Urban Sprawl Quotes

• Will urban sprawl spread so far that most people lose all touch with nature? Will the day come when the only bird a typical American child ever sees is a canary in a pet shop window? When the only wild animal he knows is a rat-glimpsed on a night drive through some city slum? When the only tree he touches is the cleverly fabricated plastic evergreen that shades his gifts on Christmas morning?

  Frank N. Ikard

  Morning, Children, Animal

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• The slurbs, urban sprawl, and the infinite number, of housing developments of the postwar boom have contributed to the architecture of entropy.

  Robert Smithson

  Numbers, Development, Architecture

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.13, Univ of California Press

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• Whenever we make changes in our surroundings, we can too easily shortchange ourselves, by cutting ourselves off from some of the sights and sounds, the shapes or textures, or other information from a place that have helped mold our understanding and are now necessary for us to thrive. Overdevelopment and urban sprawl can damage our own lives as much as they damage our cities and countryside.

  Tony Hiss

  Cutting, Journey, Sight

  Tony Hiss (2010). “The Experience of Place: A New Way of Looking at and Dealing With our Radically Changing Cities and Count ryside”, p.12, Vintage

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• The disadvantages of a decentralized, spread out urban area are tremendous, and the environmental damage of urban sprawl cannot be ignored. As a large city, Tokyo must be used more efficiently and the population density increased.

  Minoru Mori

  Cities, Environmental, Population

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• You might declare that global warming and energy insecurity, not to mention urban sprawl and pollution, have intensified the sin of indulging one's motoring desires. And I would not argue with that point. You're right. I am a bad man. But over the long term, if you want to develop a new transportation and energy policy, you'd probably want to err on the side of assuming that people won't change much. And it is human nature to like to be empowered.

  Joel Achenbach

  Men, Long, People

  "The Car of the Future". voices.washingtonpost.com. December 2, 2008.

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• There are more effective ways of tackling environmental problems – including global warming, proliferation of plastics, urban sprawl, and the loss of biodiversity – than by treaties, top-down regulations, and other approaches offered by big governments and their dependents.

  Preston Manning

  Loss, Top Down, Government

  "Preston Manning on the state of the conservative movement" by Aaron Wherry, www.macleans.ca. March 9, 2013.

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