• “GOD made the countryside, man made the city,” was perhaps the most popular line in the intellectual discourse of the 18th century.
  • The entire “Romantic” generation of philosophers, painters, and poets of France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and England shunned the idea of having to create urban settlements.
  • The force and ferocity of the idea of city as the hub of civilisation as forged in the self-absorbed and aspiring American city provides the moving inspiration today for a Hong Kong and Dubai.
  • In contrast to all these urban creations stands the Asian village. Its past stretches to a lineage beyond one’s memory.