YOUR CITY
SUCKS!
Fixing Soft Systems to Rebuild Hard Infrastructure
A provocative, data-driven exploration of why American cities are failing and a framework for how to fix them. By Seyi Fabode.
Inside the Book
Why Your City Is Broken
American cities face a $5.5 trillion infrastructure deficit, a loneliness epidemic, and governance systems designed for a world that no longer exists. This book connects the dots between crumbling bridges and crumbling communities.
The City as Organism
Cities aren't machines to be engineered — they're living organisms. When one system fails, the whole body suffers. This book maps the anatomy of urban failure and the path to recovery.
METRO City Scorecard
A comprehensive framework for measuring city health across Mobility, Economy, Technology, Resilience, and Opportunity — moving beyond GDP to capture what actually matters.
21 Laws for Better Cities
From 'The Law of Induced Demand' to 'The Law of the Missing Middle,' 21 actionable principles that can transform how we plan, build, and govern our urban spaces.
Chapter Guide
What You'll Discover
When A City Dies
From Mariupol to Tehran — what happens when cities reach the breaking point.
The City as Organism
Understanding cities as living systems, not machines.
Soft Systems
The invisible frameworks — governance, culture, trust — that make or break a city.
Hard Infrastructure
Roads, bridges, pipes, and wires: the $5.5 trillion crisis.
The METRO City Scorecard
A new framework for measuring what actually matters.
The Loneliness Epidemic
How car-centric design killed community and what to do about it.
Follow the Money
Municipal finance, property taxes, and the math of urban survival.
The Zoning Trap
How single-family zoning created the housing crisis.
The 21 Laws
Actionable principles for building cities that actually work.
Gallery
The Book in Detail
About the Author
Seyi Fabode
Seyi Fabode is a writer, strategist, and urban systems thinker with deep expertise in energy, infrastructure, and the intersection of technology and city governance. His work spans the worlds of utility innovation, urban planning, and data-driven policy analysis.
As the founder of Asha Labs, Seyi has spent years studying why cities fail and what it takes to fix them — not through grand top-down plans, but through understanding the soft systems (governance, culture, incentives) that determine whether hard infrastructure (roads, pipes, grids) actually gets built and maintained.
Your City Sucks! is the culmination of that research: a provocative, accessible, and deeply researched book that gives citizens, planners, and policymakers the language and frameworks to demand better from their cities.
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