LAST FRIDAY, we discussed Is America Used Up?, a 1973 book about America’s infamous ’70s malaise, a book which recommended somehow finding our way back to the can-do spirit that the author claimed had made this country great.

Twenty-six years after that book came out, we all can think of some things Americans could do if they got back to some of that old industrial-expansionist-era vigor.

Here’s one task: Rebuilding urban, and especially the suburban, landscape. Make the burbs more like real towns, with more informal meeting-places and more strolling around and walking to work; instead of ever-huger houses in ever-sparser subdivisions connected by ever-wider roads for ever-bulkier assault vehicles.

It’s a big task, even bigger than building the suburbs in the first place. But fewer cars is a good first step. And if we can’t have fewer cars right away, let’s at least get smaller ones, like some of the way-cool minicars that sell so well in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

The Mercedes-Swatch Smart Car (discussed on this site last year) is, alas, still not coming to North America anytime soon; and neither is Ford of Europe’s cute little “Ka” (described by one critic as “a concentrated espresso shot of carness”).

But Toyota’s got an electric “concept car” (i.e., just for show) called the ecom that it is trotting around, particularly in Calif. where more severe smog limits are pushing automakers to pursue such desperate measures. Damn, the thing’s cute! It goes 60 mph, with about a 60 mile range between recharges. The company bills it as just the thing for scooting around short-range areas (colleges, small towns, “planned communities,” office-industrial complexes).

I can imagine it as a lot more. I can imagine it as a way to help bring back “community,” by encouraging folks to live, work, shop, learn, and hang out in closer geographic quarters. This would help neighborhood businesses (as opposed to big-box chains), though it would also encourage Net-based home offices and Net shopping and home schooling.

(Other companies are proposing to deal with the pending Calif. smog limits via more conventional-looking vehicles, such as Honda’s Hybrid, which uses batteries to supplement a regular gasoline engine.)

(Speaking of America’s unmet needs, what do you think this country could, or ought to, do? State your case at our ever-belligerent Misc. Talk discussion boards. More on this topic a little later on.)

ELSEWHERE: KOMO claims it’s the first TV station in the world ot air all its daily newscasts in digital, hi-definition TV. But its engineering department confirms only the anchor-studio segments are HD. Those of you well-heeled “early adopters” out there with the way-costly HD-compatible sets can see Connie Thompson’s face exquisitely pixel-rendered, but the field coverage (you know, what you’re really talking about when you talk about “seeing the news”) is still shot on good old, ’80s-vintage, analog-tape Betacams. (KING has some HD field cameras in use, but it also still uses some traditional analog camcorders and then uses digital-processing tricks to enhance their images. NorthWest Cable News shoots and edits its field footage on digital, regular-definition tape.)

TOMORROW: Cool webzines that are not Salon or (thank heavens) Slate.