Morning in Privatopia

From Plato’s Republic to Sir Thomas More’s Utopia to B. F. Skinner’s Walden Two and beyond, many social theorists have tried to design, even to build, an ideal human community. It is a prospect that many view with ambivalence. As Louis Mumford wrote, “The word UTOPIA stands in common usage for the ultimate in human folly or human hope.”

Recently, a new form of urban and suburban housing known as the “common interest development&#...