We Used to Build Some of the Best Streets in the World. Then We Made It Illegal But Your Community Can Change That.

There’s a neighborhood near you — maybe it’s where you grew up, maybe it’s where you go on weekends, maybe it’s just a place you drive through sometimes and feel something shift — where everything just works.

The buildings come up to the sidewalk. There’s a coffee shop on the corner. Trees line the street. People are actually outside, walking somewhere, stopping to talk. The buildings are four or five stories, maybe six — old brick or stone, windows that open, stoops with people sitting on them. It feels like somewhere. It feels like it belongs to someone.

You probably don’t spend a lot of time thinking about why it feels that way. But I do. It’s my job. And I can tell you exactly why it feels that way — and exactly why we stopped building it.