There is a proposal to tear down the wholesale market and Farmer’s market near me and put in a Town Center like development complete with eminent domain takeover of some of the properties involved. I don’t support it in this case, seeing as it involves taking someone else’s land and tearing down a public farmer’s market structure. Link. In this case, I really don’t see the point in building such a thing.
I’ve seen others in the area such as Shirlington and they’re alright. I don’t see them as being any worse than building a shopping mall. They have sidewalks so you can walk around, they have public transportation available and depending on the town center, they can have some good restaurants.
At this point, I’m not really getting all the hate for the suburbs. Some of the older ones can be pretty nice, with distinctive looking houses and with some businesses being within walking distance.
Thirded. Most urban centers are blights on the land. “Character” is just another name for “dead or dying.” The OP just doesn’t like the change, but if it was that bad, people wouldn’t be flocking to it.
Fourthed. I was going to bring up the whole “New Urbanism” deal myself. Towns like Seaside in Florida have been the harbingers of this type of thing. Frankly, as Jodi eluded to, the footprint is smaller, the overall energy consumption has GOT to be less by virtue of the newer construction, and the sense of pseudo-community that comes from living in a setting like that is preferable to living in Pleasant Valley, IMO, of course.
I’m not a fan of suburbs, but that really only applies to the ones where there are no businesses within walking distance. I lived in one of those suburbs in high school, and I hated it. The houses all being the same didn’t bother me so much, but not being able to walk to any shops or restaurants did.
Mixed use developments in Denver are mostly replacing something - Villa Italia Mall, Stapleton airport, Lowry AFB - and are far more appealling than what they are replacing.
We have one of those here in Kansas City, it’s called Zona Rosa. It’s not too bad, as pre-fabs go, and the shops are decent. The thing I actually like about it, though, is the theater. You can go in, order dinner, and watch a first-run movie in THX sound while you enjoy your meal, and the food’s not too bad.
Otherwise, yeah, it’s pre-fab kitsch.
In his book How Cities Work: Suburbs, Sprawl, and the Roads Not Taken, Alex Marshall ponders an interesting puzzle: Why is it so much more expensive to live or shop in Disney’s new planned new-urbanist community of Celebration than in the nearby authentic old-style small town of Kissimee? Why is the imitation so much more expensive than the original? And if this is what people want, why does the original (Kissimee) remain mired in sprawl-induced economic depression? There is no simple answer. One answer seems to be that retail businesses, to be viable, require a much larger customer base than you might expect. All the money Disney poured into Celebration might also have something to do with it.
In the case I’m thinking of, these things are actually big enough for traffic, so people go through where people are mostly trying to walk just to get to a different parking lot. What really annoyed me, though, was the little unofficial street signs they had put up. What made it worse was that it was actually given as an address when I was looking up the location of the new Apple store in Albuquerque. Now, while I don’t know all the streets in Albuquerque by any means, I know all the major and a lot of the minor ones and can often at least get an idea of where a business is unless it’s in a part of town I never go to. If they had just given the name of the new shopping center, I could have found it no problem. Instead, they gave this address:
2240 Q Street NE, Suite D
Albuquerque, NM 87110
Now, not only did I grow up in Albuquerque but I spent a good decade living in that zip code. And I knew that there was no Q Street anywhere in that part of town. As far as I know, there are no single-letter streets anywhere in Albuquerque. So instead of giving a useful address, like say an address for the entire complex on either Louisiana or Indian School (the two actual streets this lot is on a corner of), they gave something that still has no hits in any mapping program and at the time they didn’t have anything up but the address, no maps or instructions or anything.
Have you been out to The Glen in Glenview? It’s a new development out where the naval air station used to be. I was prepared to hate it, but I have to admit, I didn’t. It seemed kind of…pleasant.
When I was growing up in a subdivision of a way-out suburb, you couldn’t walk to anything except the other houses in the subdivision. Even our school was too far away. I would much, much rather live in one of these new town centers, where people can walk to schools & businesses…it might seem pre-fab, but it still fosters a sense of community. It’s really just a new kind of urban planning, and I think in the long run will be more successful than the old way of sticking huge tracts of houses in the middle of nowhere.
No, I haven’t. Thanks for a local name - when I’m out that way I’ll check it out.
The pictures on everyone’s links look inoffensive enough. Mostly I’m picturing like, Old Orchard mall with condos on top of the stores. I just don’t get the offense at prefab, or the disdain of new things. If anything, I think mass-market architecture is finally taking an attractive turn after years of really boring grey cinder block.
Argh, at “The Village at Sandhill” to figure out where you’re going you kind of have to know if it’s in the Forum, the Something Else, or the Magical Salamander. Or the Shoppes at the Magical Salamander. And there’s three dozen entrances, so just when you think you’ve figured out where you are, poof - you take the wrong entrance and you’re lost as hell. There seems like a lot of parking just to look at it, but once you try to park you realize you can never park where you need to be, and the parking where you need to be is miles from the actual store anyway. (Which, believe you me, matters in a South Carolina July.)
The Glen is huge…it’s like a town within a town. There is a “town center,” which looks pretty much like a city street, only all brand new & pristine. There is a Von Maur’s department store there, plus a bunch of smaller stores (probably like Pottery Barn…I didn’t go into the “business district,” so I’m not sure what all is in there). Then there are various groupings of housing…large single-family homes, and I think some townhouses & condos, too. Plus, they built a big park district facility (that’s why I was there…attending a birthday party at the pool), and I think a grammar school, as well.
The thing that impressed me about it was just what you said…it all looks new, but it doesn’t look “pre-fab.” The buildings are attractive, the houses don’t all look exactly alike, etc. I like old houses, but new stuff does have to be built from time to time, you know? At least these new developments are nice-looking.
Hey all you Chicago folk - come on out by me in Palatine. I’ll show you the wonder that is Deer Park Town Center - complete with townhouses that have taken over the last of the farmland and barns in the area. And y’all don’t EVEN want to see what my village has done with OUR downtown…We’ve bulldozed houses that were built in the 1800’s to build - wait for it - a parking lot.
VC03, I can feel for ya - I haven’t been back to MY hometown since the 1990’s - and have NO desire to. None, whatsoever. I could see what it was heading towards back then, and don’t even want to see it now. It makes me sad.
I can relate, because I grew up in Palatine. I don’t much care for what they have done to the downtown area, but I do get the desire to revitalize it.
I can’t complain about the development of the farm land…the subdivision I grew up in in the 70s was farmland, too, before they built our houses on it. That’s the way the sprawl goes…I guess you can’t fight population growth.
It’s not New Urbanism, so please stop calling such shopping centers examples of such. What you’re talking about are called lifestyle centers.
Ever hear of Country Club Plaza in Kansas City? Built in the 1920s, all at once. Critics of the era called it “soulless”, too. Today, it’s considered one of the crowning achievements of American city planning. It’s also considered the nation’s first lifestyle center.
Urban neighborhoods of the 1920s were the suburbs of the time, and architectural and social critics of the time were livid over them. Today, one would be hard-pressed to call areas like Pasadena, Chicago’s Bungalow Belt or Queens “fake”.
I find myself frustrated by claims of what’s “authentic” and “fake” in the built environment., Basically, what it comes down to is that old and shabby is “authentic” and “real”, while new and shiny is “fake” and “soulless.” Sure, I’d rather see a vibrant urban neighborhood or downtown than a lifestyle center, but they’re a vast improvement over the strip plazas of decades past.
VCO3, it’s not your town any more. You moved away, remember? You didn’t appreciate its reportedly apparent charms enough to stay, why should the people who remained behind want to leave it as it was?
I understand your pain, I really do. The house I grew up in in my hometown has been destroyed in favor of some McMansion that’s too big for the lot by half, IMO, as have at least half the houses on my old street, as of last year. It made me angry. But guess what? I moved away, didn’t inquire as to the property when I saw it had fallen into disrepair a couple of years ago, and lost my chance to try and preserve anything I could of what I had thought of as the charm of my old stomping grounds.
You already made your choice to move on and make room for others. So move on.
Unlike successful urban Main Streets and neighborhoods, where it’s hard to park, there’s no protection from the weather, and tons of walking is required. :rolleyes: Sounds like the only acceptable alternative is a day at the mall with an electric mobility cart.
While I agree with most of your post, it certainly is a species of new urbanism, as is shown by the mixed-use nature of these developments as well as their emphasis on walking or alternative transportation. And it is not a so-called lifestyle center. “Lifestyle centers” (and what a stupid term that is) are the new big malls that have not only shopping and a food court, but several sit-down restaurants and usually a movie theater. They often have the traditional enclosed mall along with an outdoor walking-mall component. They generally do NOT include residences, being retail centers. It doesn’t sound like the the development in the OP is one of those expanded, high-end shopping malls.
They are not all as bad as is described. There is a small one near me that is very nice, Port Warwick. This is a good image of the main square. They have a concert there every Thursday evening in the summer. At first just about all the stores there were individually owned, but I think there may be some chains now. It doesn’t have the mall that many of these places seem to have, and I think that is a vote in its favor.
