Inspirational urban quotes will encourage growth in life, make you wiser and broaden your perspective.
Most Famous Urban Quotes
If the earth was an apartment, we wouldn’t be getting our security deposit back. Jim Shubert
It is difficult to design a place that will not attract people. What is remarkable is how often this has been accomplished. William H. Whyte
The right to the city is far more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city. David Harvey
I’ve often though that if our zoning boards could be put in charge of botanists, of zoologists and geologists, and people who know about the earth, we would have much more wisdom in such planning than when we leave it to the engineers. William O. Douglas
Over a decade of citywide rezonings, land speculations, and corporate bidding wars for available commercial space has produced a Darwinian habitat where corporate retail proliferates, and where mom and pops have become an endangered species. Alessandro Busà
Don’t focus so much on single buildings as fabric. If fabric is lost, we have a few heroic buildings in parking lots. Stephen Mouzon
The slurbs, urban sprawl, and the infinite number, of housing developments of the postwar boom have contributed to the architecture of entropy. Robert Smithson
Stop texting me saying you’re having a city planning emergency. There’s no such thing as a city planning emergency.
The disadvantages of a decentralized, spread out urban area are tremendous, and the environmental damage of urban sprawl cannot be ignored. As a large city, Tokyo must be used more efficiently and the population density increased. Minoru Mori
Urbanism works when it creates a journey as desirable as the destination. Paul Goldberger
Urbanization is not about simply increasing the number of urban residents or expanding the area of cities. More importantly, it’s about a complete change from rural to urban style in terms of industry structure, employment, living environment and social security. Li Keqiang
We need more insurgency in the city in order to break unsustainable and privatizing patterns of urban development. Jeffrey Hou
History shows that male homosexuality, which like prostitution flourishes with urbanization and soon becomes predictably ritualized, always tends toward decadence. Camille Paglia
Neither cities nor places in them are unordered, unplanned; the question is only whose order, whose planning, for what purpose? Peter Marcuse
What’s bad about sprawl is not its uniformity but that it is uniformly bad. James Kunstler
We don’t want a plan based on land uses. We want a plan based on experiences. Who visits downtown to see land uses? Mitchell Silver
Defining sprawl is a little bit like defining pornography. You know it when you see it. Ellen Dunham Jones
Growth is inevitable and desirable, but destruction of community character is not. The question is not whether your part of the world is going to change. The question is how. Edward T. McMahon
The disadvantages of a decentralized, spread out urban area are tremendous, and the environmental damage of urban sprawl cannot be ignored. As a large city, Tokyo must be used more efficiently and the population density increased. Minoru Mori
I thought digital technology would eventually reverse urbanisation, and so far that hasn’t happened. But people always overestimate how much will change in the next three years, and underestimate how much will change over the next ten years. Bill Gates
There’s something about urban life you walk out your door, and you’re in a steady of stream of life happening around you, and it’s very easy to get caught up in that stream and simply kind of keep on moving. Dani Shapiro
I’ve got no dark secrets, I wasn’t beaten up, my parents were kind to me and there was a low crime rate where we lived. Maybe that’s where the comedy comes from, as some sort of reaction to the safe, boring suburbs. Will Ferrell
Neither cities nor places in them are unordered, unplanned; the question is only whose order, whose planning, for what purpose?
The two elements of the suburban pattern that cause the greatest problems are the extreme separation of uses and the vast distances between things. James Howard Kunstler
Urbanization in India is a slow but sure death for her villages and villagers. Mahatma Gandhi
The modern city is probably the most unlovely and artificial site this planet affords. The ultimate solution is to abandon it. We shall solve the City Problem by leaving the city. Henry Ford
Dull, inert cities, it is true, do contain the seeds of their own destruction and little else. But lively, diverse, intense cities contain the seeds of their own regeneration, with energy enough to carry over for problems and needs outside themselves. Jane Jacobs
We need more insurgency in the city in order to break unsustainable and privatizing patterns of urban development. Jeffrey Hou
People here can’t realize there are poor people in the world. They can’t think about the needs of other people. Bill Owens
The modern city is probably the most unlovely and artificial site this planet affords. The ultimate solution is to abandon it. We shall solve the City Problem by leaving the city. Henry Ford
What’s bad about sprawl is not its uniformity but that it is uniformly bad. James Howard Kunstler
Urbanization has lured more people to bustling metropolises, but precious little thought has been given to what happens when these cities fail. Over time, the underlying systems and processes of civilization from lead mining to offshore drilling to car commuting slowly poison us. Power grids brown out, the climate heats up, and industrial accidents ravage ecosystems and cities alike. For all the famed cities with thousands of years of continuity Paris, London, Cairo, Athens, Rome, Istanbul most cities just stop. Ben Paynter
Architecture is, and always will be concerned, roughly speaking, with carefully balancing horizontal things on top of vertical things. Reyner Banham
There are more effective ways of tackling environmental problems including global warming, proliferation of plastics, urban sprawl, and the loss of biodiversity than by treaties, top down regulations, and other approaches offered by big governments and their dependents. Preston Manning
We Japanese do not perceive our small, one room spaces as something that’s been forced upon us. Makoto Yokomizo
Urbanization is putting a lot of stress on already depleting city’s resources and might prove inadequate for the people migrating from rural to urban areas. Rinkesh Kukeja
We’re moving from a generation who gave little thought as to the built environment and accepted housing that was neither pleasant to look at, nor to live in or around, to a new century where there’s a real desire for housing that’s affordable, flexible, and places community at the heart of its thinking. For architects and the public it’s an enticing prospect. Will Gompertz
What I like about cities is that everything is king-size, the beauty and the ugliness Joseph Brodsky
My friends have asked me why I don’t patent my low-cost houses, but they’ve completely missed the point. I actually want my designs to be copied. I want Indonesian society to rethink its attitudes towards urban architecture. Ahmad Djuhara
There was no doubt about it: the City was the culmination of man’s mastery over the environment. Not space travel, not the fifty colonized worlds that were now so haughtily independent, but the City. Isaac Asimov, The Caves of Steel
I am of the opinion that architecture should exist quietly with nature, never opposing it. I am positive that a choice between these alternatives no longer applies. Architecture and nature should be integrated. Both should be part of our daily life. Yasuhiro Yamashita
Hillary Brown understands that for our grandchildren’s sake we must rebuild America and, in doing so, re imagine our interconnected infrastructure systems to make them more efficient, environmentally safe, and resilient in this age of global urbanization. This fascinating and important book should be required reading for our elected officials and policy makers. Felix Rohatyn
City growth has caused climate change, but that growth is also what’s going to get us out of it. Matthew Kahn
Human civilization has been changing the Earth’s environment for millennia, often to our detriment. Dams, deforestation and urbanization can alter water cycles and wind patterns, occasionally triggering droughts or even creating deserts. Jamais Cascio
If the earth was an apartment, we wouldn’t be getting our security deposit back. Jim Shubert
The freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is, I want to argue, one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights.
Anyone who believes in indefinite growth on a finite planet is either mad, or an economist. David Attenborough
In urbanization, you think big because you are thinking decades ahead. Kushal Pal Singh
To be young and aware is to know you’re being lied to; to know that a bright green future is possible; to know that we can reimagine the world, rebuild our cities, redesign our lives, retool our factories, distribute innovation and creativity and all live in a world that is not only better than the alternative, but much better than the world we have now. Alex Steffen
Urbanism is the most advanced, concrete fulfillment of a nightmare. Littre defines a nightmare as ‘a state that ends when one awakens with a start after extreme anxiety. But a start against whom? Who has stuffed us to the point of somnolence? Tom McDonough
In a future that portends stronger and more frequent hurricanes striking North America’s Atlantic coast, ferocious winds will pummel tall, unsteady structures. Some will topple, knocking down others. Like a gap in the forest when a giant tree falls, new growth will rush in. Gradually, the asphalt jungle will give way to a real one. Alan Weisman
All cities are mad but the madness is gallant. All cities are beautiful but the beauty is grim. Christopher Morley
The smallest patch of green to arrest the monotony of asphalt is as important to the value of real estate as streets, sewers and convenient shopping. James Felt
Urbanism works when it creates a journey as desirable as the destination. Paul Goldberger
Living around trees is less green than living around concrete. The next time you want to fight for nature, leave Walden Pond alone and start pushing for denser development in downtown. Edward Glaeser
Anyone who believes in indefinite growth on a finite planet is either mad, or an economist. David Attenborough
Bringing nature back into the city is a way to deal with urban sprawl. If cities feel a little more natural, people like to live there rather than moving out and dividing up another piece of land that shouldn’t be touched. Stone Gossard
Cities, like cats, will reveal themselves at night. Rupert Brooke
If you love nature, stay the heck away from it. Live in a city, the denser the better. Jeff Speck
The developments in the North were those loosely embraced in the term modernization and included urbanization, industrialization,and mechanization. While those changes went forward apace, the antebellum South changed comparatively little, clinging to its rural, agricultural, labor intensive economy and its traditional folk culture. C. Vann Woodward
The city is a fact in nature, like a cave, a run of mackerel or an ant heap. But it is also a conscious work of art, and it holds within its communal framework many simpler and more personal forms of art. Mind takes form in the city; and in turn urban forms condition mind. Lewis Mumford
Unlike the urban development that I see taking over and swallowing up our precious soil, when we interact with our environment in a way that allows for regeneration and natural spaces, the outcome can be beautiful. Cory Trepanier
The chief function of the city is to convert power into form, energy into culture, dead matter into the living symbols of art, biological reproduction into social creativity. Lewis Mumford
You can’t understand a city without using its public transportation system. Erol Ozan
As an artificial world, the city should be so in the best sense: made by art, shaped for human purposes. Kevin Lynch
The keywords of violent economics are urbanization, industrialization, centralization, efficiency, quantity, speed The problem of evolving a nonviolent way of economic life in the West and that of developing the underdeveloped countries may well turn out to be largely identical. E. F. Schumacher
Art is an evolutionary act. The shape of art and its role in society is constantly changing. At no point is art static. There are no rules. Raymond Salvatore Harmon
In an urban area, you’re not going to be an hour away from another post office. Blake Farenthold
In the end, our society will be defined not only by what we create, but what we refuse to destroy. John Sawhill
Living in a city shouldn’t make you cynical and living in a village shouldn’t make you vulnerable. Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words
It’s amazing how I’m able to ride around on a bike. People kind of see it’s me but since I’m on a bike, they think, ‘No, it’s not her.’ And by the time they realize it’s me, I’m already gone. Beyoncé
The right to the city is far more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city. It is, moreover, a common rather than an individual right since this transformation inevitably depends upon the exercise of a collective power to reshape the processes of urbanization. The freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is, I want to argue, one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights. David Harvey
We are realizing that if you have more people walk and bicycle more, you have a more lively, more liveable, more attractive, more safe, more sustainable and more healthy city. And what are you waiting for? Jan Gehl
If it was not for Rajiv Gandhi, urbanization in India would have been history. Kushal Pal Singh
I’m not a big fan of capitalism or business, but it’s pretty obvious that if we build a beautiful system of bike boulevards, bicyclists will come to ride them by the tens of thousands. When they do, they spend a lot of money and keep a lot of our local economy going. Chris Carlsson
We don’t want a plan based on land uses. We want a plan based on experiences. Who visits downtown to see land uses?
Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime. Teach a man to cycle and he will realize fishing is stupid and boring. Desmond Tutu
