Some men tend to cling to old intellectual excitements, just as some belles, when they are old ladies, still cling to the fashions and coiffures of their exciting youth.

[Cities] are not like suburbs, only denser. They differ from towns and suburbs in basic ways, and one of these is that cities are, by definition, full of strangers.

Americans have got it so dinged into them that they are the most fortunate people on Earth, and that the rest of the world - the sooner it copies what America is like, the better.

We've got a [Canadian] prime minister who seems to be intent on destroying our health system and education system. But I have gotten a thicker skin. I can get angry about these things without feeling like vomiting, if you know what I mean.

observation of realities has never, to put it mildly, been one of the strengths of economic development theory.

Nothing is so clear in history that is it happens for any one thing. It seems that a lot of things come together to make great changes.

The second mode to deal with unsafe cities is to take refuge in vehicles. This is the technique practiced in the big wild-animal reservations of Africa, where tourists are warned to leave their cars under no circumstances until they reach a lodge. It is also the technique practiced in Los Angeles.