Welcome to Shtot Magazine No.1, the first issue of a magazine from a group that explores the art, design, culture, and style of cities. To begin this journey, we’re looking at life in cities, from the things that we love about them to the things we want to change.

 

For the last century, the majority of people in the United States and Canada have lived in urban areas, and that century has been marked by incredible changes. Halfway through the century, the Environmental Protection Agency of the United States sent photographers across the continent in a project called Documerica. Photographers saw volunteers plant community gardens and litter collect on the sides of domineering freeways. While some specific challenges, like acid rain, have become less pronounced, our cities are still the same complicated places.

 

One hundred years of urban sprawl has pushed nature into smaller and smaller areas, and that growth has seemingly forced the natural environment and human settlement into becoming mutually exclusive entities. At the same time, cities are home to artists and builders who create spaces of intricate beauty. Communities are divided by freeways and brought together in public parks. Now, the next century of life in cities is about to begin, and we’re ready for it.