Unity, like so many good things, is good only in moderation.

You don't get new products and services out of sameness.

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

Credentialing, not education, has become the primary business of North American universities.

In small settlements everyone knows your affairs. In the city everyone does not-only those you choose to tell will know about you. This is one of the attributes of cities that is precious to most city people.

Lowly, unpurposeful and random as they may appear, sidewalk contacts are the small change from which a city's wealth of public life may grow.

It may be that we have become so feckless as a people that we no longer care how things do work, but only what kind of quick, easy outer impression they give. If so, there is little hope for our cities or probably for much else in our society. But I do not think this is so.