11/03/2013
"If we were to divide all the existing descriptions of cities into two groups according to the birthplace of the authors, we would certainly find that those written by natives of the cities concerned are greatly in the minority. The superficial pretext-the exotic and the picturesque – appeals only to the outsider. To depict a city as a native would calls for other, deeper motives — the motives of the person who journeys into the past, rather than to foreign parts".
- Walter Benjamin
[Walter Benjamin. Selected Writings II 1927-1934. Trans. Rodney Livingstone et al. Eds. Michael W. Jennings, Howard Eiland, and Gary Smith. Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1999.]