Too many Americans live in places built for cars — not for human connection

I’ve lived in Houston for most of my life, and there’s never been a time when I’ve reasonably been able to walk anywhere. Houston is practically the poster child for American urban sprawl — the landscape is dominated by spread-out neighborhoods with single-family homes and massive “stroads” (street-road hybrids with the worst aspects of both) lined with strip malls and expansive parking lots, connected by miles and miles of highways. It’s an environment designed to be solely traversed by car, not by foot.

That had a dramatic effect on the friends I...