Say there were a town without cars. People walk or ride bicycles. Produce and milk (grown largely on nearby farms) are brought in on ox-drawn carts. The street lamps are few and not too bright, stores turn out their lights at night, and although the town is busy and lively, it is possible on a clear night to see many stars. When it snows, classes are canceled, and young people go out in teams to shovel the streets. There is a general view, promoted by the local schools but shared by most parents, that young people should not carry phones nor spend a lot of time looking at screens; of course, each family interprets this view in their own way. There is a train station nearby, and citizens of the town sometimes travel to a nearby modern metropolis—because they have business there, or just for a day trip. (If you don’t like some of these details, feel free to alter them to your liking. I’m only sketching.)
Would you want to go live in this town and raise your children there?
I think many of us would say, well, yes.
Of course, this town does not exist, and somehow it seems impossible. But why? What exactly is impossible about it?
(I am bracketing for the moment the question of how this town came into being. I want to explore how, having been established, it works, or if it works at all, and what its workings tell us about how we want to live.)
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