I think people's minds are going to have to assimilate in the sense that all the world is international now. The whole world has gone global. I think cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles are the models of our future.
Every city in the world can be improved in less than three years.
San Francisco is the only city I can think of that can survive all the things you people are doing to it and still look beautiful.
Food is very representative of a city's culture. In order to really get to know a place and the people, you've got to eat the food.
I shall never complain of the tedium of the city again.
To put off the inevitable, we try to fix the city in place, remember it as it was, doing to the city what we would never allow to be done to ourselves. . . . New York City does not hold our former selves against us. Perhaps we can extend the same courtesy.
As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.
I'm a New Yorker now, and believe me, there's no comparison between the Big Apple and Kalamazoo, no similarity at all. New York City's hectic, always in fast-forward, and Kalamazoo's more laid-back, smaller, slower.
If you take any populated place - any major city in America - and drive 45 minutes from that spot directly out of town you'll be in about as country a place as you'll ever find.
We didn't have anything before Twitter that allowed a group of people roaming around a city to communicate instantly, in real time, and in a coordinated way, in a group.
In New York, unlike Holland, there are newspaper stands on every corner. That was a big headline all over the city.
Real big pretty titty, shut down every city. If you want the kit kitty, gotta get the key from me, all new everything, plus pay the rent for me. If we in the woods then these niggas pitch a tent for me.
The spirit of rebellion is present in every great city, and the great task of wise government is to keep it dormant, for if it wakes it is a torrent which no dam can hold back.
Certain kinds of things that the novel used to do, which was, "Oh, I'm living out here in West Nowhere, Nebraska and I'm curious how the upper class in New York City lives, I guess I'll read a novel about it. " We don't have to do that now. You just turn on the TV. Turn on Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous. You can get that information anywhere. Novels don't have to do that anymore.
Another option, which I think is the thing that makes more sense, is this fact that the police are a reflection of the occupation of certain neighborhoods and certain parts of cities that are designed, basically, to keep the bottom down and basically maintain the status quo, but out of sight, so that the other side - the people in power, the people with money, the people with comfort, the people that are living in the "safer" areas - are sure that they can sleep safely in their bed while bad thing are happening to people and it's not their problem.
I wander though China. Without ever having boarded a plane. My travels take place here in the Tokoyo subways, in the backseat of a taxi. . . all of a sudden this city will start to go. In a flash, the buildings will crumble. Over the Tokyo streets will fall my China, like ash, leaching into everything it touches. Slowly, gradually, until nothing remains. No, this isn't a place for me.
I'm the young city bandit, hold myself down singlehanded For murder raps, I kick my thoughts alone, get remanded Born alone, die alone, no crew to keep my crown or throne I'm deep by sound alone, caved inside in a thousand miles from home
To have come on all this new world of writing, with time to read in a city like Paris where there was a way of living well and working, no matter how poor you were, was like having a great treasure given to you.
The city of New Orleans showed America what it takes to rebuild a great place. We're all going together, and we're not leaving anybody behind.
YOUTH, n. The Period of Possibility, when Archimedes finds a fulcrum, Cassandra has a following and seven cities compete for the honor of endowing a living Homer.