Miguel McKelvey Quotes

What if cities embraced a culture of sharing? I see a future of shared cities that bring us community and connection instead of isolation and separation.

And it turns out that tribes, not money, not factories, that can change our world, that can change politics, that can align large numbers of people. Not because you force them to do something against their will. But because they wanted to connect.

I had this epiphany that I like the interaction with people. I wanted to make things happen at a grassroots level.

My flat in Ladbroke Grove, west London, is in the best building in the world. It's like a commune - everyone gets on - and on Friday evenings I often cook us all dinner.

We actually have a real community of people doing useful things.

If I had a magic wand, I would live in a building in New York, big enough so my friends, my family could all have apartments in it. We'd raise our kids in the same space and have backyard barbecues and get old and fat together.

Then I think the sense of it being one community breaks down; but if you know instantly and respond within twenty-four hours, it's a very different sort of situation.

All cities are impressive in their way, because they represent the aspiration of men to lead a common life; those people who wish to live agreeable lives, and in constant intercourse with one another, will build a city as beautiful as Paris.

I'm motivated by my love to share and teach. I love sharing things that inspire me, and I love connecting with people. Being a part of a community is in the millennial DNA.

If you're going to build a business that's based on community, your business has to have community in it.

I believe technology serves us best when it gives us more time to do things that are uniquely human. This includes activities that are enjoyable, creative, and productive.

I believe if we can crowdsource educational solutions to teachers on the front lines, who often know their kids better than anyone, we will unearth and generate better-targeted, smarter ideas.

We're not really in the real-estate space so much as we are the community-building space.

It’s not about having a Silicon Valley attitude—it’s about having an entrepreneurial attitude. It’s about partnering with other organizations in and around your area. It’s about thinking big with entrepreneurs that sit next to you in your coworking space. It’s about collaborating with tech gurus, social media wizards and community leaders at cool business events. It’s the people that make a community an entrepreneurial one—not the location—and it’s up to you to contribute.

I believe that humanity now is desperately calling for new ideas. These new ideas must come from spiritual teachers and artists, from poets and philosophers, from educators and ecologists, from postal clerks and miners and traffic cops and nurses and waiters and musicians and cooks and cleaners and from...Regular People Everywhere. That is to say, from YOU.

To sit on the front steps — whether it's a veranda in a small town or a concrete stoop in a big city — and to talk to our neighborhoods is infinitely more important than to huddle on the living-room lounger and watch a make-believe world in not-quite living color.

We started an organization that's the only sub-organization of the MacArthur Foundation and we are called the Macarturos. Usually when I win something, I'm the only one of my ethnicity to get it, but this time I met all these Latinos, and I was so excited. I'd meet someone and I'd go, [...] "Can you come to San Antonio?" And they'd go, "Oh yeah." [...] And suddenly I had twelve people that said they would come. And I didn't know how it was going to be. And that's how the Macarturos became a reality, where these very generous geniuses come to San Antonio and work together.

What it is is that there's an intrinsic value in creating something for the sake of creating it, and better than that ... there is this beauty in dropping it into a community of your own making, and seeing it dispersed, and seeing younger, more talented, just different talent, take it to levels you can never imagine, because that lives on.

In a volunteer organization there has to be time for community.

One man interacting creatively with others can move the world.

I think the most important thing is discovering an idea that moves you, and then letting people who are moved by that idea find each other, and work together. A lot of times people focus on the technical side-"oh, I've got to take a class on non-profit development." Too few people allow themselves to think outside the box with regard to their issue areas.

Isolation and loneliness create the conditions for rapid aging. The key is to stay connected and open to new relationships throughout your life.

I think one of the most important skills of a local organizer of a local economy is an ability to put on a terrific street party.

The more we can encourage participation, I think the better off we are.

The antidote to climate change is community.