Urbanization Quotes

Cities are created by and for traffic.

This urbanization that's taking place around the world is very real. But if it's people that are seeking an urbanized environment out of desperation, that's not going to be helpful long term.

Visits to crowded Indian urban centers unleash sensory assaults: colorful dress and lilting chatter provide a backdrop to every manner of commerce, from small shops to peddlers to beggars.

I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man.

The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body.

The more you densify a city, the more congestion will increase, however technology changes... cities so packed that they will no longer function... vertical sprawl.

Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers, by diminishing the expense of carriage, put the remote parts of the country more nearly upon a level with those of the neighborhood of the town. They are upon that the greatest of all improvements.

It's obvious that China faces a range of demographic and economic difficulties stemming from its own population growth, and that the global community has a vested interest in avoiding the worst impacts of that growth.

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.

It took Hong Kong 100 years to become what it is.

Demography is destiny.

The essence of the Industrial Revolution was the substitution of competition for the medieval regulations which had previously controlled the production and distribution of wealth.

London is the greatest city in the world, but we're at a crossroads. Ordinary Londoners have been priced out of our city because of the housing crises. We're a city that's growing in population, but the infrastructure can't cope with the growth.

Neither of my parents live in Oakland anymore. They both got priced out.

The difficulty with big cities does not lie in skyscrapers or high-rises per se; rather, it is the values concealed within those buildings which lead to the loss of our humanity and our sense of spiritual emptiness.

As a remedy to life in society I would suggest the big city. Nowadays, it is the only desert within our means.

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

I am a village boy, and Amsterdam for me was always the big town.

Cities are the crucible of civilization.

Industrialization divorces the family from society. The place of business moves away from the place of residence: the father goes to work in the plant or in the office, miles away from the home. Wife and children are no longer integrated into the productive work. They may, indeed, have their own jobs and go to work themselves; but even if they should work in the same plant or the same office as the man of the family, they do not work as a family unit.

Overpopulation is perhaps the biggest problem facing us, and immigration is part of that problem. It has to be addressed.

Sedentary culture is the goal of civilization. It means the end of its lifespan and brings about its corruption.

At night, what you see is a city, because all you see is lights. By day, it doesn't look like a city at all. The trees out-number the houses. And that's completely typical of Seattle. You can't quite tell: is it a city, is it a suburb, is the forest growing back?

There are too many of us and we are all too far apart.

...the concentration of human beings in towns...is contrary to nature, and...this abnormal existence is bound to issue in suffering, deterioration, and gradual destruction to the mass of the population...countless thousands of our fellow-men, and still a larger number of children...are starved of air and space and sunshine. ...This view of city life, which is gradually coming home to the heart and understanding and the conscience of our people, is so terrible that it cannot be put away. What is all our wealth and learning and the fine flower of our civilization and our Constitution and our political theories – what are all these but dust and ashes, if the men and women, on whose labour the whole social fabric is maintained, are doomed to live and die in darkness and misery in the recesses of our great cities? We may undertake expeditions on behalf of oppressed tribes and races, we may conduct foreign missions, we may sympathize with the cause of unfortunate nationalities; but it is our own people, surely, who have the first claim upon us...the air must be purified...the sunshine must be allowed to stream in, the water and the food must be kept pure and unadulterated, the streets light and clean...the measure of your success in bringing these things to pass will be the measure of the arresting of the terrible powers of race degeneration which is going on in the countless sunless streets.