But Look What We Have Built ...

When We Deal With Cities We Are Dealing With Life At Its Most Complex And Intense. Because This Is So, There Is A Basic Esthetic Limitation On What Can Be Done With Cities: A City Cannot Be A Work Of Art.

Nations Are Political And Military Entities, And So Are Blocs Of Nations. But It Doesn't Necessarily Follow From This That They Are Also The Basic, Salient Entities Of Economic Life Or That They Are Particularly Useful For Probing The Mysteries Of Economic Structure, The Reasons For Rise And Decline Of Wealth. Indeed, The Failure Of National Governments And Blocs Of Nations To Force Economic Life To Do Their Bidding Suggests Some Sort Of Essential Irrelevance.

There Are Fashions In Building. Behind The Fashions Lie Economic And Technological Reasons, And These Fashions Exclude All But A Few Genuinely Different Possibilities In City Dwelling Construction At Any One Time.

Observation Of Realities Has Never, To Put It Mildly, Been One Of The Strengths Of Economic Development Theory.

There Is No New World That You Make Without The Old World.