"I never understood the mentality of people so against the convenience of walking to the corner to buy a gallon of milk that they zoned properties in such a way

"I never understood the mentality of people so against the convenience of walking to the corner to buy a gallon of milk that they zoned properties in such a way to make it impossible." If you build retail close enough to housing to walk to it, then people will walk to it. If my house is near that retail, people will walk near my house. People commit crimes. Walkable retail means I will get robbed. Or at least that's how I assume their thought process goes. "Can we all just admit now that the people who invented suburbs were idiots and find ways to make a subdivision more like a very small town?" People are trying: http://www.cnu.org/ http://www.cnu.org/ One such development that I've been paying attention to: http://muelleraustin.com/ http://muelleraustin.com/ It's closer to the center of the city than what most people would call a suburb, but it's in the midst of plenty of suburban density, segregated-use development. The part that has been built is really pleasant to walk around. Instead of giant garages being the primary architectural feature, the garages are in the back on alleys. There aren't driveways every couple of feet with cars blocking the sidewalk like there were in the neighborhood I grew up in. When the "town center" part gets built, the neighborhood should be a pretty amazing place to live. In the Bay Area, Palo Alto's not so bad. You can't really walk anywhere unless you live really close to downtown or the Middlefield shopping area, but at least you can bike places without cheating death.