Aligning private development with community needs for equity and resiliency is one of the most powerful roles of city government.
Michelle WuRead
We can build wealth in all our communities, value public education, plan for our neighborhoods, invest in housing we can afford and transportation that serves everyone, truly fund public health for safety and healing, and deliver on a city Green New Deal for clean air and water, healthy homes, and the brightest future for our children.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of investing in communities and public services for a sustainable future.
Michelle Wu highlights the necessity of community investment and sustainable practices to nurture a prosperous future. By advocating for affordable housing, robust public education, and environmental cleanliness, she envisions a society where every community thrives, emphasizing the interconnection of health, safety, and ecological responsibility for the well-being of future generations.
In practice
In a speech on urban development, one might use this quote to inspire collective action.
Aligning private development with community needs for equity and resiliency is one of the most powerful roles of city government.
When I first ran for City Council in 2013, I was told over and over again that I would likely lose, and for reasons beyond my control: I was too young, not born in Boston, Asian American, female.
During natural disasters or emergencies, the most resilient communities - places that suffer the fewest casualties and rebuild more quickly - are not the wealthiest neighborhoods or ones that have spent the most on physical infrastructure, but rather the communities with the strongest social infrastructure.
Free public transportation is the single biggest step we could take toward economic mobility, racial equity, and climate justice.
I think if we're going to be serious as a city, as a country, about addressing climate change, addressing inequality and racial disparities, we have to start taking action at the scale that matches the urgency of the problems.
Growing up, I never ever thought that I would or could or should be involved in politics. I didn't see anyone who looked like me in spaces of power.
Rather, to change a habit, you must keep the old cue, and deliver the old reward, but insert a new routine.
What is the most rigorous law of our being? Growth. No smallest atom of our moral, mental, or physical structure can stand still a year. It grows - it must grow; nothing can prevent it.
Reaching a general understanding that sustainability is the ultimate issue will finally bring us face-to-face with the political challenge of forging a sustainable society during the next few decades. It is a challenge we can meet if we have the leadership and the political will to do so.
When you want to change things, you can't please everyone. If you do please everyone, you aren't making enough progress.
History reminds us that revolutions are not events, so much that they’re processes – that for tens of thousands of years, people have been making decisions that irrevocably shaped the world that we live in today; just as today, we are making subtle, irrevocable decisions that people of the future will remember as revolutions.
You don't need to invade a place or install a new government to help bring about a positive change.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.