Walk to Work

A city within a city, turned inward on purpose. Five hundred and eighty-one staff, a radio engineer for your aerials, and one rule you'll learn before the others: every door here opens twice.

He sold them the abolition of the commute. Live here, the brochures said, and you need never leave — there is a grocer, a druggist, a barber, a nursery, a bowling alley, an ice rink, a man whose only job is to climb to your window and connect your radio aerial. Five hundred and eighty-one people kept the city running so that you would never have a reason to walk out its gate.

I think that was the first mistake, and the most beautiful one. You can build a place so complete that a person forgets the door is for leaving. I have watched them forget for ninety years. Come in. I'll show you how it works. Just remember which way you came.

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From the recordTrue: Fred F. French built a self-contained city of ~2,800 apartments and 581 staff, sold on the promise that you'd never have to leave. We only added the part about the doors.