An American social critic sets out to show how the excessively ordered community freezes adults - young idealists as well as their security-conscious parents - into rigid attitudes that stifle personal growth. He argues that the accepted ideal of order generates patterns of behaviour among the urban middle classes that are stultifying, narrow and violence-prone. He also proposes a functioning city that can incorporate anarchy, diversity and creative disorder to bring into being adults who can openly respond to and deal with the challenges of life.