Quotes About City

I'd left Hawaii twice in my life, so I'd been on an island my whole life. I had no clue. I didn't know how to live in a city.

I'm a farm boy from Connecticut, and I adopted urban life.

Being on the stage in New York is always exciting because you feel like you're part of the life of the city.

Even though New York may be a more inspiring city, I get more inspired thinking of L.A., in a way. My life there was so much more simple in mind, and quiet.

Jerusalem has been - and for many, still is - a metaphor for destruction and the vengeance of an offended God. She is the city where believers have killed unbelievers to give life to faith.

I think that chain stores in general are really super depressing and I think it really sucks the life out of a city such as San Francisco.

City people try to buy time as a rule, when they can, whereas country people are prepared to kill time, although both try to cherish in their mind's eye the notion of a better life ahead.

If you listen to Giuliani, it's like nobody did anything to improve the city except him. I'm not part of the history. Bloomberg's not part of the history. It's like, he did it. He's the only one. That's why he's a little crazy.

I was not afraid of the press or the militants. It was uncomfortable, but I was not afraid. With respect to the press, I knew I knew more than they knew about city matters. With respect to the militants, I understood it. I mean, everybody believed in those days that they were being screwed, you know, that somebody was getting ahead of them.

Citizens, thank you for all your birthday wishes. I am 88 years old today and still lucky to live in the greatest city in the world.

The tendency to think that a city can build itself out of decline is an example of the edifice error, the tendency to think that abundant new building leads to urban success. Successful cities typically do build, because economic vitality makes people willing to pay for space and builders are happy to accommodate. But building is the result, not the cause, of success. Overbuilding a declining city that already has more structures than it needs is nothing but folly.

The failures of urban renewal reflect a failure at all levels of government to realize that people, not structures, really determine a city's success.

Shiny new real estate may dress up a declining city, but it doesn't solve its underlying problems. The hallmark of declining cities is that they have too much housing and infrastructure relative to the strength of their economies. With all that supply of structure and so little demand, it makes no sense to use public money to build more supply. The folly of building-centric urban renewal reminds us that cities aren't structures; cities are people.

twentieth-century urban America didn't belong to the skyscraper; it belonged to the car.

Department of Energy data confirms that New York State's per capita energy consumption is next to last in the country, which largely reflects public transit use in New York City.

whether in London's ornate arcades or Rio's fractious favelas, whether in the high-rises of Hong Kong or the dusty workspaces of Dharavi, our culture, our prosperity, and our freedom are all ultimately gifts of people living, working, and thinking together—the ultimate triumph of the city.

Outside, in the pungency of the worn air, he sighed with premonitory tiredness. He locked the door, went up the steps, and headed for the subway that would take him to the upper West Side of town. He walked lightly and his face showed no awareness of all the thousands of people around him because he traveled in an eggshell through which came only subdued light and muffled sound.

In the US, the more liberal a city's politics, the higher the rate of inequality.

Edward R. Murrow

You can do what you like, sir, but I'll tell you this. New York is the true capital of America. Every New Yorker knows it, and by God, we always shall.

You have all these people in the city and everything has become centralized. If you live outside the city and you need a birth certificate or some official paper from the government, you have to travel to the city.

The dimple in his left cheek was ironic-it gave the impression that he was sweet as a cupcake. (Dark City Lights)

Dear teacher: My Wanda will not come to your school anymore. Jake also. Now we move away to big city. No more holler Polack. No more ask why funny name. Plenty of funny names in the big city. Yours truly, Jan Petronski.

But, poor little kid, it's too bad you should find it out - so soon." "Find out what?" "That the lonesomest place in all the world is in a crowd in a big city.