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We are going to have to agree to disagree. I have known people who much prefer to walk and bicycle who have had to buy a car because life in much of the U.S. simply isn't doable without. When the author speaks of tyranny, he simply means that in general Americans HAVE to have automobiles to function in daily life.

I have lived in a European village and known the pleasure of being able to walk two blocks to reach the countryside, the grocery store, the train station, the bank, coffee shops, and restaurants. Your idea that such places squash individuality is laughable. I probably have never felt so free. In addition, most people had cars and enjoyed driving on the Autobahn. It was just that they didn't have to spend money on gas just to do their daily chores. They could enjoy fresh air and the exercise of walking as they did them instead, if they so CHOSE.

I also stayed in several Eastern European countries soon after the Iron Curtain fell. Believe me, I know the tyranny of the Soviet-style block apartments and being cut off from the farmland. The Smart Growth movement will lead there because it is central planning and has a definite agenda. I am advocating a return to a truly free market with an absence or minimum of zoning, so that those who want walkable cities will have that choice once again.

If sprawling cities and automobiles are so critical to freedom, then L.A. should be the freest, most "American" city. But when I drive by gated community after gated community there, it reminds me of medieval fortresses.

The "vision" of the planners of the 1950s clearly had some serious flaws, and it's time for a change. I don't know why allowing some cities to once again be walkable is so threatening. Government planners need to get out of the way, and let the market work.

I don't know why allowing some cities to once again be walkable is so threatening.

This isn't threatening in itself. The threat comes from the goverment force and corruption that is going on to corruptly use eminent domain to rob people of their properties, the public private partnerships which are unconstitutional, where the AIA and new urbanists are paid by the government to create designs that stifle individuality and force people to accept community rights over individual property rights, and the fact that the taxpayer and the private individuals are forced to fund it through taxes and cost shifting. Thats the problem. If you find a little apartment by the railroad tracks go rent it. If someone wants to open a shop next to you, don't use phony stakeholder rights to stop him or force him to open a bookstore istead of a machine shop. If someone wants drive their car out of the city, or have a place to park one in the city, don't stop them either. But most of all, don't make the government do it for you.