Ebert on Urbanized

The Chicago Sun-Times's Roger Ebert recently reviewed Urbanized, the new documentary by Gary Hustwit of Helvetica and Objectified fame. The movie explores urban design--Ebert doesn't mention LA (and in fact LA Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne wrote that the city was largely ignored in the film), but in his review he trumps up his hometown of Chicago as living proof of good planning while taking a few jabs at New York (how Second City of him). Ebert says that twentieth-century planner Jane Jacobs, with her appreciation for livable, mixed-use neighborhoods, comes out the hero in Urbanized. Regarding mixed-use, Ebert writes, "My own recent obsession has been with the invasion of soulless cookie-cooker branch bank offices, mobile phone stores and other sterile pests that crowd out shops, restaurants, and ordinary human activities." Sound familiar? [Chicago Sun-Times]