Quotes About Community

You are important—not because you're rich, but because you are human.

People who live in monofunctional, car-dependent neighborhoods outside of urban centers are much less trusting of other people than people who live in walkable neighborhoods where housing is mixed with shops, services, and places to work.

There is no single answer to any problem in the city. The solution comes from a multiplicity of answers.'"*

Enrique Peñalosa with a big and simple idea: that urban design should be used to make people happier.

The conclusion: killer drivers are so common in sprawl that the carnage they create far exceeds the damage done by killers who use other weapons. In fact, someone who walks out her door on the edges of sprawl suburbia is much more likely to die at the hands of a stranger than someone moving through most American central cities or inner suburbs. The only difference is that most of suburbia's killers didn't mean it.

The logical response to these converging crises would be to alter our individual and collective behavior in order to stave off disaster. It demands using less energy and raw materials. It means moving more efficiently and moving shorter distances. It means living closer together and sharing more spaces, walls, and vehicles. It means collecting experiences rather than objects.

The garden was not merely a biophilic intervention. It was a social machine.

Part of the problem is that sprawl's wide streets and big lots take up so much space that cities can't afford to build fire stations close by, so it takes fire trucks longer to reach each blaze.)

living in low-density sprawl puts residents at greater risk of arthritis, chronic lung disease, digestive problems, headaches, and urinary tract infections.

result from living in communities that force people to drive. Just living in a sprawling city has the effect of four years of aging.

The more TV you watch, the fewer friendships you are likely to have, the less trusting you become, and the less happy you are likely to be.

The farther away the parking, the livelier the street.

As much as we complain about other people, there is nothing worse for mental health than a social desert.

By spending resources and designing cities in a way that values everyone's experience, life can get easier and more pleasant for everyone. We can make cities that are more generous and less cruel. We can make cities that help us all get stronger, more resilient, more connected, more active and more free. We just have to decide who our cities are for. And we have to believe that they can change.

use, mixed income, density, and transit.

Sometimes it takes an entire generation to see the life lost between freeway off-ramps.

We need to walk, just as birds need to fly. We need to be around other people. We need beauty. We need contact with nature. And most of all, we need not to be excluded. We need to feel some sort of equality.

the most important psychological effect of the city is the way in which it moderates our relationships with other people.

Semenza had his own special interest in getting people together. The story of his introduction to the geography of loneliness is worth remembering.

casual encounters (such as, say, the kind that might happen around a volleyball court on a Friday night) are just as important to belonging and trust as contact with family and close friends.

Ample, easy parking is the hallmark of the dispersed city. It is also a killer of street life. A cruise through Los Angeles illustrates the dynamic. The city's downtown has been said to contain more parking spaces per acre than any other place on earth, and its streets are some of the most desolate.

low-rise, mixed-use buildings of two or three stories—the kind you see on an old-style, small-town main street—bring in ten times the revenue per acre as that of an average big-box development.

Despite all we have invested in this dispersed city, it has failed to maximize health and happiness. It is inherently dangerous. It makes us fatter, sicker, and more likely to die young. It makes life more expensive than it has to be. It steals our time. It makes it harder to connect with family, friends, and neighbors.

It is tempting to believe that the job of fixing cities is the untouchable terrain of distant authorities whom the state has deemed responsible. It is a terrible mistake to give in to this temptation.