Boston says you should be smarter Great cities attract ambitious people. You can sense it when you walk around one. In a hundred subtle ways, the city sends you a message: you could do more; you should try harder. The surprising thing is how different these messages can be. New York tells you, above all: you should make more money. There are other messages too, of course. You should be hipper. You should be better looking. But the clearest message is that you should be richer. What I like about Boston (or rather Cambridge) is that the message there is: you should be smarter. You really should get around to reading all those books you've been meaning to. Paul Graham, Cities and Ambition intelligenceboston
104. Site Repair Problem Buildings must always be built on those parts of the land which are in the worst condition, not the best. Solution On no account place buildings in the places which are more beautiful. In fact, do the opposite. Consider the site and its buildings as a single living ecosystem. Leave those areas that are the most precious, beautiful, comfortable, and healthy as they are, and build new structures in those parts of the site which are least pleasant now. Christopher Alexander, Murray Silverstein & Sara Ishikawa, A Pattern Language Einmal Ist KeinmalRepairBut then the knoll was goneComposition and revisionRethinking Repair buildingmakingdesignrepair