In Municipal Mind, Toronto's Poet Laureate offers a blueprint for building sustainable cities in a global era, predicated on city soul. By weaving bold and savvy strategies for urban creativity and civic prosperity, together with a reasoned appeal for mutual respect, understanding and interaction among citizens, he persuades us that Ð in the delicate balancing of universal values and individual needs Ð cities can do far, far better. Municipal Mind offers up a whole new way of civic being and thinking that puts wonder before commerce and nothing before human encounter.

Pier Giorgio Di Cicco was born in Arezzo, Italy, and was raised in Baltimore, Montreal, and Toronto. He currently resides in the countryside north of Toronto. He is the author of over thirteen books of poems from 1975 to 1986 including The Tough Romance, Dancing in the House Of Cards, Flying Deeper into the Century, and Virgin Science: Hunting Holistic Paradigms. He withdrew from the world of letters to join a monastery in 1986 and re-emerged in 2001 to publish Living in Paradise Ð New and Selected Poems with Mansfield Press. He has been the Emilio Goggio Visiting Professor in Italian-Canadian Studies at the University of Toronto, and in 2004 he was named as the Poet Laureate for the City of Toronto.

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This work is a beautifully crafted set of chatauquas that only a philosopher gifted with the power of poetry could deliver. It is an exhortation against the pathology of rules for the sake of control and an impassioned and eloquent plea for embracing the wonder of the random. Required reading for all citizens of the city.Ó (Ted Tyndorf, Chief Planner of the City of Toronto)