I have spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know If I ever communicated what I meant when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than ocean, wind swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with comerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get there. That’s how I saw it, an I see it still.—Ronald Reagan, 1989 Farewell Address to the Nation
