Commuter Culture Quotes

The suburban cycle which began a hundred years ago is nearly over. We are in for a period of contraction and economic hardship.

I was raised on Long Island. There were a lot of cops and firefighters who lived there.

I grew up in Mount Airy, a middle-class enclave in the Northwestern area of Philadelphia.

I'm of that subset of native New Yorkers who can't drive.

If you go into an underground train in London - probably anywhere, but chiefly in London - there's that sense of almost entering a ghostly dimension. People are very still and quiet; they don't exchange many pleasantries.

I have a new theory of history, which is certain things happen because they seem like a good idea at the time. And suburbia seemed like a good idea at the time, but it was a special time and place in history, with special dynamics. And now, we're going to have to live with the consequences of that. And the consequences will be tragic.

I grew up in suburban New Jersey in a transitional area that was surrounded by farmland that wasn't being cultivated.

On my way to the office in the morning, there are, in front of me, behind me, other men going to their jobs. I see them; if I dared, I would smile at them. I think to myself that I am a socialist, that they are the purpose of my life, of my efforts and that they do not know it yet.

Whether you live in a city or a small town, and whether you drive a car, take the bus or ride a train, at some point in the day, everyone is a pedestrian.

The single factor most responsible for the disruption of the family is the automobile. Its full effect cannot be assessed. Modern life, as we know, would be impossible without the ubiquitous motorcar. It broke up the old family and community.

In the post-war United States, you had this race to the suburbs. Cities shrank, the suburbs got bigger - and the notion of community changed drastically. You went from all being very close together to all being spaced apart and slightly suspicious of one another.

Surprisingly, Manhattan casts a sort of undersized shadow onto Long Island. Where I grew up, everyone seemed totally disconnected from the city - ours could have been any suburb, anywhere - though when traffic was thin, it took us only half an hour to get into midtown.

The subway in New York is a great social experiment; there are so many races and ways of life sitting together on each car.

I didn't realize Boston was so easy to get around. In my head, I imagined Boston being this really sprawling city.

I think people who live in New York don't realize just how much time they spend talking about the subway.

A million people a day go to work in this city and they drive themselves. I don't see why I'm any different.

Back when I lived in Brooklyn, I'd sometimes take the Q train all the way out to Coney Island and back, and work on my laptop. There's something about pushy New Yorkers looking over your shoulder that really makes you produce sentences.

I grew up in the suburbs of Toronto, where everything was in a strip mall.

Suburbia is too close to the country to have anything real to do and too close to the city to admit you have nothing real to do.

I grew up in the suburbs, a calm suburb, without tension, with working-class and middle-class people mixed together.

The newspapers were against me. They were telling me that the Australian dream was a home. But that dream became worse and worse as they had to live further away from the city. My dream became better as we could build higher and higher.

I grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. I attended the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Maryland, from 1978 to 1984.

The Long Island experience is so strange. You're a satellite around the city, so the presence of the city is always looming.

Public transportation is like a magnifying glass that shows you civilization up close.

I like to watch people. Sometimes I ride the subway all day and look at them and listen to them. I just want to figure out who they are and what they want and where they're going.