James Howard Kunstler Quotes

You cannot save wonderful towns. You can only save wonderful towns by building new ones.

When I first joined the Irvine Company, I realized that less than 11,000 acres were designated as open space in the original master plan, and that just didn't seem adequate to me. So, I began the lengthy process working with public and community organizations to add more open space.

One of the most unfortunate side effects of the urban activism of the '60s and '70s is the belief that development is wrong and that fighting it makes you an environmentalist.

The Growing Smarter laws now in place compel every community to plan their future growth and allow every citizen the right to be heard when those decisions are made.

What kind of town do we want in the future, and how are we going to plan on that?

Fifty years ago people were talking about Sydney's sprawl, but nobody does anything about it.

A greater focus on design in all new homes would make the best use of land, create homes and public spaces, and reinforce the structures of urban life.

The government only makes restrictive rules, they don't show you what to do so you know, OK, here's where we need this many apartments, with open space, playgrounds, kindergartens.

We need to create planned communities: whole new towns with the infrastructure and amenities they need, communities where people genuinely want to live, and built where demand is high.

Our engineering departments build freeways which destroy a city or a landscape, in the process.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the challenges facing our cities or to the housing crisis, but the two issues need to be considered together. From an urban design and planning point of view, the well-connected open city is a powerful paradigm and an engine for integration and inclusivity.

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.

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

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

In urbanization, you think big because you are thinking decades ahead.

Sprawl is the American ideal way to develop. I believe that what we're developing in Denver is in no appreciable way different than what we're doing in Los Angeles - did in Los Angeles and are still doing. But I think we have developed the Los Angeles model of city-building, and I think it is unfortunate.

The pursuit of the vibrant seems to be the universal job description of the nation's city planners nowadays. It is also part of the Obama administration's economic recovery strategy for the nation.

The movement toward a holistic approach to community development has been long in the making, but the housing crisis has motivated further progress.

It's really kind of hard to be a suburb of nothing. If you don't have a downtown, you really don't have anything. It's hard to build a community around parking lots and subdivisions.

If we are to succeed, we must recognize that the community redevelopment is not solely the rehabilitation of housing, or putting a mall in the business strips.

Brazil will change when its cities change.

Many of them are doing it because they are concerned about smart growth.

I'm completely taken and impressed by the planning authority of Singapore and its Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA). It's the most cutting-edge agency in the world. They have very effective guidelines for development, and they review design as it evolves.

New York has always been a city of change and a city about change, and it is a back-leading development. Nobody's going to want to come to New York if it looks like another strip mall.

I hope that any expansion of London will learn from the planning examples of some of its most desirable areas such as Chelsea, Notting Hill, Belgravia and Mayfair. All are characterised by high density and a generosity of green spaces.