The mobile middle class gravitates to the cities where housing is affordable.

Glamour is translucent — not transparent, not opaque. It invites us into the world but it doesn’t give us a completely clear picture.

How we feel about the evolving future tells us who we are as individuals and as a civilization: Do we search for stasis-a regulated, engineered world? Or do we embrace dynamism-a world of constant creation, discovery, and competition?

Abundant choice doesn't force us to look for the absolute best of everything. It allows us to find the extremes in those things we really care about, whether that means great coffee, jeans cut wide across the hips, or a spouse who shares your zeal for mountaineering, Zen meditation, and science fiction.

European nations began World War I with a glamorous vision of war, only to be psychologically shattered by the realities of the trenches. The experience changed the way people referred to the glamour of battle; they treated it no longer as a positive quality but as a dangerous illusion.

In a dynamic, decentralized system of individual choice and responsibility, people do not have to trust any authority but their own.

At the simplest level, only people who know they do not know everything will be curious enough to find things out.