While suburbia has long symbolized comfort, safety, and home ownership, its consequences reach far beyond picket fences and cul-de-sacs. From traffic congestion and environmental degradation to economic inequality and declining community life, our reverence for sprawl has reshaped how we live, work, and connect.

On today's show author and developer Steve Nygren about how this pattern of development took hold, who benefits when we're isolated, and what better alternatives can look like.

[6:30] Calling out the "boundaries that box us in"

[14:30] The antidote? Connect with people who have common concerns

[22:00] Common sense ways to live with community — not sprawl — in mind

[32:00] Who benefits when we're isolated, lonely, sedentary, and sad?

• We have an aligned sponsor! Head to Duckfeetusa.com and use code MAMAMINIMALIST FOR $50 off.
• Start In Your Own Backyard: Transforming Where We Live With Radical Common Sense
• Last Child in the Woods (by Richard Louv)
• The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (by Jonathan Haidt)
• Serenbe
• This show is listener-supported. Thank you for supporting!
• Join our (free!) Facebook community here.
• Find your tribe. Sustainable Minimalists are on Facebook, Instagram + Youtube @sustainableminimalists
• Say hello! MamaMinimalistBoston@gmail.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.