Moving sucks. Trust me, by this time next month, I’ll have moved for the fifth time in five years. Each time a lease ends, I hope I’ll find a home and a block that fits my personality. Through countless visits to rental properties—to find my newest place, I viewed more than 20 before finding a good match—I’ve developed a foolproof way to judge the character of a street. It must have at least one of three criteria: flowers on stoops or windowsills, neighbors in shiny plastic lawn chairs (even if said lawn chairs are sitting on concrete and not actual, um, lawn), and colorful sidewalk-chalk drawings up and down the pavement. If I see one or more of these things, I know I’ll be dealing with neighbors who care about their properties and are engaged in keeping the neighborhood looking nice. This is why I was stunned to read about a Denver community banning sidewalk chalk.