Status Updates From Root Shock: How Tearing Up ...

“Grief is assuaged by resistance, expressed through joy.” (pg. 228)

“In learning of a new neighborhood, he searches for the net of human relationships, which he views as a sacred entity, the Higher Power that is helping each and every person survive and thrive.” (pg. 199)

“That’s why im digging you on the specific point of a ghetto-base rather than a union-base. That’s the only true base for black labor, if it wants to make the push and stay in the fight.” (pg. 195)

“planning a future in which continuity and change were balanced.” (pg. 186)

“If the old is not cared for, the new will fall victim to the same lack of care and commitment.” (pgs. 185-186)

“The mapping exercise forced all of us to look carefully, not from rote, not from stereotypes, but in the real moment, now and together, jointly decoding what we were seeing. A seemingly abandoned building that is really a working factory—that is only decoded with the help of an insider. The beauty in a vista—that is brought out by an outsider who is still aware enough to be looking in the distance.”

“Doctors know that one does not treat a boil on the skin without treating the whole body. The same can be said of the city: we cannot resolve the problems of a neighborhood without dealing with the totality of the city.” (pg. 182)

"The great gift of the city is that of propinquity: anybody can meet anybody on the streets of a great city. Once the streets collapse, or the market is bulldozed, or the parks are fenced, or the beach erodes, people lose the ways and means of public intercourse. The ensuing separations follow social fault lines that divide populations by class, race, religion, age, culture..."