona. The viewer in fact becomes the co-creator of the event and a participant-observer in it. He develops his own perception and awareness of THE IDEA OF THE CITY in dialogue with Galbraith.