At fourteen years old, Alicia Pederson felt stuck in suburban Michigan. Like most kids her age, she was completely dependent on a parent to see her friends or get anywhere outside the house.
Even back then, she knew it didn’t have to be that way.
After college, she moved to Florence, Italy as an au pair. She lived with a family in a building that had stood since the 1500s. They lived in a ground-floor unit with twelve other households above them, but it wasn’t as compact as it seemed. Out the front door: a bustling street full of restaurants and life. Out the back door: a quiet, private courtyard garden.
The setup was dense but beautiful. Nothing like what Americans experience.
Alicia loved the design but didn’t see the true value in it until later in life, when she herself had children who wanted to run and play outside. Her friends were leaving the Chicago neighborhood she loved in search of yards and safe spaces for their children to play. There were no alternatives that didn’t involve leaving the city entirely.
So Alicia started asking a question nobody else seemed to be asking, only to find that the courtyard setup she loved so much about European cities is almost entirely illegal to build in America today.
