Government played an immense role in shaping the suburbs through billions spent on highways, water, sewer, and other infrastructure over the past 15 years. A journey along Route 7/Philadelphia Road from Baltimore to Bel Air illustrates how government investment transformed small villages into sprawling suburbs, hollowing out cities through policies like highway building. While intended to speed travel and commerce, these policies also exacerbated inequality and the divide between urban and suburban communities. Both public housing and sprawl are now being rethought, showing the profound and unintended social impacts of past government actions.