I Want My Country Back!

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…And so does Transpo Secretary Ray LaHood (as found on Atrios):

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.

via Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood talks about livable communities | Grist.

LaHood was born in 1945 in Peoria, Illinois (pop. 105,187 in 1940 to pop. 126,963 in 1970) and turned 18 in 1963. LaHood is describing a working, middle class city built for working class budgets where it is easy for working class people to get to and from work.