By now, more people around the world live in cities than in the country. What sort of hopes and dreams are bound up in the city? In what ways does the city influence everyday life as well as people?s relationships with the environment and their fellow human beings? Photographers from the Berlin agency Ostkreuz have investigated these questions. Ostkreuz represents a specific approach?namely, recognizing what is at the heart of things, depicting it, and keeping the pictures honest. The eighteen featured photographers portrait residents of Auroville, an urban utopia in India, the slums of Manila, and the center of a decaying Detroit. They document the city of Ordos in China, which was created on a drawing table, the artificiality of Dubai?s streets, and the bombed-out buildings in Gaza. The result is a portrait of a city that is all cities. (Hatje Cantz)