The theory of "City Comforts" -- in a nutshell: "Brilliance innovates, genius borrows."

STICKS & STONES asks

What's wrong with a Carnegie Hall knockoff?:

If getting great concert-hall sound is so difficult in modern halls, asks Drew McManus, maestro of Adaptistration here in AJblogland, why not just build new halls just like the great old ones?

Great question. But the offered answers (about why it cannot be done) are not very convincing at all. They are merely factors. Sure, maybe you can't do it nail-for-nail, but it still seems as if you can do it fairly closely. Why this mad impulse to innovate when we have tremendously good models of 'what works' all around us? I'll tell you: pure human vanity and pretense. Of course the desire to "play" is at work as well; and that is a worthy element of life (Homo ludens) and we should generally let it flow full-force, but not when it comes to elements of a common realm i.e. the city.

"Brilliance innovates, genius borrows."

Brilliance is cutting-edge; Genius stands on the shoulders of the past.