Recreating "Americana"

One of the more interesting things in recent years of suburban development is the tendency of suburbs to create city centers to create a "small-town" feel. If you live in a suburb, you know of what I speak. This St. Paul Pioneer Press article is a fairly solid assessment of the attempts to do this in the suburban Twin Cities.

I think that these attempts to gain some sort of authenticity in the suburbs is pretty laughable. I understand the impulse, though. Suburban life has been under assault for years by new urbanists and others (myself included) who ridicule the lifestyle of cookie-cutter houses, long commutes, shopping malls that are the same in one suburb as the next, strip malls, and chain restaurants. Suburban life has been derided as soul-draining, with some effect. You see empty-nesters and others moving back into cities in search of something "real." So suburbs, trying to reinvent themselves have been trying to build city centers featuring pedestrian-friendly streets and sidewalks, small businesses, and the other trappings of small town life (or at least someone's vision of small-town life).

The problem is, people vote with their feet, and in most cases, continue their patterns of going to the mall (or lifestyle center) to do their shopping. These contrived city centers aren't really working by and large. One example cited of a place where it did work was Lakeville. The difference is, Lakeville was a small town at the beginning of its existence. That seems to be the key. Suburbs that once were small towns seem to do a better job of developing city centers, because once upon a time they were city centers. The experience of cities like Stillwater, Hudson, Lakeville, Hastings and others like that are based on that reality. You can't create the authentic small-town feel unless you have a good base with which to start.

It's funny, I sometimes wonder if anyone likes where they are. People in big cities want small-town life, and people in small towns want big-city life.