Ray Nagin Quotes

This city will be chocolate at the end of the day. This city will be a majority-African-American city. It's the way God wants it to be. You can't have New Orleans no other way.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said that New Orleans, when rebuilt, will be a chocolate city. And he will be the delicious nut in the center.

In Sheffield, we need support from the community and for the community. We need integration with no loss of heritage, and a clear appreciation of what is and is not acceptable.

The music is just so rich and part of the culture there. I suddenly felt like I needed to go on this mission to make sure we save New Orleans because - not that I can save anything - but it's so much part of what this country is, this whole mix of people coming together and doing this thing.

One of the things that's beautiful about New Orleans is how culturally rich we are and how well we have worked together. People call us a gumbo. It's really important that we get focused on the very simple notion that diversity is a strength, it's not a weakness.

Like Venice, Italy, New Orleans is a cultural treasure. And everyone who lived in the city should be allowed to come back. But that doesn't mean that they all should live in exactly the same spot that they lived before.

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.

It's important to address young people in the reopening of New Orleans. In rebuilding, let's revisit the potential of American democracy and American glory.

Before a group can enter the open society, it must first close ranks.

We don't see ourselves as just a place where we come to worship but as a beacon and a bearer of the culture and a bearer of what makes us a people. But I like to say that this is not necessarily unique to us. It is really what America is all about.

Old San Francisco - the one so many nostalgics yearn for - had buildings that related well to each other.

I see dance as glue for a community.

One of the most special things about the city of New Orleans is how diverse a people we really are. There's been a new generation of individuals that have all grown up together, so I don't really see myself as a White mayor. I've never seen New Orleans as a Black city.

In community people remain essentially united in spite of all separating factors, while in society they are essentially separated in spite of all uniting factors.

The relationship of a people to their homeland is crucial. A people will naturally have a difficult time maintaining a common cultural identity without a collective presence in their homeland. Only in its homeland can a people develop economically, culturally and socially as a homogeneous entity. In fact, this is the crux of why some of us consider it necessary to struggle to live in our homeland.

If we wish to rebuild our cities, we must first rebuild our neighborhoods. And to do that, we must understand that the quality of life is more important than the standard of living.

Have I always agreed with my Southern, military, Mormon family? Absolutely not. Have we always figured out how to get along? Yes! At the point at which politics supersedes the family and community, we've got a real problem.

Like all things, cities must change - even a city as enamoured of the past and memory as D.C.

America to me is where I grew up: in Brooklyn, around other black and Latino people who helped and loved each other. I just want to show people that America doesn't have to be this 'I'm in the NRA, blah blah blah' type of place.

In a pluralistic society like ours, I think the ability to resist hate comes from cultivating a civil society that, on the one hand, nurtures the freedom of each group to pursue their faith and distinctive way of life, while, at the same time, fostering the ties that bind us together into a genuine broader community.

I heard that Hubballi-Dharwad is going to be a Smart City. But it should ensure the sense of community and love is not lost.

I had never heard this term before - gente-fication - which is also happening in Portland, Houston; it's happening in a lot of cities. It's upwardly mobile Latinx who want to come back to their neighborhoods where they grew up - or it's Latinx moving to L.A. and looking for a Latinx neighborhood to live or open a business.

I grew up in Beijing, and there weren't many modern buildings during my childhood. I was influenced by traditional culture - the courtyards, the hutongs, the old city, and all the art forms - so, very naturally, I brought this to my practice.

Planning is for the world's great cities, for Paris, London, and Rome, for cities dedicated, at some level, to culture. Detroit, on the other hand, was an American city and therefore dedicated to money, and so design had given way to expediency.

ACORN is organizing to make sure the job of rebuilding New Orleans is done by the people of New Orleans and truly benefits the communities who have been hurt the most.