Sharpening 'Ruppie' Skills For Downtown Living

"Kyle Ezell thinks more Americans would live downtown if they only knew how. It's an acquired skill, he says, like ballroom dancing or trigonometry.

'People take golf lessons because they've never done it before,' says Ezell, an urban planner in Columbus, Ohio, who has worked on the redevelopment of several cities' downtowns. 'People have never lived in cities before. My mission is to teach people how.'

So he's giving lessons. He's developed a course for suburban empty nesters and retirees that not only teaches how to pick a city retirement destination, but also the finer points of such urban needs as sensible walking shoes, the right bag for grocery shopping, how to tool around on a motor scooter, even how to hail a cab."