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.
Death seems to have been a rather late invention in evolution. One can go a long way in evolution before encountering an authentic corpse.
The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality we drink in every night.
Loneliness is different than isolation and solitude. Loneliness is a subjective feeling where the connections we need are greater than the connections we have. In the gap, we experience loneliness. It's distinct from the objective state of isolation, which is determined by the number of people around you.
Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state...
The world is wider in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain and Lazarus.
Things are not to be judged good or bad merely because the public think so.
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