Social Infrastructure Quotes

Everywhere that Americans spread off the Eastern seaboard, heading west across this country, they put up the schoolhouse first, hired a schoolteacher, and put all the kids in school.

In 'Palaces for the People,' Eric Klinenberg offers a new perspective on what people and places have to do with each other, by looking at the social side of our physical spaces.

The taxpayer is entitled to some essential things. Families should be able to provide their children with playgrounds and find places for them in schools. There should be enough hospitals. Water should be provided to all. Surplus electricity should be available. The taxpayer should be comfortable.

The Public provides freedom...Individualism begins after the roads are built, after individualists have had an education, after medical research has cured their diseases.

The health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture, and our concern for the future can be tested by how well we support out libraries.

But look what we have built low-income projects that become worse centers of delinquency, vandalism and general social hopelessness than the slums they were supposed to replace. Cultural centers that are unable to support a good bookstore. Civic centers that are avoided by everyone but bums. Promenades that go from no place to nowhere and have no promenaders. Expressways that eviscerate great cities. This is not the rebuilding of cities. This is the sacking of cities.

Countries with fiscal space should invest in physical and social infrastructure to raise potential growth.

If the trend continues, Fiji will be left with a large pool of poorly educated, unskilled work force with disastrous consequences on our social and economic infrastructure and levels of investment.

I'm very straightforward on immigration. The bus is full. We haven't got enough energy, we haven't got enough electricity, we haven't got enough of a health service.

I was lucky enough to be born in a time and place where society values my talent, and gave me a good education to develop that talent, and set up the laws and the finanical system to let me do what I love doing-and make a lot of money doing it. The least I can do is help pay for all that.

What we can do in Singapore may not be doable elsewhere. Some things you know you need: you want efficient government, you want clean government, you want to do away with corruption, you must educate your people. You want to get housing and so on. All these are not such secrets, not so special to Singapore.

We may not always recognize it, but government plays a bigger role in our lives than any other single person or institution. We spend nearly half of our lives working to pay for it. Children spend more time in government schools than they do with their parents. Birth, death, marriage, every area of our lives feels the influence of government.

Governments that invest billions in new hardware still find it hard to accept that they might benefit just as much from systematic innovation in such things as child development or cutting crime.

It seems to me the mark of a civilized society that certain privileges should be taken for granted such as education, health care and the safety to walk the streets.

It makes good sense for planners everywhere to provide more facilities in general that are aimed at older folks.

Most people would agree that infrastructure is something government should do.

Of course I believe imaginative architecture can make a difference to people's lives, but I wish it was possible to divert some of the effort we put into ambitious museums and galleries into the basic architectural building blocks of society.

All architecture has a public nature, I believe, so I would like to make a public space.

Education, housing and hospitals are the most important things for society.

By 2050, the Australian population is expected to grow from 22 million to 36 million. That increase alone will put huge pressure on our towns and our cities. We will need more homes, more roads, more rail lines, more hospitals, more schools, just to accommodate so many Australians.

we'll have to reclaim the ward 'taxes.' Why has it become a synonym for 'evil'? I understand that no one likes to pay good money for nothing. But fire and police protection aren't nothing. ... Roads, bridges, airports, and mass transit systems aren't nothing. National parks, clean air, and clear water aren't nothing. A safe food supply, functioning schools with well-trained teachers, and well-equipped hospitals aren't vaporous apparitions either.

We have built tens of thousands of schools, clinics and rural roads.

My general view is that capitalism is an amazing innovation and job-creation machine. But what we've done historically that has been so brilliant is that we've moderated it with appropriate tax policy, with regulation, with workers' rights and infrastructure in our society that make sure that everyone has an opportunity.