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Imagine

Left: Rural Electrification Administration, poster design by Lester Beall, 1934. Right: Wind Farm, China, 2009. via Design Observer

"Imagine ... People would have to pay for the congestion, the pollution, and the health care problems that they themselves create. In such a scenario, the suburbs would likely shrink, and the exurbs would likely atrophy altogether.

Imagine what would result. Imagine dense green urbanity, surrounded by nothing but nature. Imagine lanes of interstates reused for high speed rail. Imagine a healthy population that walks and bikes throughout their neighborhoods, and rides transit to their jobs. Imagine New Jersey as a nature preserve. Imagine being number one for takeoff.

Imagine a country of cities."

Vishaan Chakrabarti, "A Country of Cities" UrbanOmnibus


"Why is it that here in the United States we have such difficulty even imagining a different sort of society from the one whose dysfunctions and inequalities trouble us so? We appear to have lost the capacity to question the present, much less offer alternatives to it. Why is it so beyond us to conceive of a different set of arrangements to our common advantage?"

Tony Judt, What is Living and What is Dead in Social Democracy, New York Review of Books


"There's the challenge. To imagine a different sort of society, a different set of arrangements, with a reinvigorated public, and a new era of great public works."

Nancy Levinson, The Public Works, Design Observer


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