I am doing my damndest. Almost the whole town is built for car dependency and isolation. Hard to find the right people. I swear bureaucratic inertia and a large cast of either incompetent or corrupt people has been stifling the growth of natural community spaces for like 80 years in the city limits.

True in lots of places

Not like an evil plan, at least, not by anyone alive, the city charter happens to be the third city charter. The city repealed and rewrote its charter twice before it. It's a deeply flawed document, that got worse in the 90s. Then worse in 2007. Then worst once per term with our current mayor.