In Rio, 1.4 million of the 6.3 million people live in favelas, or slums. They are all over the city, but favelas are not always a problem - sometimes they can be a solution, if you have the right public policies.
When I was young, I thought it was normal to go to sleep to the sounds of sirens. People on my block were in the biggest gang in the city. They were my close friends - they showed me the ropes, who to watch out for.
The people who have the strongest opinion about everything have never left their city, their town, haven't left their 'hood, haven't left their area, their corner of the world. They don't read. They've never left their house.
I drive a lot. Just for pleasure. Sometimes I'll get in the Cadillac and drive around the city or the country, kind of trying to get lost basically. Y'know, just see where roads lead.
The British have been particularly shy about the issues of financial regulation, and attentive only to the interests of the City - hence their reluctance to see the introduction of a tax on financial transactions and tax harmonisation in Europe.
Until that moment she had not really noticed him. Now she felt as though she'd stubbed her toe on a rock, and looked down to find that it was part of a buried city.
Those who remember New York in the 1970s, as I do, look back on a city that had hit a very rough patch - decaying, bankrupt, and crime-ridden. But fun.
Every day in New York City is a test. Work hard and pass this test, you get a chocolate cookie. From a strange man on the subway. A man without pants.
New Orleans may well have been the most liberal Deep South city in 1954 because of its large Creole population, the influence of the French, and its cosmopolitan atmosphere.
There are three or four places in the country where people think of fashion: One is L.A., obviously. Another is New York. And I think Atlanta has to be in the top five cities where fashion is very big.
My style will be management by being on the street, management by walking around. Third persons won't have to tell me what's going on in our city. I'll hear it, I'll see it, I'll touch it myself.
He entered the city asked a blind man if he had ever heard the name Enkidu, and the old man shrugged and shook his head, then turned away, as if to say, ‘It is impossible to keep the names of friends whom we have lost
A lot of children grow up in poverty with flawed parents, but their inner world is still as inherently filled with wonder and innocence as children who are kept away from the city's underbelly.
Airports in major cities, like LAX, are trippy environments. It is at once a national and international gathering of those in transition: The euphoric, emerging from planes, their journey at an end, and the determined, about to depart.
I urge you to read the Occupy Manifesto, written by the New York City General Assembly. It is unavoidably clear. This is not directionless action. If it were, the media would have moved on.
I've always loved Scotland, and I'm not a huge fan of big cities, to be honest. I like them to dip into for a bit, but I'm not sure I would want to live in one again.
Pigeons are among the most maligned urban wildlife despite the fact that human beings brought them to our shores and turned them loose in our cities - not something that they chose.
But all that having been said, you can't, in a city of a million people like Karbala, or 5 million like Baghdad, you can't be in all places at all times.
There are three types of biomimicry - one is copying form and shape, another is copying a process, like photosynthesis in a leaf, and the third is mimicking at an ecosystem's level, like building a nature-inspired city.
I'd propose that each central-city child should have an entitlement from the state to attend any school in the metropolitan area outside his own district - with per pupil funds going with him.
I grew up twelve miles outside of Montego Bay. In my early teens, I went to Kingston. It was like a different planet for me. In the country, people are kind. In the city, people are hard an' cold, like the concrete and steel.
