I think that things are going to change just because people get too damn bored with what they have.

Intricate minglings of different uses in cities are not a form of chaos. On the contrary, they represent a complex and highly developed form of order.

I think that intelligent people to a great extent are captives of their time or place.

Empires want [cities] only to trade with the empire, which doesn't help them at all. It's just a way of exploiting them.

In trading with each other cities can't be in too different stages of development, and they can't copy one another. Backward cities, or younger cities, or newly forming cities in supply regions, have to develop to a great extent on one another's shoulders. This is one of the terrible things about empires. Empires want them only to trade with the empire, which doesn't help them at all. It's just a way of exploiting them.

Cities never flourish alone. They have to be trading with other cities.

Some of the large [municipalities] in Quebec can contain within them most of the answers to their own practical problems. And so lots of different possibilities for doing things in a practical and different way become available.