Being human is itself difficult, and therefore all kinds of settlements (except dream cities) have problems. Big cities have difficulties in abundance, because they have people in abundance.
Interpretation
Human existence is inherently challenging and urban environments amplify these challenges due to their density and complexity.
Jane Jacobs highlights the inherent difficulties of being human, asserting that the challenges we face in life are magnified in densely populated urban areas. With more people living closely together, the issues of social interaction, resource allocation, and community relationships become more complex, leading to a multitude of societal problems that are often overlooked in idealized visions of city life.
In practice
During an urban development conference, one might cite this quote to emphasize the need for thoughtful city planning.
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.
Streets and their sidewalks-the main public places of a city-are its most vital organs.
(The psuedoscience of planning seems almost neurotic in its determination to imitate empiric failure and ignore empiric success.)
Whenever and wherever societies have flourished and prospered rather than stagnated and decayed, creative and workable cities have been at the core of the phenomenon. Decaying cities, declining economies, and mounting social troubles travel together. The combination is not coincidental.
This is what a city is, bits and pieces that supplement each other and support each other.
This is something everyone knows: A well-used city street is apt to be a safe street. A deserted city street is apt to be unsafe.
Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason.
Religious life is an encounter with the living God. Sometimes that encounter is preceded by a kind of soul-searching agony that tries desperately not to hear, runs in the opposite direction, and frantically tries to reason itself out of answering the invitation.
The average well-being of our societies is not dependent any longer on national income and economic growth. ... But the differences between us and where we are in relation to each other now matter very much.
You must believe in truth that whatever God gives or permits is for your salvation.
To grow old is to grow common. Old age equalizes -- we are aware that what is happening to us has happened to untold numbers from the beginning of time. When we are young we act as if we were the first young people in the world.
I foresee a great funeral contest over me.
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