Empires want [cities] only to trade with the empire, which doesn't help them at all. It's just a way of exploiting them.

Cities never flourish alone. They have to be trading with other cities. My new hypothesis shows why. But also in trading with each other they can't be in too different stages of development, and they can't copy one another.

Sentimentality about nature denatures everything it touches.

What if we fail to stop the erosion of cities by automobiles? ... In that case America will hardly need to ponder a mystery that has troubled men for millennia. What is the purpose of life? For us, the answer will be clear, established and for all practical purposes indisputable. The purpose of life is to produce and consume automobiles.

Intricate minglings of different uses in cities are not a form of chaos. On the contrary, they represent a complex and highly developed form of order.

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

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