True, and here we see the architectural landscape of cities and villages that the United States has largely ignored or eliminated.

Cafe, parks, and walkable common spaces are essential to be able to see and converse with partners, friends, and to make new friends. Even in Covid Times, spaced apart, this can be done.

One cannot do that here in the US state of Ohio, with few exceptions. The drive through at noon at fast food outlets sprout a long line of idling cars that add to a boiling planet’s demise. Massive highways are ringed by sprawling malls dotted with these places.

A few “experimental” Malls try and reproduce the commons, near Columbus and The Greene, near Dayton, but even that is largely filled with corporate and franchised shops trying to do their mallification on a small scale of walkable streets.

City planners know about the social necessity of architecture described in the book A Pattern Language. But for the most part, final plans and builds reflect the push for parking large vehicles — traveling Man Caves and She Sheds. Housing is separate from shopping and schools are built further out from that. Everybody needs to drive.

Then they idle in parking spaces like giant air conditioned, gas-powered phone chargers. Mesmerized faces often lit by the light of their personalized phone screens.