![Filled bike racks at Wolftrap Elementary in Vienna, Virginia](https://durablehuman.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/2013-05-10_08-46-50_132-500x350.jpg)
Many are puzzling over how digital technology can be designed to work more for us than against us. But countless such tools already exist to do that—it’s just a matter of how we use them. This is a personal example of how individuals orchestrated our public-serving governmental entities and digital creations to improve a community’s quality of life.
On a beautiful day in 1999, a few years after we moved to our newly-built suburban neighborhood near Washington, D.C., I got the urge to walk with my six-year-old son to a nearby park.
This was no ordinary destination, but the serene and meticulously cared-for Meadowlark Botanical Gardens, the only such facility in all of northern Virginia.
![](https://i1.wp.com/durablehuman.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Meadowlark-serenity.jpg?fit=604%2C400&ssl=1)
Though barely a mile long, the walk itself was tough. We fought through tall grass along winding Beulah Road—surely trespassing on other people’s yards. As we trudged ahead, we noticed a trampled area, replete with the fresh detritus of a car accident.
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