I took it upon myself to follow the recommendation of a Bloomingdale resident, who liked this video of writer/social critic James Howard Kunstler talking about public space at a long ago TED conference. The guy dubs a multi-lane suburban drag a "National Automobile Slum," and says there's "not enough Prozac in the world to make people feel okay about going down [a specific block in Boston]."

"We need to keep Kunstler's words in mind when we think about how the McMillan site and other important sites will be developed," states the Bloomingdalian. "We need to think about [how] the development of these spaces will reinforce our social ties as well as providing needed amenities."

Here's Kunstler's boiled-down thinking: "We're going to have to downscale, re-scale and re-size virtually everything we do in this country. And we can't start soon enough to do it. We're going to have to live closer to where we work, we're going to have to live closer to each other, we're going to have to grow more food closer to where we live."