What Carmel, Indiana, can teach America about urbanism

In 1995, when Jim Brainard, then a lawyer, fought the Republican primary to become the mayor of Carmel, Indiana, his city was a modest suburb of Indianapolis with a population of around 35,000 people. Walking around its sprawling tract housing, and talking to residents about what they wanted for their town, he found a theme. People said things like: “I wish I could walk to a restaurant.” On winning the primary, knowing that he wouldn’t face much opposition in the general election, Mr Brainard devoted himself to studying urban planning. “I have a theory that our architecture got very boring and bad about the time we all got in cars and stopped walking around looking at it,” he says.