Billy does his thing outdoors at the Thayer Street restaurant Andreas, on College Hill, in Providence.

My family dined al fresco on Thayer Street this evening. Thayer is the main street of Brown University on College Hill, in Providence. We arrived, sat down, got out our mobile media, and noticed a party under way on a roof nearby. Then we saw Billy’s grandma and grandpa across the street. Turns out they had just finished eating inside the same restaurant, Andreas, where we were eating outside. They came over. We all enjoyed watching the roof party, at some point during which it seemed a “Cheese it, the landlord!” alarm went out and a very pretty girl tried to flee the roof (she and her boyfriend had actually parked their Volkswagen right opposite our table, bless them!). False alarm. Things calmed down, though the kid in the red sweater gave me the evil eye, I think, for shooting their shenanigans. Then we waved goodbye and they waved goodbye and we said goodbye to our folks and they left and we left, and on our way back to the car we saw a dog on a motorcycle (along with typical Thayer personae), and went home.

I relay this homely adventure to convey the idea of a great street, which Thayer is. This is life happening in all its facets. It’s where the action is, a living adventure. Victoria took the photo that shows the Brown partiers in their urban context. At the bottom of that photo is the nemesis of great streets: the SUV. Not because it guzzles gas but because it blocks views. I love watching people stroll by on both sides of the street. Any SUV takes away part of that pleasure.

Yes, yes, we drove to Thayer in a car (it was not an SUV, I promise, not by a long shot). But that’s another complaint. Good urbanism in America – that is, towns and suburbs built before World War II and New Urbanist communities (and infill) of more recent years – is so rare that high demand has bid up the price for houses there, and so only rich people can afford to live in such neighborhoods. So we live not on College Hill but a mile or so farther north in the outer reaches of the East Side (which many people think is a synonym for College Hill). The historic districts that are so beloved and hence so expensive are no more than regular prewar neighborhoods – really nothing special about them. Build more lovely traditional neighborhoods (in many places laws must be passed making them bloody legal again) and the prices will come down. I promise.

The photos below include a signboard of the 257 Thayer St. housing project under construction now for wealthy Brown students. It seems to have lost a bit in translation (“value” engineering) from the heights it achieved after it was given a major design tweak by the talented classicists of Union Studio Architects in downtown Providence after an initial appalling all-things-to-all-people design. Another shot shows a fire engine waiting near Brown’s new Granoff Creative Arts Center, the accordion-like thing by Dildo Scorpion + Rent-Free – oops, I mean Diller Scofidio + Renfro.