Fake Towns

Posted by on June 04, 2006

One of the most frequently emailed articles last week among urbanists is the front page story in the Wall Street Journal by Thaddeus Herrick headlined "Fake Towns Rise, Offering Urban Life without the Grit."

It's another look at the attempt by New Urbanists and others to remake the suburbs as mixed-use, walkable communities with gathering places that resemble small town downtowns of years gone by.

There's nothing particularly new about this. A recent trip through Chicago's north suburbs reveals a wonderful collection of identifiable communities, each with its own town square and rail station. These suburbs are, at once, their own communities with their own identities and also connected by train to the larger city of Chicago. They are a perfect reflection of how the fate of cities and their suburbs are inextricably linked, a relevation from a study two years ago for CEOs for Cities by Bob Weissbourd and Chris Berry.

What Herrick calls "fake towns" are, in fact, not fake. They are a reasonable response to the bland, souless, single use developments of recent years. They are not, however, a substitute for the central city of the MSA where most of the economic and cultural life of the larger region is generated.

What is fake is holding on to the outdated argument that cities and their suburbs are in competition. And if they act as if they are in competition, then the whole region will suffer.