Robert H. Nelson has a wonderful review of Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World, by Robert Neuwirth. In this book Neuwirth investigates the large squatter areas in cities like Rio and Nairobi and finds them to be well-organized and much better places to live than one might think. Americans are so conditioned to believe that government and only government can make cities “livable.” Yet, as Nelson points out, it is the absence of government that makes things work in these places. Definitely worth reading.