Edmund Phelps Quotes

Suburban houses and tin sheds are often the objects of ridicule.

I lived in Camden, Primrose Hill and Kentish Town for 10 years.

My real dream is to have a whole, like, buy a whole piece of land. Imagine, like, a long driveway. Like, a cul de sac-type street, with maybe, like, seven houses. Me be right here. Have my mom be able to be right here. My brother over here. My girl's grandmother and family right here. Friends over there. That's my real dream.

Owning your own home is America's unique recipe for avoiding revolution and promoting pseudo-equality at the same time.

When 125,000 people are gathered together on 10 square miles of land they must of necessity give up certain of their liberties. It is a sacrifice they must make for the sake of the advantages of city life.

The notion that paradise begins with personal home ownership is one that has been drummed into Americans for so long by presidents … and realtors that it is hard to dislodge.

I lived in Chamarajpet, Gandhi Nagar, Shanthinagar, and Sudhama Nagar during my early days.

I'm an irredeemable urbanite. I can't imagine living more than a five-minute walk from my fellow human beings. Other people are vital to my peace of mind.

Irvine, being a planned community, is really good shorthand, especially in a movie or book, for understanding suburban pressures.

I'm very stodgy. I'm always looking at old photos of California and Los Angeles, knowing that what I'm looking at is now full of houses. There used to be vacant lots in Los Angeles, now all taken up by three-storey boxes - it's all getting infilled.

If I had a magic wand, I would live in a building in New York, big enough so my friends, my family could all have apartments in it. We'd raise our kids in the same space and have backyard barbecues and get old and fat together.

A lot of times, L.A. is desaturated, and cement and freeways, and downtown.

A city is a large community where people are lonesome together.

The electronics industry expanded rapidly and the seeds for the semiconductor and software revolution were planted. The postwar period also saw the suburbanization of America, the rise of the homeowner, the build-out of the interstate highway system, and the rise of automobile culture. Credit availability expanded dramatically.

The American dream is still to own your home.

All cities are impressive in their way, because they represent the aspiration of men to lead a common life; those people who wish to live agreeable lives, and in constant intercourse with one another, will build a city as beautiful as Paris.

Because there are a lot of big cities in the world, people who live in cities have become more isolated than ever.

Discount air fares, a car in every parking space and the interstate highway system have made every place accessible - and every place alike.

I looked around, and I saw cottages everywhere. I thought it was time they lived in apartments.

The thing that overwhelms me when I go out now is the sprawlation of America.

The cities are the principal home and seat of the human group. They are the coral colony for Man, the collective being.

I live on the water. I live in a neighborhood that's consummately connected to my neighbors. I bump into them every day. I can bike to work.

I like how they are. I think they're great. And their communities are communities. I have a greater sense of community in New York than almost anywhere I've ever lived. Really, it's terrific.

If you live in a place that you perceive to be a crowded place, you appreciate government; you see it as this thing that protects you against crime, that keeps order, that makes sure that nobody puts a massage parlor next to your house, that keeps other people's dogs from pooping on the sidewalk.

When you grow up in the city, New York is so big that you can kind of stay in your own little corner of the city and think that that's it because you don't need anything. You don't have to venture out; you don't have to touch the boroughs. You can kind of stay in your neighborhood, and there's everything there.