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Take air quality in the United States today: It's about 30 percent better than it was 25 years ago, even though there are now more people driving more cars.

We don't realize how hard it was to drive anywhere outside the major cities less than a century ago.

Those who remember New York in the 1970s, as I do, look back on a city that had hit a very rough patch - decaying, bankrupt, and crime-ridden. But fun.

What I'll remember about New York is growing up really fast.

When I came to America, there was a lot of decadence in New York in the early '70s because the city was bankrupt and you could do whatever you want!

The '70s just seemed dirty, honestly, and not in an interesting way. It's not the '80s. In fact, it's 10 less. I grew up in the '80s, so that's more of an interesting time to me.

I can remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty.

England in the late 1940s was famously grim. As I remember it, London back then was a very dirty place, from coal dust and smoke, from the grit stirred up every day by the jackhammers still clearing out rubble from the Blitz.

The air is dirty because of the electricity monopolists. They have powerful money lobbyists.

But when I came back into the city for the first time last November, I thought every truck, every building was going to blow up. It has truly changed me something fierce.