The catalogue of forms is endless: until every shape has found its city, new cities will continue to be born. When the forms exhau...st their variety and come apart, the end of cities begins.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Traveling, you realize that differences are lost: each city takes to resembling all cities, places exchange their form, order, dis...tances, a shapeless dust cloud invades the continents.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For of fortunes sharp adversitee The worst kynde of infortune is this,... A man to han ben in prosperitee, And it remembren, whan it passed is.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Others built beautifully and well, but fell... to lie like a bleached hull; other sea-cities have faltered and striven with the tide.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Reformers have long observed city people loitering on busy corners, hanging around in candy stores and bars and drinking soda pop ...on stoops, and have passed a judgment, the gist of which is: "This is deplorable! If these people had decent homes and a more private or bosky outdoor place, they wouldn't be on the street!" That judgment represents a profound misunderstanding of cities. It makes no more sense than to drop in at a testimonial banquet in a hotel and conclude that if these people had wives who could cook, they would give their parties at home.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Cities need old buildings so badly it is probably impossible for vigorous streets and districts to grow without them.... for reall...y new ideas of any kind--no matter how ultimately profitable or otherwise successful some of them might prove to be--there is no leeway for such chancy trial, error and experimentation in the high-overhead economy of new construction. Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What if we fail to stop the erosion of cities by automobiles?... In that case America will hardly need to ponder a mystery that ha...s 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.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
But look what we have built ... low-income projects that become worse centers of delinquency, vandalism and general social hopeles...sness than the slums they were supposed to replace.... Cultural centers that are unable to support a good bookstore. Civic centers that are avoided by everyone but bums.... Promenades that go from no place to nowhere and have no promenaders. Expressways that eviscerate great cities. This is not the rebuilding of cities. This is the sacking of cities.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »