Dave Barry Quotes

I lived in Tokyo for four months. I've heard Tokyo was modeled after New York City, so I was ready for the subways and all the people, but it's a little overwhelming at times. Not to mention, I'm paying twice as much for my apartment here than I was paying in L.A., and my apartment in L.A. is about four times the size! But it's such a cool city.

If for some reason you are unsure where to go, all you have to do is stand there looking lost, and within seconds a helpful New Yorker will approach to see if you have any "spare" change.

You know, London is so sprawling, and you can sometimes forget that anybody else is on a stage anywhere else.

Overcrowding in the cities is producing a collective madness in which irrational violence flourishes because man needs more space in which to be than the modern city allows.

In N.Y. you're always around people, but in L.A. you can go days without seeing anyone.

I loathe crowds. I especially don't like cities. A city involves biomass. And biomass gets to me.

The city of London, within the walls, occupies a space of only 370 acres, and is but the hundred and fortieth part of the extent covered by the whole metropolis.

I walk out my front door in New York and I'm out on the street and there are people everywhere. L.A. is so much more spread out, so it's really easy in L.A. to have a little more isolation and to just not see as many people.

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

Only people who live outside cities realize the size of them. London turns out to be huge; there are great swaths, vast panoramas, a whole diaspora I'd never imagined. The place I live in tends to be manageably small, a few familiar journeys and destinations.

San Francisco is a city; L.A. is a collection of suburbs that have very little in common with one another.

If I had moved to Tokyo, I might even have become a completely different person... although, ever since the start, I've never wanted to move to Tokyo. I just can't handle there being so many people.

There are so many more people in Tokyo than in New York, but it's pristine. It's so organized, and yet the address system is in complete chaos.

Living in areas with a high population density does not need to be synonymous with overcrowding. Manhattan has an extremely dense population and is considered by many to be a highly desirable place to live.

I remember, the first few years here, I didn't like London much: too big, too crowded, the physical difficulty of getting around.

New York is a nice place." "If you like concrete, crowds, and that claustrophobic, closed-in feeling.

New York has always been going to hell but somehow it never gets there.

All urbanization, pushed beyond a certain point, automatically becomes suburbanization.... Every great city is just a collection of suburbs. Its inhabitantsdo not live in their city; they merely inhabit it.

The help (in Japan) is very polite. They bow so much, you don't know which end to talk to.

Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts. It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crowded together, that the wonderful immensity of London consists.

It seems to me, correct me if I'm wrong, that there are an awful lot of people in Manhattan. And it's getting worse.

I've never really liked L.A., because of its sprawl.

I would never be able to live in a huge city. I'd feel like one of 100,000 people doing the same thing.

Overcrowding can be corrected only by inducing people not to crowd, and the environment will continue to deteriorate until polluting practices are abandoned.

Tokyo cab drivers are all ex-kamikaze pilots.