Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design Since 1880, 4th Edition

The City of Sweat Equity

Art was once the common possession of the whole people; it was the rule in the Middle Ages that the produce of handicraft was beautiful … today, it is prosperity that is externally ugly … we sit starving amidst our gold, the Midas of the ages.

William Morris, Forecasts of the Coming Century (1897)

The Town Planning Movement is on this side a revolt of the peasant and the gardener, as on the other of the citizen, and these united by the geographer, from their domination by the engineer. Only when the mechanical energies of the Engineer are brought into line with all other aspects of the city, and these reunited in the service of life, can he change from blundering giant into helpful Hercules …

Patrick Geddes, Report on the Planning of Dacca (1917)

… if we are going to reform the world, and make it a better place to live in, the way to do it is not to talk about relationships of a political nature, which are inevitably dualistic, full of subjects and objects and their relationship to one another; or with programmes full of things for other people to do … The social values are right only if the individual values are right. The place to improve the world is first in one’s heart and hands, and then work outward from there. Other people want to talk about how to expand the destiny of mankind. I just want to talk about how to fix a motorcycle. I think that what I have to say has more lasting value.

Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance ...