Urban Planning Quotes

• By far the greatest and most admirable form of wisdom is that needed to plan and beautify cities and human communities.

  Socrates

  Cities, Community, Urban

  17 Copy quote

• We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.

  Winston Churchill

  Leadership, Engineering, Shapes

  "The Best-laid Plans: How Government Planning Harms Your Quality of Life, Your Pocketbook, and Your Future". Book by Randal O'Toole, p. 161, 2007.

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• Do not try to make circumstances fit your plans. Make plans that fit the circumstances.

  George S. Patton

  Trying, Urban, Planning

  127 Copy quote

• A city always contains more than any inhabitant can know, and a great city always makes the unknown and the possible spurs to the imagination.

  Rebecca Solnit

  Cities, Imagination, Spurs

  Rebecca Solnit (2001). “Wanderlust: A History of Walking”, p.133, Penguin

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• Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.

  Edward Abbey

  Inspirational, Nature, Cancer

  Quoted in Reader's Digest, Jan. 1970

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• Poor planning or poor execution of plans is simply to let some force other than reason shape reality.

  Robert McNamara

  Reality, Shapes, Poor Planning

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• We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

  William Shakespeare

  Inspirational, Business, Good Life

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 4, sc. 5, l. [43]

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• A land full of places that are not worth caring about may soon be a nation and a way of life that is not worth defending.

  James Howard Kunstler

  Caring, Land, May

  18 Copy quote

• Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die.

  Daniel Burnham

  Noble, City Planning, Architecture

  Commercial Club of Chicago, Daniel Hudson Burnham, Edward Herbert Bennett (1970). “Plan of Chicago”, Da Capo Pr

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• Those who plan do better than those who do not plan, even should they rarely stick to their plan.

  Winston Churchill

  Sticks, Urban, Planning

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• In the planning and designing of new communities, housing projects, and urban renewal, the planners both private and public, need to give explicit consideration to the kind of world that is being created for the children who will be growing up in these settings. Particular attention should be given to the opportunities which the environment presents or precludes for involvement of children both older and younger than themselves.

  Urie Bronfenbrenner

  Children, Growing Up, Opportunity

  Urie Bronfenbrenner (1973). “Two worlds of childhood: U.S. and U.S.S.R.”, Pocket

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• I've often thought that if planners were botanists, zoologists, geologists, and people who know about the earth, we would have much more wisdom in such planning than we have when we leave it to the engineers.

  William O. Douglas

  People, Zoologist, City Planning

  15 Copy quote

• A plan that everyone dislikes for different reasons is a success. A plan everyone dislikes for the same reason is a failure. A plan that everyone likes for the same reason is an act of God!

  Richard Carson

  Different, Likes, Urban

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• 

  The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.

  Milton Friedman

  Government, Liberty, Libertarian

  Milton Friedman (1975). “An Economist's Protest”

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• The suburb is a place where someone cuts down all the trees to build houses, and then names the streets after the trees.

  Bill Vaughan

  Cutting, Names, House

  13 Copy quote

• Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood.

  Daniel Burnham

  Motivational, Leadership, Dream

  Quoted in Collier's, 6 July 1912

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• I feel however, that we architects have a special duty and mission... (to contribute) to the socio-cultural development of architecture and urban planning

  Kenzo Tange

  Special, Development, Urban

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• I'm trying to discover - invent, I suppose - an architecture, and forms of urban planning, that do something of the same thing in a contemporary way. I started out trying to create buildings that would sparkle like isolated jewels; now I want them to connect, to form a new kind of landscape, to flow together with contemporary cities and the lives of their peoples.

  Zaha Hadid

  Jewels, Cities, Trying

  "I don't do nice". Interview with Jonathan Glance, www.theguardian.com. October 9, 2006.

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• The outcome of the city will depend on the race between the automobile and the elevator, and anyone who bets on the elevator is crazy.

  Frank Lloyd Wright

  Crazy, Race, Cities

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• Forewarned, forearmed; to be prepared is half the victory.

  Miguel de Cervantes

  Military, Victory, Half

  Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1856). “Adventures of Don Quixote de la Mancha”, p.346

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• Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Men, Agency, Political

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1831). “The Federalist on the New Constitution”, p.350

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• A noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die.

  Daniel Burnham

  Noble, Urban, Planning

  Commercial Club of Chicago, Daniel Hudson Burnham, Edward Herbert Bennett (1970). “Plan of Chicago”, Da Capo Pr

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• Architects and engineers are among the most fortunate of men since they build their own monuments with public consent, public approval and often public money.

  John Prebble

  Men, Engineering, Approval

  John Prebble (1956). “Disaster at Dundee”

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• If a policeman must know the Constitution, then why not a planner?

  William J. Brennan

  Why Not, Urban, Planning

  "Viewpoint: A Blow to Property Rights" by Bernard H. Siegan, reason.com. September 1984.

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• Our national flower is the concrete cloverleaf.

  Lewis Mumford

  Funny, Witty, Flower

  Quote Magazine 8 Oct. 1961

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