I trained as a cellist and sound artist. In 1965 I began studying and writing about labor, community life and architecture in cities. I received a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1969. During the next decade I moved to New York, and became one of the founders of the New York Institute for the Humanities in 1976, From that time until the mid 1990s I taught at New York University. In 1997 I began to split my time between NYU and the London School of Economics. In 2004 I became also an advisor to the United Nations on urban development. When I retired from NYU in 2014, I devoted more time to the United Nations work. Today, old age has finally caught up with me — with one exception. I was able to help launch, and am chair of the trustees, of the London Centre for the Humanities, a sister organization to NYIH.