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.

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.

Cities are an immense laboratory of trial and error, failure and success, in city building and city design.

Traffic congestion is caused by vehicles, not by people in themselves.

You can't rely on bringing people downtown, you have to put them there.

There are still an awful lot of intelligent, clever constructive Americans and they are still doing clever constructive things.

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