Creating Neighborhoods Worth Playing In

When he was driving around Menlo Park, California, a few years ago, househunting, Mike Lanza had to ask himself: "Where are all the kids?" He'd spent consecutive weekends roaming through neighborhoods looking for places he might want to move his family and was a bit disturbed to pass through block after block to find almost no children playing outside. A father of three, Lanza had put a high priority on choosing not just a house but a neighborhood where his kids could and would want to play outside regularly without supervision. He never found it.

"Finding a place where kids are playing, where kids have a great life outside the home, is virtually impossible," Lanza says. "We spent two-and-a-half years looking for a place to live."