I don't see too many of my friends in this neighbourhood. I see some of them, but there is no togetherness here as it was. We felt safer, we felt like we were in a Greek town. You came out from your house into the street and you met so many people who would say hello to you … [After slum clearance in Chicago] so many things changed for the better. But for individuals—now all these people who lived down there, I don't think any of them is happy now.

The Chicago I knew was vast and squalid … Slum clearance hasn't improved it… It is not a shanty town any more, but possibly something worse … While no one regrets the vanishing of the old slums, we also remember we once had neighbourhoods. They have vanished too. Without them, there can be no such a thing as a city to which one feels held. We are passing into a city without roots. We must conquer the city or be conquered by it.

There was a Japanese elm in the courtyard … It used to blossom in the springtime. They were destroying that tree, the wrecking crew. We saw it together. She asked the man whether it could be saved. No, he had a job to do and was doing it. […]