Local and state governments can help civil society by building towns and cities in ways more conducive to neighborliness and community building. Walkability is a big thing. Mixing residential and commercial development would create real neighborhoods where people can walk to the corner store for a gallon of milk and run into their neighbors. It could allow for “third places” like neighborhood pubs, barbershops, and sandwich shops. Of course, it would also help if counties, states, and cities stopped giving lavish corporate welfare deals to shopping centers that help kill Main Street.
...more
