It was true that the city could still throw shadows filled with mystifying figures from its past, whose grip on the present could be felt on certain strange days, when the streets were dark with rain and harmful ideas. Christopher Fowler, Ten Second Staircase
By 550 B.C. two hundred years after the foundation, Rome’s population was around 30,000 people spread over seven hills along the Tiber. It could now call itself a proper city. Larry Lamb, Rome: The World’s First Superpower: City of Blood, Channel 5 2014
The Spanish were awe-struck at a metropolis whose population of two hundred and fifty thousand surpassed even the cities of Europe. Conquistadors
And it was so, that, after they had carried it about, the hand of the Lord was against the city with a very great destruction: and he smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had emerods in their secret parts. I Samuel 5:9
Wherefore thus saith the Lord God; Woe to the bloody city, to the pot whose scum is therein, and whose scum is not gone out of it! Bring it out piece by piece; let no lot fall upon it. Ezekiel 24:6
For thus saith the Lord God; When I shall make thee a desolate city, like the cities that are not inhabited; when I shall bring up the deep upon thee, and great waters shall cover thee;
When I shall bring thee down with them that descend into the pit, with the people of old time, and shall set thee in the low parts of the earth, in places desolate of old, with them that go down to the pit, that thou be not inhabited; and I shall set glory in the land of the living;
I will make thee a terror, and thou shalt be no more: though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again, saith the Lord God. Ezekiel 26:19-21
Shall there by evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it? Amos 3:6
For thus saith the Lord God; The city that went out by a thousand shall leave an hundred, and that which went forth by an hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel.
Seek the Lord, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Bethel.
Therefore the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord, saith thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skilful of lamentation to wailing.
And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through thee, saith the Lord.
Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! To what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light.
Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light? Even very dark, and no brightness in it?
I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.
Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the Lord, whose name is The God of hosts. Amos 5:3&6&17-21&27
Woe to the bloody city! It is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not. Nahum 3:1
Woe to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city! Zephaniah 3:1
When ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Matthew 10:14
For we have no continuing city, but to seek one to come. Hebrews 13:14
Homes like these became part of a landscape of ASBOs and crack-dens that helped sound the death knell on social housing. The hey-day’s legacy is one of failure. Michael Collins, The Great Estate: The Rise & Fall of the Council Estate, BBC 2012
Lord Salisbury proposed a Royal Commission for the housing of the working classes. The impetus for the first in a series of housing acts that signalled dramatic change. ibid.
Letchworth: the world’s first garden city. The brainchild of social reformer Ebenezer Howard, Letchworth was a privately-funded project. Its cottages were the vision of a sandal-wearing socialist called Raymond Unwin – the founding father of the British council house. ibid.
Unwin’s garden cottages became the prototype for Lloyd George’s homes for heroes including those on the biggest housing estate in the world: Becontree, Essex. ibid.
It was this man – Lancelot Keay – who introduced the modern flat into the lexicon of council housing. ibid.
Government subsidies were available for the building of flats on sites where slums had been raised to the ground. The epic scale of the estates that emerged astonished contemporaries and enthralled their new inhabitants. ibid.
In 1945 following a Labour landslide the minister for health Nye Bevan oversaw the creation of a welfare state in which public housing would be as universal as health and education. ibid.
In 1946 Stevenage became the first of the nation’s designated new towns built to relieve inner-city population problem. ibid.
The Parker-Morris Report: Homes for today and tomorrow. ibid.
The street in the sky ... Lifts took homes higher than ever; new factory-style building methods produced flats quickly and inexpensively. And government subsidies were offered for high density developments; the taller the tower the higher the handout. ibid.
Eleven years in which the high-rise experiment had collapsed. The decline began when many of the rapidly built tower blocks that shot up from the 1950s were exposed as cheap and shoddy. By 1967 the government had withdrawn its subsidy for tower blocks. ibid.
When Margaret Thatcher swept to power in 1979 the building of council estates came to an abrupt halt. In 1980 she introduced a right to buy scheme. ibid.
It was that sense of permanence that gave so many British people ... a reason to have an investment in their homes, in their estates, in their neighbourhoods. ibid.
I believe the real cities of the future need to use technology in a radically different way. Brave New World With Stephen Hawking II: Technology, Tara Shine, Channel 4 2011
Masdar, an experimental city rising out of the desert ... A sustainable metropolis for forty thousand people. ibid.
One hundred years ago one in ten people lived in an urban area. By 2050 this will increase to seven out of ten. Stephen Hawking’s Science of the Future IV: Perfect City, National Geographic 2014
Welcome to India: over one in six in the world live here, and to make ends meet, more of us are moving to the city than anywhere else on Earth. We’re resourceful and highly resilient. Welcome to India, BBC 2012
It was raining in the city by the bay. A hard rain. Hard enough to wash the slime … Star Trek: The Next Generation s1e12: The Big Goodbye, Data’s recounting of holodeck adventure
Cities: Over half of us worldwide now live this way; we’ve become an urban species. Dara O’Briain’s Science Club, BBC 2013
This is the newest habitat on Earth. It’s here that animals have to contend with the greatest change that is happening to the face of our planet. David Attenborough, Planet Earth s2e6: Cities, BBC 2006
New York: This Peregrine Falcon looks down into an ideal habitat … A multitude of ledges on which falcons can nest … New York City has the highest density of nesting Peregrine Falcons anywhere on the planet. ibid.
A leopard: every night under the cover of darkness they come out to hunt … Leopards have attacked almost two hundred people here in the last twenty-five years. But humans are not their usual prey … Pigs: they leopards prefer to hunt the domestic animals people have brought to the city in considerable numbers … The highest concentration of leopards in the world is right here. ibid.
This tradition goes back over 400 years. The human butchers put out the bones they don’t need, and these hyenas deal with them. They’re the only animals that can. ibid.
Pigeons are by far the most successful urban bird. ibid.
We, after all, are the architects of the urban world. Now over half of us live in an urban environment … Yet it’s on this connection that the future of both humanity and the natural world depend. It is surely our responsibility to do everything in our power to create a planet that provides a home not just for us but for all life on Earth. ibid.
More than half of us now live in cities. And more of us are moving in. By 2050 two-thirds of the planet will be city-dwellers. We’re exploring four iconic cities in all four corners of the world. World’s Busiest Cities s1e1: Hong Kong, BBC 2017
Hong Kong: a city driven skywards by trade and money. ibid.
Hong Kong harbour: one of the busiest ports in the world. More than 1,000 vessels pass through here each day. ibid.
Nearly seven and a half million people cram themselves into Hong Kong’s tiny geographic footprint. ibid.
A cathedral of capitalism on communist shores. ibid.
The most expensive real estate in the world. ibid.
‘Just this bed. There’s no kitchen.’ … About six foot of space lengthwise.’ ibid. tenant of corridor cupboard
People here are obsessed by luck and love to gamble. ibid.