Tom Perez Quotes

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

We can build new housing while preserving the quality and character of adjacent residential districts and ensuring infill development strengthens the surrounding neighborhood.

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.

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.

I'd like to see an arrested growth of development. You can't stop it, but it's important we do something about the developers having the upper hand.

Smart habitation is an integrated area of villages and a city working in harmony and where the rural and urban divide has reduced to thin line.

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 art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.

Incentives and infrastructure should encourage development and that development needs to contain the right types of housing in the right places.

The interests of Oregon for today and in the future must be protected from the grasping wastrels of the land. We must respect another truism - that unlimited and unregulated growth, leads inexorably to a lowered quality of life.

The power of saying no is so much more than the power of saying yes.

Focus does not mean saying yes, it means saying no.

Your capacity to say "No" determines your capacity to say "Yes" to greater things.

I grew up in a small town that was absolutely a perfect embodiment of new urbanism.

The most important lesson I've learned in this business is how to say no. I have said no to a lot of temptations, and I am glad I did.

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.

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.

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.

Building sustainable cities - and a sustainable future - will need open dialogue among all branches of national, regional and local government. And it will need the engagement of all stakeholders - including the private sector and civil society, and especially the poor and marginalized.

Growth is a stupid goal. So, by the way, is no-growth.

Don't say yes to something just because it's an opportunity.

A coalition with Tories and Liberal Democrats together is a golden opportunity to create the sort of planning reform that means not only can we have more environmentally sensitive planning, but we can have more homes and more schools.

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

Cities can be the engine of social equity and economic opportunity. They can help us reduce our carbon footprint and protect the global environment. That is why it is so important that we work together to build the capacity of mayors and all those concerned in planning and running sustainable cities.

We will primarily focus on affordable housing, water supply and transport infrastructure, as these are critical for Mumbai. Infrastructure deficit is an issue in all urban areas.