Intimate City by Michael Kimmelman and Manjima Bhattacharjya

Intimate City is a joyful miscellany of people seeing things in the urban landscape, the streets alive with remembrances and ideas even when those streets are relatively empty. Designed to be more personal than a history book, more rooted in the past than a guidebook and more packed with building lore than a conversation could be, these conversations—between New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman and various knowledgeable companions who know the city well—become anchors for millions of Times readers during the COVID pandemic. интимсити

A kaleidoscopic portrait of an enduring metropolis, the walks —which include new strolls through LGBTQ Greenwich Village, Forest Hills, Queens and Mott Haven, the Bronx—showcase how the city continues to evolve as it grapples with new conditions and old anxieties. They reveal why New York, despite the pandemic and a long history of other calamities, is still a place that inspires and means so much to countless people around the world.

The first step in achieving intimacy is recognizing that you need it. Then you can work towards building a strong emotional bond. This can be done through open communication, spending time together doing activities you both enjoy, and engaging in self-care. It can also be helpful to learn more about yourself and your partner through the art of journaling.

Manjima Bhattacharjya, whose groundbreaking research into the globalization of sexual commerce earned her a MacArthur Fellowship, examines how the city is reconfigured through the shifting geography of red light areas, massage boys and men in search of casual encounters cruising internet highways. She explores offline and online geographies of sex work and reveals voices never before heard, providing a lens for revisiting long-held feminist understandings of the city and its role in society.

Developing intimacy is a process that takes time. Intimate relationships usually don’t appear overnight, and a lack of intimacy can negatively affect the quality of your life. Often, people who struggle with intimacy find themselves in a pattern of avoidance or silence in their relationships. They might even blame themselves for the lack of closeness. Intimacy is an important part of a healthy relationship, but it can be difficult to achieve without some guidance.

A new era of social and physical isolation has accelerated in the wake of the pandemic, with many expressing anxiety over the future of the city as a place for both intimate encounters and societal growth. Amid this climate of fear, intimacycity is a timely reminder that cities are the perfect places to discover both the joys and the risks of intimacy, both within ourselves and between different cultures.

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