"Cities are not people. But, like people, cities have their own personalities ... A city is a collection of lives and buildings, and it has identity and personality. Cities exist in location, and in time. ... There are good cities—the ones that welcome you, that seem to care about you, that seem pleased you’re in them. There are indifferent cities—the ones that honestly don't care if you're there or not; cities with their own agendas, the ones that ignore people. There are cities gone bad, and there are places in otherwise healthy cities as rotten and maggoty as windfall apples. There are even cities that seem lost—some, lacking a center, feel like they would be happier being elsewhere, somewhere smaller, somewhere easier to understand. Some cities spread, like cancers or B-movie slime monsters, devouring all in their way, absorbing towns and villages, swallowing boroughs and hamlets, transmuting into boundless conurbations. Other cities shrink—once prosperous areas empty and fail: buildings empty, windows are boarded up, people leave, and sometimes they cannot even tell you why. ... Don't ever take a city for granted. After all, it is bigger than you are; it is older; and it has learned how to wait." (artist)