Not many sounds in life, and I include all urban and rural sounds, exceed in interest a knock at the door.

-Lamb, Charles
  Essays of Elia,'Valentine's Day'.

The car has becomeanarticle ofdresswithout whichwe feel uncertain, unclad, and incomplete in the urban compound.

-McLuhan, (Herbert) Marshall
  Understanding Media, ch.22.

New York is one of the capitals of the world and Los Angeles is a constellation of plastic. San Francisco is a lady, Boston has become Urban Renewal, Philadelphia and Baltimore and Washington blink like dull diamonds in the smog of Eastern Megalopolis, and New Orleans is unremarkable past the French Quarter. Detroit is a one- trade town, Pittsburgh has lost its golden triangle. St Louis has become the golden arch of the corporation, and nights in Kansas City close early. The oil depletion allowance makes Houston and Dallas naught but checkerboards for this sort of game. But Chicago is a great American city. Perhaps it is the last of the great American cities.

-Mailer, Norman Kingsley
  Miami and the Siege of Chicago,'The Siege of Chicago'.