William Least Heat-Moon Quotes

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.

This urbanization that's taking place around the world is very real. But if it's people that are seeking an urbanized environment out of desperation, that's not going to be helpful long term.

Back then, we could drive a mile from home and there was nothing. Now it's grown in every direction and is populated and modernized. I guess I have mixed feelings about it, but I'm not someone that thinks everything should stop growing.

I started my career with 'Refugee' in Bhuj. Now, it has become a full-fledged city.

Most descriptions make Beijing sound overbuilt: not a blade of grass left.

Traffic is only one of the side effects of growth.

There is room enough indoors in New York City for the whole 1963 world's population to enter, with room enough inside for all hands to dance the twist in average nightclub proximity.

Cities are spreading like a cancer of the planet.

The thing you gotta understand about L.A. is that everything is suburbia. Los Angeles isn't set up like San Francisco or New York.

Urbanization has relied on land conversion and land financing, which is causing urban sprawl and, on occasion, ghost towns and waste.

Annexation is probably the most valuable tool a city has to ensure orderly growth and development.

In the United States there is more space where nobody is than where anybody is. That is what makes America what it is.

As cities have grown rapidly across the nation, many have neglected infrastructure projects and paved over green spaces that once absorbed rainwater.

Most cities have a centre surrounded by suburbs, but London has numerous centres: it's the model of a twenty-first century metropolis.

Our congressional district is the fastest growing in the state. Nowhere is there a greater need for new and improved roads and transit systems that will spare us the hours we spend each day in traffic.

As the population of Georgia increased dramatically, so did development.

Urbanization is the dominant demographic trend of our time.

In 2007, the majority of the world’s population – over 3 billion of us – will live in urban areas for the first time in history.

Urban and suburban sprawl is somewhat like pornography. Most people have great difficulty defining it, but they think they know it when they see it. Sprawl has been with us since the dawn of history.

In most slums and cities in developing states, population growth is outpacing the ability of the growth in pollution and sewage. Such unmet expectations in over-crowded cities can be the catalyst for civil conflict.

Gentrification always makes me laugh. People complain about traffic. Live in Atlanta! You can't have it both ways; you can't live in an incredible city and not expect it to get congested.

Detroit in its heyday - let's say, 1920s to the '60s - was never a huge downtown-living thing. People lived in the neighborhoods.

I like to call it 'the national automobile slum.' You can call it suburban sprawl. I think it's appropriate to call it the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world.

In Hong Kong there is agglomeration beyond my fondest imaginings. The Kowloon district claims a population density four times that of New York City.

Our cities are not polluted or congested because they have to be. They are what they are because that's how we made them.