Can You Really Change Your Corner Of The World?

I really enjoyed this article the Times published today. It is about the quest for manners in Chicago cafes and other businesses, which have recently been putting up signs "encouraging" parents to parent, and to keep their children quiet and well-behaved. This, of course, has created quite a battle. I'd love to hear your opinions.

But to me, they really buried the lead of the article. Almost the penultimate paragraph of the article states:

He (Mr. McCauley) likens this one small step toward good manners to his personal effort to decrease pollution by hiring only people who live close enough to walk to work.

"I can't change the situation in Iraq, I can't change the situation in New Orleans but I can change this little corner of the world."

I think McCauley's whole idea of hiring only those people who can walk to work is certainly worthy of its own article. I remember with great fondness living in Portland and being able to walk from my apartment in the Northwest to my job in the Pearl District. And on my day off, everything I needed to do was also within walking distance. I rarely had to use to my car, which was great, because on-street parking was minimal, and once you got a good space, you didn't want to give it up.

There is something terrific about hiring people in the neighborhood to work IN the neighborhood, but that takes a whole different infrastructure than is readily available, especially out here where I live now. And remember, I now commute 2 hours a day to my work, so I am sure that Mr. McCauley is not a fan of mine. I would love to see viable, livable neighborhoods that supported all kinds of businesses and families.

And a resurgence of manners would be welcome, too.