The public realm in America has two roles: it is the dwelling place of our civilization and our civic life, and it is the physical manifestation of the common good. When you degrade the public realm, you will automatically degrade the quality of your civic life and the character of all the enactments of your public life and communal life that take place there.

When a society is stressed, when it comes up against things that are hard to understand, you get a lot of delusional thinking.

At the heart of our misunderstanding and infantile behavior is the wish for a miracle cure.

Most of suburbia will end up in three ways: ruins, slums, salvage yards for materials.

Cities like Detroit exist because they occupy important sites. In the case of Detroit, it sits on a river between two great lakes - very important and strategic.

I believe our techno-zealotry will be moderated by sheer circumstance. We will do what reality compels us to do, not necessarily what our fantasies propose.

Societies get what they deserve, not what they expect.