Urban Development Quotes

Citizens are the energy of Seoul.

One cannot completely avoid this landmark character with large buildings such as these. But the city itself is also gigantic.

I found Rome built of bricks; I leave her clothed in marble.

I'm amazed every time I come back to Vancouver at how much it's changed. You go away for a month and there's three more skyscrapers.

I've done eight years as mayor of London. I enjoyed it hugely; it was a massive privilege.

When the biggest, richest, glassiest buildings in town are the banks, you know that town's in trouble.

When I lived in Delhi, it was burdened with so many futures - fast roads, malls, flyovers - that one felt almost obliged to be hopeful. Now that hope has diminished, you can feel the city going into a frenzy to reinvent itself. I miss living there.

We can solve a housing problem or we can try to solve a racial problem. But we cannot combine the two.

We know that there will never be a great Newark unless there is a great public school system for our city.

Delhi is bleeding, while the government spends money on ads.

Venture for America operates in communities that could generally use more innovation: Detroit, New Orleans, Baltimore, and other U.S. cities. So I'm obviously a big believer in innovation and progress as key drivers of economic growth and prosperity.

Cities are the crucible of civilization.

When we were doing shows in the mid-'90s, the audiences were 95% black. What's happened now is the gentrification of hip-hop. A lot of cities passed ordinances that made it hard for black audiences to gather in large groups. Clubs are more open to hip-hop now 'cause it's the same crowd that goes to rock shows.

We are tackling the inefficiency and corruption that has long plagued the New Orleans Housing Authority.

Otherwise, I think the building can be bigger, larger, and the city can be much more crazy. The problem is the government structure is so deadly stupid, not really solving problems but creating a lot of problems itself every day.

I love Atlanta. It's a great city with great crews there, but it's really hard to make it into a Las Vegas version of it because it doesn't look at all like Las Vegas.

I think poverty is the biggest challenge for Los Angeles and for many of our cities that have come back from the recession.

I want to make Seoul the front line of the new South Korea. Seoul is sleeping, and I want to wake it up.

There are a lot of rules in cities that were designed to protect a particular incumbent, but not to move a city's constituents, a city's citizens, and the city itself, forward. And that's a problem.

Obviously as a mayor, I'm in competition with my neighboring cities as well as cities around the country.

The price of property in city centres is making it impossible, particularly in the big cities, for any kind of social mix to take place. It's castrating the whole notion of city life

All Western cities face significant challenges on social integration. Our populations are booming, but social integration is not keeping pace. Rapid growth is a sign of our success, but it also puts stress on housing, infrastructure - and on communities.

It's not palm trees and neon signs in Florida; it's strip malls, highways, hot sun beating down on you.

I play to lift a city, and raise a banner.

In 2011, I started a nonprofit organization, Venture for America, to help bring talented young entrepreneurs to create thousands of jobs in Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis, Birmingham, Baltimore and other cities around the country.