“Gentrification is a process that hides the apparatus of domination from the dominant themselves. Spiritually, gentrification is the removal of the dynamic mix that defines urbanity—the familiar interaction of different kinds of people creating ideas together. Urbanity is what makes cities great, because the daily affirmation that people from other experiences are real makes innovative solutions and experiments possible. In this way, cities historically have provided acceptance, opportunity, and a place to create ideas contributing to freedom. Gentrification in the seventies, eighties, and nineties replaced urbanity with suburban values, … so that the suburban conditioning of racial and class stratification, homogeneity of consumption, mass-produced aesthetics, and familial privatization got resituated into big building, attached residences, and apartments. This undermines urbanity and recreates cities as centers of obedience instead of instigators of positive change.”

On how being a city planner affects her writing in “Questions For Arkady Martine, Author Of 'A Memory Called Empire'” https://www.npr.org/2019/04/07/710356506/questions-for-arkady-martine-author-of-a-memory-called-empire in NPR (2019 Apr 7)

The New Day: Campaign Speeches of Herbert Hoover (1928), Campaign speech in New York (22 October 1928)

On the cultural change
Jeet Thayil on why 'Where are you from?' is a complicated question for all of us

Bettencourt, L. M., Lobo, J., Helbing, D., Kühnert, C., &amp; West, G. B. (2007). &quot; Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities http://www.pnas.org/content/104/17/7301.long.&quot; Proceedings of the national academy of sciences, 104(17), 7301–7306. <br class="br">2000s

Speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention (July 21, 2016)

new viruses <br class="br"> &quot;Implosion&quot; https://web.archive.org/web/20121013194328/http://www.thatsmags.com/shanghai/article/414/implosion (2011)

In the cultural scene in London
Jeet Thayil on why 'Where are you from?' is a complicated question for all of us

April 1995

Introduction
The Culture of Cities (1938)
Context: The city is a fact in nature, like a cave, a run of mackerel or an ant-heap. But it is also a conscious work of art, and it holds within its communal framework many simpler and more personal forms of art. Mind takes form in the city; and in turn, urban forms condition mind.