A collective right to the city A collective right to the city was seminally articulated by the French philosopher Henri Lefebvre, a right understood not simply as individual access to the goods, services, and spaces of the city but as the right to change the city in accordance with our deepest desires, to steer the very process of urbanization and the way in which the city nurtures the kinds of people we wish to become. Michael Sorkin, 20 Minutes in Manhattan The Help-Yourself City rights
The dignity of age Wood and stone, and now concrete and wood, age slowly and with dignity. They do not shatter hysterically like glass, or tear like paper, but discolor with a melancholy, noble air. Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness Things that shine and glitter time