Snow has left a half dozen cities in the Mid-Atlantic and East Coast paralyzed. Watching video clips on CNN.com and elsewhere, we're shown families in.... Snow has left a half dozen cities in the Mid-Atlantic and East Coast paralyzed. Watching video clips on CNN.com and elsewhere, we're shown families in large suburban homes trapped for several days without access to the world beyond their driveway. Without a car, the basic necessities of food, medical care, etc. of life are out of reach.

My sister lives at the end of a cul-de-sac outside of Pittsburgh. It took more than a day for a plow to come through, but even when it did, there's no where for the snow to go at the end, except in a big pile that blocks someone's driveway. In Pittsburgh the same problem of no where to put the snow exists, but at least in many neighborhoods one can set out on foot.

Faced with relocating to suburban Texas, I found most of the suburbs have the same lack of access to basic necessities without a car. Several feet of snow in Dallas is not a likelihood, but snow isn't the only thing that can limit mobility. The price of fuel will likely continue to rise, and even without natural disaster, access to food, entertainment, medical care, etc. will become more limited by the cost of travel.

Today new communities are being built to be more walkable, but in most cases the commercial components are still not there. In many cases that's because the density is still too low to support pedestrian-oriented retail. It's important to begin to change this and to adapt existing communities to have access to amenities within a short stroll through rain, sleet or snow.