New Ideas Often Need Old Buildings.

Artists, Whatever Their Medium, Make Selections From The Abounding Materials Of Life, And Organize These Selections Into Works That Are Under The Control Of The Artist.... In Relation To The Inclusiveness And Literally Endless Intricacy Of Life, Art Is Arbitrary, Symbolic And Abstracted. That Is Its Value And The Source Of Its Own Kind Of Order And Coherence.

I Think That Part Of The Growing Popularity Of The New Urbanism Is Not Simply Because It Is So Rational, And Not Simply Because People Care So Much About Community Or Even Understand It, Or The Relation Of Sprawl To The Ruination Of The Natural World. But They Just Don't Like What Is Around. And They Will Be Ruthless With It.

But Look What We Have Built ... This Is Not The Rebuilding Of Cities. This Is The Sacking Of Cities.

It May Be That We Have Become So Feckless As A People That We No Longer Care How Things Do Work, But Only What Kind Of Quick, Easy Outer Impression They Give. If So, There Is Little Hope For Our Cities Or Probably For Much Else In Our Society. But I Do Not Think This Is So.

I Don't Think Of The New Urbanism As An Economic Or Political Train Wreck. I Think Of It As One Of These Great Generational Upheavals That's Coming.