But look what we have built ... This is not the rebuilding of cities. This is the sacking of cities.

[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.

It is hopeless to try to convert some borders into seams.

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.

People must take a modicum of public responsibility for each other even if they have no ties to each other.

One of our troubles is that we try to make municipalities that are totally different from each other all act as if they were the same kind of creature, with the same kinds of possibilities.

Erosion of cities or attrition of automobiles?