Jaime Lerner Quotes

After working in cities for nearly 40 years, I am telling you that every city can improve its quality of life in less than three years, no matter the scale or the financial conditions.

I care about making New York better.

As mayor of San Francisco, I will provide the vision and work hard to make San Francisco a beautiful, well-planned city with excellent housing and transportation options.

Cities are central to the shaping and delivery of national policy objectives, and in return, they are the places where social, environmental, and economic policies play out in practice.

We should concentrate our work not only to a separated housing problem but housing involved in our daily work and all the other functions of the city.

I want to live in a city where the future is being mapped out.

Mayors are leaders, doers. We get things done, and we are moving America's cities forward.

In the urban areas, we have focused on infrastructure roads, telecommunications, power.

I really do believe that mayors have the political position to really change people's lives.

When one deals with urban issues, one never deals with clear black-and-white issues; they're all trade-offs. Important urban issues present conflicting values.

I think for all of us who call East St. Louis part of our heritage, we want to make a better day for the city.

Environment, homelessness, infrastructure and immigration - I'm very focused on all four, which are critical to the success of Los Angeles.

I think of being the mayor of a big city with so many incredible things happening - but also so many challenges and opportunities - as really being kind of the chief advocate for the people.

I know what difference it makes to a community if a dirt road becomes a bitumen road.

Those in the metro-Atlanta area know how crucial the investments in our infrastructure and transportation systems are to improving our communities.

Bridges and stations are very strongly related to the development of a city.

The nation can no longer afford to continue policies that hasten the flight of persons to the distant suburbs.

Cities are not static objects to be feared or admired, but are instead a living process that residents are changing all the time.

My commitment is to Los Angeles, so whatever helps this continue to be a great city, that's what I would be focused to do, and the Dodgers are certainly iconic to Los Angeles.

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.

There are many beautiful and resource-rich areas all over the Philippines that are still undeveloped or under-developed. These areas offer opportunities for better master-planning and the emergence of better communities as well as cities.

Stockholm is surely an urban planner's dream. Everything works. Everything looks good.

Cities are not problems. They are solutions.

I have realized after all these years that a city that has a good quality of life attracts jobs. People don't want to invest in places if there is no quality of life.

If managed well, urbanization can create enormous opportunities: allowing innovation and new ideas to emerge, saving energy, land and natural resources, managing climate and the risk of disasters.