Forgotten America

It's weird how we, on one hand, have some abstract nostalgia for small town America, but that we've completely forgotten what it was like. LaHood:

Q. So tell me, what does this concept of "livability" really mean?

A. This is something I've never really talked about, but growing up, I lived on the east side of Peoria. When I was growing up, I could walk to my grade school. We had one car, but we would bike everywhere we went. We could walk to the grocery store. In those days, we had streetcars and buses, which people used to get to downtown Peoria, which was probably five miles from my house. I used to take a bus to my dad's business. I grew up in an era [of] livable neighborhoods and livable communities -- what we're really trying to offer to people around America. When there was no urban sprawl, when you didn't have to have three cars, when there weren't houses with three-car garages, everybody had one car.