Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier

All those electronic interactions are creating a more relationship-intensive world, just as improvements in steam engines led to a more coal-intensive economy, and those relationships need both e-mail and interpersonal contact.

The government’s job is to allow people to choose the life they want, as long as they are paying for the costs of that lifestyle.

Nine square feet of road space is plenty for a pedestrian walking down Fifth Avenue, and on a busy day, walkers will put up with much less. The Honda Accord, a modest-size car, takes up about a hundred square feet on its own. If that car is going to have a couple of feet around it and several car lengths ahead of it, its space needs can easily incr

By redirecting water from farm areas to cities, California could easily provide enough water to sustain much higher density levels, which would reduce America’s carbon footprint.

I doubt that I would be in the suburbs if it weren’t for the antiurban public policy trifecta of the Massachusetts Turnpike, the home mortgage interest deduction, and the problems of urban schools.

Over half of American income is earned in twenty-two metropolitan areas.

Americans emit about 20 metric tons of carbon dioxide per person per year.