The mixed chorus sang sweetly and earnestly when not too challenged but sounded overmatched in big climaxes.
The Economy of Cities (1969) discusses the importance of diversity to a city's prosperity, and it, too, challenged much of the conventional wisdom on urban planning.
Yet these three authors — who each have a new book coming out this month in what can only be described as a Seussian coincidence ("But, see! We are as good as you. Look! Now we have new books, too!") — challenged the conception of what a children's book should be.
Most bizarre is the defense department's new Operation Tribute to Freedom, initiated on Memorial Day weekend, which offers talking points to those citizens too challenged to figure out for themselves how "to demonstrate public appreciation for American men and women in uniform".
In those states, people feel neither too challenged nor too bored; they have an idea of exactly what to do and how to do it, and when they succeed they get unambiguous proof (explosions and triumphant noises, in the case of video games).
A budget of £12bn, financing the capital's tube and buses, its police, its fire brigade and responsible for the Olympic Games will, for at least the next four years, be in the hands of a man many believed to be too challenged to take control of one of the world's greatest cities.
