Caliban’s Abode

PROSPERO: A devil, a born devil on whose unfortunate nature
Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains
Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost;
And as with age his body uglier grows,
So his mind cankers . . .

The Tempest

Celebrated as the cradle of civilization, the source of civility, change, and progress, the city has also been damned as the locus of evil, and for many Sodom and Gomorrah are still the archetypal urban communities. These themes run together with traditional political ideologies: liberals and radicals are generally favorable and conservatives take the dim view.

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