The uses of disorder: personal identity and city life

In Uses of Disorder, Richard Sennett shows how an excessively ordered community freezes adults into rigid attitudes that stifle personal growth. He argues that the accepted ideal of order generates patterns of behavior that are stultifying, narrow, and violence-prone. And he proposes a functioning city that can incorporate anarchy, diversity, and creative disorder to bring into being adults who can openly respond to and deal with the challenges of life.