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How dogs -- yes, Fido and Blackie! -- can improve life in America's neighborhoods

Cities have long been viewed as either glamorous or depraved -- but in both cases as places quite unsuited for most American households. A new movement has challenged this myth head-on, proving in neighborhoods across this continent that all kinds of people can feel at home in the city -- including families with kids. Now the next step for urban revitalization activists is to make our cities better places for pets and the people who love them. -- The Editors

Between leisurely café lunches washed down with bottles of wine and weekend trips to the sun-dappled Côte d'Azur, Parisians, it's clear, have an inside track on living la belle vie. But who knew French dogs had it so good?

On a recent trip to Paris, after a long day of dutiful sightseeing, I climbed onto a crowded Metro train. Spying an open seat halfway down the car, I bumped and jostled my way toward it, only to be greeted by a snoozing Westie, serenely curled up in "my" seat, next to its unfazed owner. Needless to say, I ended up standing.

Yes, dogs routinely travel by train in France. They also roam the streets leashless, are welcomed in many hotels, and accompany their human companions into bars and bistros alike. While many North Americans may not be ready to embrace this sort of doggie utopia (I myself was torn between admiration for the Metro's liberal transit policy and a deep desire to give the dog the boot), it seems logical that as more and more urban dwellers opt to live with pets, cities that want to thrive must adopt pet-friendly policies.

"The American family has changed dramatically over the past 50 to 100 years," says Kathleen Hulser, who with fellow historian Roberta Olson curated Petropolis: A Social History of Urban Animal Companions, a recent New York Historical Society exhibit that traces the gradual evolution of pets from outdoor creatures who earned their keep by doing essential work to members in full standing of the modern urban family. "We're having fewer children, we're having them later, we may not have them at all, we might be gay or lesbian, we're living longer after our children are grown up -- all this means that we have more openings for people to have animals as companions," says Hulser.

Urban centers, she believes, are at the forefront of redefining the new American family. Over the past century, American cities have repeatedly transformed themselves to respond to a variety of challenges. In recent years, to combat the mass exodus of families with children to the suburbs, many cities have adopted a variety of revitalization and livability measures, including improved parks and playgrounds and the "community school" model of public education (which encourages neighborhood schools close to home rather than extensive busing), as a way to both hold and attract middle-income families. These efforts seem to be working, as cities from Portland to St. Paul to Brooklyn now sport revitalized middle-class neighborhoods where the sounds of kids playing echo up and down the sidewalks.

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