In Building and Dwelling: Ethics for the City, Richard Sennett approaches the question of how we should live in the city. Drawing upon two aspects of the city, the ville and the cité, the book promotes the virtues of an ‘open city’ that accepts and works with complexity, ambiguity and uncertainty. While John Tomaney finds this a learned and literate book rich in provocative metaphors and examples, the implications of today’s political and economic context, including the issue of inequality, upon its ethics of the city are underexplored.