A border--the perimeter of a single massive or stretched-out use of territory--forms the edge of an area of 'ordinary' city. Often borders are thought of as passive objects, or matter-of-factly just as edges. However, a border exerts an active influence.

Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.

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

It may be that we have become so feckless as a people that we no longer care how things work but only the kind of quick, easy outer impression that they get.

Neighborhood is a word that has come to sound like a Valentine. As a sentimental concept, 'neighborhood' is harmful to city planning. It leads to attempts at warping city life into imitations of town or suburban life. Sentimentality plays with sweet intentions in place of good sense.

Maybe part of my animus against the English is the way they have always treated the Irish and they way they still think about the Irish.

People who think of themselves as exiles, I find, can never really put their lives together, really.