The geographer Alastair Bonnett laments a trend he’s noticed whereby our cities and towns look increasingly the same. He says our human places are being shaped into what he calls the “blandscape,” a global geography of monotony. In a new book, Bonnett leads a guided tour off the map of the blandscape to discover extraordinary locales that he says can relieve us from the dulling effects of the familiar and routine. He’ll join us to explore these places and to talk about their enchanting powers. (Rebroadcast)
Alastair Bonnett is a professor of social geography at Newcastle University. His new book is called Unruly Places: Lost Spaces, Secret Cities, and Other Inscrutable Geographies [Amazon|Indiebound]