Specifically, for big families (which are disproportionately religious and conservative), the need to drive everywhere is a huge drag. You need to bring a bunch of little kids with you as you shuttle the older kids to practices and play dates.

More walkable small towns mean more kids biking or running off to baseball practice.

Now, I’m not advocating big government solutions such as banning cars or massive light-rail projects. I’m not saying “abolish the suburbs.” I’m saying that maybe suburban towns and counties want to drop their big government regulations and allow more dense development — and that conservatives would like many of the results.

I know it freaks conservatives out to talk about this, in part because Joe Biden is talking about it, and the federal government ought to have zero or near-zero role in any of this. It’s also scary to conservatives because of how lefty the talk about walkability or against car-centric development can be.