As one of the most historically intact cities in North America, Newport, Rhode Island, has a cultural and architectural heritage of national significance. Each of the city's districts has its own distinct character with street plans and buildings revealing the political, religious, commercial, and artistic forces that have shaped Newport through the ages. Stately Colonial squares and bustling wharves, picturesque Victorian villas, and scenic drives, opulent Gilded Age palaces for the few and electric streetcars for the many, preservation movements to honor the past, and modernist schemes for a metropolis of the future all tell stories of urban beauty and controversy, of eras of lavish building, urban decay, and extraordinary revival.The Artful City is a richly illustrated portrait of the city from colonial times to the present, documented and celebrated in the maps, paintings, photographs, poetry, and prose of renowned artists and writers. This work is a highly readable illustrated history of one of America's most important physical and cultural entities.