The structure is your destiny.
Jane Jacobs thought that our infrastructure of roads doomed us to not have thriving communities.
We got our roads as an answer to the Great Depression, where the government promised, "You'll never be without work, and if necessary we will make work."
"We'll build our way out of this mess."
When you live in a community, you are forced to figure out how to live together, and even thrive, with people who are different from you.
In a car, we're in an air-conditioned bubble, kept separate from the people near us.
If we don't like the people we're with, we can just pop into our bubble and drive somewhere else.
Cars allow us to sort ourselves physically to where we want to be, to chase the economic edge.
Our children, when they grow up, don't stay near their parents, they go to where they have the best economic opportunities.
The economic force has dominated the normal community forces that helped weave society together.
Is it any wonder it all feels so hollow?