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This discussion springs from the idea that human aspirations for the city - as expressed through visual images such as architectural drawings, three-dimensional models, maps, plats, and digitized computer images - tend to overstate the role of rationality in public life. Kenneth Kolson takes a unique approach in his exploration of the part serendipity plays in the urban experience, even organizing his book in such a way as to help demonstrate the subrational dynamics of urban life. Kolson illustrates his narrative of North American urbanism with examples of urban space that include Puritan ideals in Connecticut, the master plans for Paris, as well as L'Enfant's Washington, D.C., the architectural drawings of Burnham for downtown Cleveland, and Lloyd K. Townsend's renderings of the pre-Columbian human settlement at Cahokia. Inspired by the architectural and urban criticism of such writers as Lewis Mumford, Jane Jacobs and John Brinckerhoff Jackson, Kolson adopts a user's perspective on issues of urban design, an approach that highlights both the futility of social engineering and the resilience of the human spirit.