I grew up in Florida but lived in Queens NY for the 20 years. When I say lived there, I mean I practically never left except for a couple of times in that period. Now, two years ago I moved back to the Tampa area and I’m amazed at how many places now have quaint little downtown areas, where these places had been previously left to rot. Downtown Orlando, where I grew up, is unrecognizable. I currently live in Lakeland, and it only has 100,000 people and it has the same thing. The adjacent town, Plant City, only 30000, ditto. I was driving around and came across a small town called Zephyrhills, pop. 10000, and I’ll be damned if they are not in the process of doing it too.
I had no idea this was happening in Florida. Is it happening where you live as well (US based of course)?
Well, in my non-US based perspective (but nevertheless culturally congruous) suburban malls – with lower taxes and lower land costs – have essentially shut down most moderately-sized city cores.
City planners and city councilors are to blame for this abomination.
So, obviously now is the time to attempt some sort of reclamation of the otherwise downtown wasteland: hence the “quaint little downtown areas.”
I can say with great certainty that this is the case here in West Central Indiana. Even my hometown of about 2500 has a quaint downtown, populated by an absurd number of antique stores.
Cute lampposts, greenery in the middle of the road, possibly brick inlays in the sidewalks at corners, cafes, etc. I like it a lot. Turns previously ugly areas into places where you can actually feel like walking around (instead of driving), studying in a cafe, dining outside in the front of restaurants, or just taking the fam out for ice cream and a stroll. In places like the suburbs of San Jose, California, such as Mountain View or Sunnyvale, for example, it alleviates some of the awfulness of suburban sprawl and the feeling that your soul is slowly dying and may disintegrate if you see one more retail center with Panda Express, Starbucks, Applebee’s, Jamba Juice, Old Navy and three thousand cars. I’m thinking of the downtowns that evoke citified living, not the country/antique store/old West/tourist trap downtowns (where it seems possible that they still lynch people).
Where I live, the city council is struggling with the quaintification issue right now. They neglected the zoning control until 3, count 'em, 3, check-cashing/title loan companies opened on the square, all with ungodly garish neon lighting. When you add that nobody on the council wants to be known as the one who proposed higher taxes to buy planters and streetlamps to lure in weeken antique-seekers, it’s going to be a long struggle.
Plenty of Massachusetts towns don’t, including mine. (But Saugus IS developing its National History Park, the Ironworks) I think Everett has an active anti-cute program.
It’s all too bad – I rather like towns that have a recognizable and walkable downtown, like Melrose and Andover.
Yeah, I don’t know where you got “quaint downtown area” for Orlando. Granted, it’s pretty unrecognizable from the early 90’s, but that’s more shiny new highrise developments than quaint antiquing stores. The central downtown is pretty downtownish, with just the required level of grittiness to prevent it from being completely touristy.
Winter Park is another story. But it’s always been that way, so it’s not a fake quaintness.
It does seem to be sort of a trend nowadays, and I think it’s a good thing. It’s sort of like, “make a nice destination and shopping will happen” instead of the mall theory of “see if we can make shopping the destination”.
That way, even if shopping doesn’t happen, you have a place to drink coffee and play hackysack.
We live in a town on the Connecticut Coast famed for it’s quaint New England Charm - and huge Old Yankee waterfront properties. We are also in a historic district, and our town counselors have a strict historic agenda they stick to when it comes to keeping everything with-in the codes of quaint New England Town. They even made the Starbucks build outside of the towns limits, and the only mass market eatery we do have is a McDonalds which is tucked behind a Victorian residence.
We’ve got the cobble streets, little nodal parks with flowers and brick and benches, and all of the stores are locally owned and opporated. I like it…be we are a fading community across the country.
The economy’s going to hell here, but I’ll be damned if my hometown didn’t set up a quaint little downtown (pop. 19,000). I have no clue why, as nobody ever goes outside and there’s nothing desirable on the main street, but I guess they felt the need for some reason.
I kinda feel the opposite, actually. Having seen these “town centers” in Palo Alto, Walnut Creek, Concord, and Riverside they all feel exactly the same, and honestly they embody suburban sprawl to me. They feel really fake and icky to me.
I remember a thread a while back where we were talking about how a lot of these downtowns were basically pre-fab thingys, the downtown equivalent of a T.G.I.Fridays.
I’m glad I live in a town with a real, thriving downtown. Lots of local businesses, lots of cafes and restaurants, a couple brew-pubs, etc…
Yeah, it’s all part of the New Urbanism trend. The idea is neat but I think far too many communities hopped on the bandwagon and created downtowns that ultimately don’t have enough attractors to work. And the nation as a whole completely overbuilt the high-end condos that seem to go hand-and-hand with these projects. I think in a few years, many of these downtown projects will devolve into places for bums to sleep and empty storefronts.
That’s interesting. When you live in SF, though, you can afford to be condescending about any other city’s attempt to be cool. It’s one of my favorite cities in the whole world. When I lived on Judah, I could walk to everything I ever needed, on Irving. I had credit at the corner market. Bliss. BUT. If you actually LIVED in one of those other places, maybe you would appreciate more the fact that there was a place to go to a cafe, eat outside and watch people, whatever. Or maybe not…
As **tremorviolet ** pointed out, it’s called New Urbanism.
The deal is that over the past 50 years, those with the means to do so left the urban centers to go live in sprawling suburbs. So called “White Flight”.
One of the biggest problems of the suburbs is that you basically need a car to do everything. You drive from your subdivision of 1000 similar units down a 4-6 lane divided highway lined with strip malls, big box stores and chain restaurants. Maybe you go to the enclosed mega-mall which has come to serve as the modern day “town center”
To make matters worse, each storefront has about a half mile of parking lot on all sides of it. Basically, this design leaves the individual with a sense they are walking through something that was totally not built for human scale. Kind of like being an ant walking across the kitchen floor.
New Urbanism is really a return to ye olde style of mixed zone, medium density, pedestrian-centric urban communities. Communities designed for human scale, not automobile scale.
Most designs that I have seen usually incorporate some kind of commuter rail station or other transportation node as the central hub. Usually, there will be restaurants, bars, book stores, cafes and whatnot nearby. Homes are townhouses within walking distance on sidewalk and tree or streetlamp lined boulvards.
It sounds like the major criticism is that these new communities are often plopped in the middle of urban sprawl anyway and end up like a phony Disney town.
The council and mayor here wanted to be known as ones who created the town center. So, we ended up with wrought iron bus-stop benches on the corners (we don’t have busses) and expensive landscaping in the medians that cost a fortune to maintain and uses an ocean of water during the recent drought. It was a bitter irony seeing the “voluntary watering restriction” signs in the medians along with the poorly-aimed sprinklers spraying water on the street for the last few summers.
It’s one of my favorite cities in the whole world. When I lived on Judah, I could walk to everything I ever needed, on Irving. I had credit at the corner market. Bliss. BUT. If you actually LIVED in one of those other places, maybe you would appreciate more the fact that there was a place to go to a cafe, eat outside and watch people, whatever. Or maybe not…