I’ve lived in this city for decades, but I’m noticing more and more problems. There’s crowding, congestion, changing people, tall buildings, and the biggest problem: This city is a literal city.

I love living in a city, but I hate dealing with other people. I shouldn’t be subject to the whims of my neighbors, something I constantly scream at them during city council meetings.

You can’t walk down the street without seeing some new expensive building going up. It’s all I can think about until I’m safely ensconced in my million-dollar apartment, scornfully looking down at the construction.

I don’t recognize anyone in my neighborhood anymore! Why do the kids I used to know seem to grow taller, look older, and move away? I need every political candidate to clarify their position on the passage of linear time.

It wasn’t always like this. I moved to this city as a wide-eyed twenty-year-old, ready to take on the world with energetic abandon. Now, I’m no longer twenty years old. Something really has changed with this city.

A city used to mean something. These days, it seems the only thing that defines a city is a large concentration of people in a denser urban environment.

But a city doesn’t have to be made of skyscrapers and full of people. A city could be smaller, more intimate. A city could be a single two-story ranch with a detached garage and a suspicious homeowner glaring contemptuously from the living room blinds at children playing in the street. A city could be that paradise.

I’m no ideologue; I’m open to discussion on the right size of a city. Maybe it’s eight people, maybe nine, and if we annex a neighboring state or turn the Atlantic Ocean into a subdivision, then we can surely fit ten people… at most.

Growth is inevitable, and growth can be good! Let’s focus on consistent growth all the way up to two stories. We can even expand the idea of a city, and by expand, I mean twist and choke the idea of a city until it’s a suburb.

We can’t do it alone. We need bold leadership that courageously pushes our city to remain trapped in historical amber.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty I still love about living in a city, like having a single bagel delivered silently to my apartment door so I don’t have to interact with any of the millions of rich stories unfolding around me. But sometimes the delivery driver makes me meet him at my front door, and I have to, gulp, make eye contact. I didn’t realize I signed a lease in Gomorrah.

There are plenty of people who agree with me; my Nextdoor posts are blowing up with anonymous, rage- and typo-filled screeds of approval.

With hard work, imagination, and the immediate exodus of millions of people, this city can become the best thing I can imagine: not a city.