In the 1960s my three brothers, sister, parents, and I used to visit my Uncle Woody, who lived in Levittown, Pennsylvania, one of the most famous suburban developments in America.

Uncle Woody was visibly proud of his little house. It was immaculate inside and out. He put a bowl of fancy chocolates on the coffee table, and we sat around his cramped living room enjoying the picture window. At Christmastime, he decorated the whole place, even wrapped tinsel around the railing of a staircase that seemed to lead nowhere; it, in fact, ended at an attic trap door.

Uncle Woody died...

On October 25, 2002, schoolchildren in the Washington area emerged gleefully from locked classrooms and ran out to the playground. “Recess is back,” proclaimed The Washington Post. But had the snipers who shut down ordinary life for weeks chosen to attack in Chicago, or Atlanta, or parts of Texas and Florida -- or many other places -- the children wouldn't have marked the return to normality by going out for recess again. Children in these places do not have recess—ever.

Recess has been disappearing quietly, school by school, for at least two decades. Its...

It’s not often that civilization is demolished to make way for wild birds, especially within sight of Connecticut’s largest city. That’s what’s happening on a long barrier beach between Bridgeport and Stratford.

On the Stratford side, a yellow excavator crashed its bucket into the roof of cottage number 31 of Long Beach West last week. Timed to avoid most of the rare shore birds’ nesting seasons, the excavator turned the abandoned beach house into a debris pile within about 10 minutes.

By Thanksgiving, the original 37 cottages and 27 outbuildings...