Can you build main streets in the suburbs?
video description
Date: 2019-09-12
Related videos
Comments and reviews: 9
Norman Knutsen
I agree with him on many points but Downtown Silver Spring is surrounded by a real urban area. It is built in the middle of an area that in the 50s and 60s had two department stores built along a street and was the 2nd largest retail cluster between Baltimore and Richmond, of course after Washington, DC. It also is three blocks away from a Metro Station, and has multiple bus lines that both go to downtown DC and into the other Maryland Suburbs on both ends of the privately owned street. It is a few blocks from one of the top 10 metro stations in the DC area (admititly geared towards suburban traffic) and a two story bus hub in the Washington, DC area as well as commuter train and intercity bus station. It served as the anchor for a revival of the rest of downtown Silver Spring. Downtown Silver Spring at one point also had more office space (built along streets that look like they could be in downtown DC (with 3 to 12+ story buildings) with side walks immediately outside. There are however a lot of parking garages, originally used for Metro commuters but now many are being torn down for new apartment buildings and offices. Mind you it is only around 40 square blocks of urban space surrounded by 1920s thru 1960s single family homes and low to mid-rise apartment buildings. The census designated place, according to Wikipedia, has a density of 9, 000 people per square mile which has a density of around 11, 000 people per square mile. Good video. Thank you
reply
I agree with him on many points but Downtown Silver Spring is surrounded by a real urban area. It is built in the middle of an area that in the 50s and 60s had two department stores built along a street and was the 2nd largest retail cluster between Baltimore and Richmond, of course after Washington, DC. It also is three blocks away from a Metro Station, and has multiple bus lines that both go to downtown DC and into the other Maryland Suburbs on both ends of the privately owned street. It is a few blocks from one of the top 10 metro stations in the DC area (admititly geared towards suburban traffic) and a two story bus hub in the Washington, DC area as well as commuter train and intercity bus station. It served as the anchor for a revival of the rest of downtown Silver Spring. Downtown Silver Spring at one point also had more office space (built along streets that look like they could be in downtown DC (with 3 to 12+ story buildings) with side walks immediately outside. There are however a lot of parking garages, originally used for Metro commuters but now many are being torn down for new apartment buildings and offices. Mind you it is only around 40 square blocks of urban space surrounded by 1920s thru 1960s single family homes and low to mid-rise apartment buildings. The census designated place, according to Wikipedia, has a density of 9, 000 people per square mile which has a density of around 11, 000 people per square mile. Good video. Thank you
reply
Water Bug
Westchester in LA put huge parking lots behind their main st (Sepulveda south of Manchester) stores. That killed foot traffic on main st so most businesses closed their doors on main st and the entrances are off the parking lots in the back. So now main st looks like an alley or ghost town with litter. A person can't easily walk across the street. To get to a store on the other side of main st people drive. It's crazy. The issue imo has to do with profit margin. Retailers used to make a high profit margin on goods sold. So people bought less stuff and wanted higher quality because of that higher cost. This allowed for Mom and Pop retailers and fewer shoppers so main st parking was enough. When retailers figured out lower prices equaled higher volume and higher profit the Mom and Pops couldn't survive on low margins and low volume so they had to go. With lower prices people switched more to buying more stuff, lead to lower quality stuff (which is OK because it's cheap) and more people shopping so more parking. The biggest problem today imo for city planners is they don't seem to be able to deal with the new reality. They keep wanting to re-create something that has been gone for 30+ years and is unlikely to ever come back. People want those old main streets but they don't want to actually go there. Shopping is now a chore. People go to malls for recreation but somehow that's just not something builders and city planners can understand.
reply
Westchester in LA put huge parking lots behind their main st (Sepulveda south of Manchester) stores. That killed foot traffic on main st so most businesses closed their doors on main st and the entrances are off the parking lots in the back. So now main st looks like an alley or ghost town with litter. A person can't easily walk across the street. To get to a store on the other side of main st people drive. It's crazy. The issue imo has to do with profit margin. Retailers used to make a high profit margin on goods sold. So people bought less stuff and wanted higher quality because of that higher cost. This allowed for Mom and Pop retailers and fewer shoppers so main st parking was enough. When retailers figured out lower prices equaled higher volume and higher profit the Mom and Pops couldn't survive on low margins and low volume so they had to go. With lower prices people switched more to buying more stuff, lead to lower quality stuff (which is OK because it's cheap) and more people shopping so more parking. The biggest problem today imo for city planners is they don't seem to be able to deal with the new reality. They keep wanting to re-create something that has been gone for 30+ years and is unlikely to ever come back. People want those old main streets but they don't want to actually go there. Shopping is now a chore. People go to malls for recreation but somehow that's just not something builders and city planners can understand.
reply
Jeff Webb
Here in the United States you CAN NOT BUILD beautiful mainstreets in the suburbs. Why? El Cheapo development rules the day and all that goes in are the typical CRAPPY car centric STRIP style development with the CRAPPY shopping centers hidden CRAPPY fast food boxes on the main through fare. Even where I live, a well respected master planned community, Summerlin, on the western rim of Las Vegas valley as hard as they try, it is still car centric strip development but with architectural controls and nice desert landscaping. The excuse for them is Downtown Summerlin a upper mid level quality topless mall on the northern half and the southern half the typical suburban big box shopping center. There is a new minor league baseball stadium right across the street to the east and the Red Rock Resort just north of the topless mall. To the south of the baseball stadium and I forgot, the practice rink for the local NFL hockey team, a new dense apartment complex, still car centric. Nothing will be walking distance for anyone due to the street configuration, the traffic speeds and on a hot 110 degree day like today, who wants to walk 3/4th a mile to Trader Joe's and back. Lets not forget, this is considered by Las Vegas standards the most prestigious part of town.
reply
Here in the United States you CAN NOT BUILD beautiful mainstreets in the suburbs. Why? El Cheapo development rules the day and all that goes in are the typical CRAPPY car centric STRIP style development with the CRAPPY shopping centers hidden CRAPPY fast food boxes on the main through fare. Even where I live, a well respected master planned community, Summerlin, on the western rim of Las Vegas valley as hard as they try, it is still car centric strip development but with architectural controls and nice desert landscaping. The excuse for them is Downtown Summerlin a upper mid level quality topless mall on the northern half and the southern half the typical suburban big box shopping center. There is a new minor league baseball stadium right across the street to the east and the Red Rock Resort just north of the topless mall. To the south of the baseball stadium and I forgot, the practice rink for the local NFL hockey team, a new dense apartment complex, still car centric. Nothing will be walking distance for anyone due to the street configuration, the traffic speeds and on a hot 110 degree day like today, who wants to walk 3/4th a mile to Trader Joe's and back. Lets not forget, this is considered by Las Vegas standards the most prestigious part of town.
reply
elfoxy
I live in Tamworth in the UK, the urban design is a bit of a mess- the town center is full of small shops and oriented around foot traffic mainly with some big car parks on the outskirts of the town center, but there's also a mall inside the town center, the problem is that most of these smaller shops are dying out because people here are very poor so the only shops that survive in the town center are vape stores, fast food places, and really cheap corporate grocery places (also expensive jewelery stores somehow. There's a retail area just outside of the town center called Ventura which is a lot more like what I imagine America to be like- big supermarket stores with sprawling car parks, and that's taking a lot of business away from the town center I think because people would rather drive down, load up their car with groceries and go home. Younger people tend to hang out in the Castle Grounds, which is a big series of parks in between the town center and Ventura, so it's convenient for them to get to both, but most don't have a lot of disposable income so they'll go to ASDA because it's cheap to get food, drinks, alchohol. some people go to restaurants & coffee shops because it's nicer but I think it's mainly women that do that?
reply
I live in Tamworth in the UK, the urban design is a bit of a mess- the town center is full of small shops and oriented around foot traffic mainly with some big car parks on the outskirts of the town center, but there's also a mall inside the town center, the problem is that most of these smaller shops are dying out because people here are very poor so the only shops that survive in the town center are vape stores, fast food places, and really cheap corporate grocery places (also expensive jewelery stores somehow. There's a retail area just outside of the town center called Ventura which is a lot more like what I imagine America to be like- big supermarket stores with sprawling car parks, and that's taking a lot of business away from the town center I think because people would rather drive down, load up their car with groceries and go home. Younger people tend to hang out in the Castle Grounds, which is a big series of parks in between the town center and Ventura, so it's convenient for them to get to both, but most don't have a lot of disposable income so they'll go to ASDA because it's cheap to get food, drinks, alchohol. some people go to restaurants & coffee shops because it's nicer but I think it's mainly women that do that?
reply
Gen Li
A lot of people don't realize that main streets were the center of development speculation, but on a smaller scale. A businessman would build a building larger than he needed in hopes of renting out the rest of the space. The upper floors in many small towns were never actually completely used The speculation just didn't pan out a lot of times. When they were used as commercial space, it was usually for some doctor's offices and other offices, services like photographers, and quite often, fraternal order rooms and rentable banqueting/dance rooms (often the fraternal order would build a building expecting to be in the second floor and planning to rent the ground floor to cover costs. They were also sometimes the lower end of the hotel business--residential hotels and rooming houses. Apartments were pretty rare. Even when the new lifestyle centers are done well, they're done all at once and by the same person, which makes them look the same in a way that a 50- to 80-year span of development with lots of different builders just doesn't. Don't think, though, that there was something inherently purer about the paint mixer who built an entire block of 5 stores in hopes of making a real estate fortune
reply
A lot of people don't realize that main streets were the center of development speculation, but on a smaller scale. A businessman would build a building larger than he needed in hopes of renting out the rest of the space. The upper floors in many small towns were never actually completely used The speculation just didn't pan out a lot of times. When they were used as commercial space, it was usually for some doctor's offices and other offices, services like photographers, and quite often, fraternal order rooms and rentable banqueting/dance rooms (often the fraternal order would build a building expecting to be in the second floor and planning to rent the ground floor to cover costs. They were also sometimes the lower end of the hotel business--residential hotels and rooming houses. Apartments were pretty rare. Even when the new lifestyle centers are done well, they're done all at once and by the same person, which makes them look the same in a way that a 50- to 80-year span of development with lots of different builders just doesn't. Don't think, though, that there was something inherently purer about the paint mixer who built an entire block of 5 stores in hopes of making a real estate fortune
reply
Marc Rugani
5: 43 Are these centers connected to other uses? One of the critical differences raised in this video is the issue of pedestrian and mass transit access. If a lifestyle center is not accessible by all levels of the socio-economic continuum, intentionally or unintentionally, it will fail to provide the same benefits of the main streets of past generations. Broad access has a recursive effect of potentially creating social capital, the trust factor, and allowing people of different walks of life to meet each other and exchange ideas and values, like the agora of ancient Greece. Redevelopment of old village/city centers may be a better way to use existing physical capital like abandoned or underused rail and road networks to achieve the goals that private development wants to create for profit. Not to say that's not an option or a supplement to the rising demand for walkable commercial/retail space, but rather than re-inventing the wheel, we can do better than the artifice of new town centers that are voluntary participation spaces with curated options for business and residence.
reply
5: 43 Are these centers connected to other uses? One of the critical differences raised in this video is the issue of pedestrian and mass transit access. If a lifestyle center is not accessible by all levels of the socio-economic continuum, intentionally or unintentionally, it will fail to provide the same benefits of the main streets of past generations. Broad access has a recursive effect of potentially creating social capital, the trust factor, and allowing people of different walks of life to meet each other and exchange ideas and values, like the agora of ancient Greece. Redevelopment of old village/city centers may be a better way to use existing physical capital like abandoned or underused rail and road networks to achieve the goals that private development wants to create for profit. Not to say that's not an option or a supplement to the rising demand for walkable commercial/retail space, but rather than re-inventing the wheel, we can do better than the artifice of new town centers that are voluntary participation spaces with curated options for business and residence.
reply
Aaron Bays
Lifestyle center=mall in 21st century parlance IMO. Developers figured out the operating costs of malls were too high(ie maintaining/heating/cooling those public hallways/spaces. So lets just build a strip mall but lay it out like Main Street, much cheaper to build, cheaper to operate. The other big factor is maybe the land/area supported some retail, but not a full-blown mall or huge strip center. Well with the lifestyle center concept, it allows you to diversify and they've marketed it to where people will actually buy condos/townhouses/single family residences in these types of developments. Personally I think the idea of mixed commerical/residential is a brilliant idea, but the pricing is all out of whack from what I've seen in suburban Nashville. If I'm buying a condo/townhouse in one of these new suburban mixed use developments, well for the same I can go live in east Nashville or some other old, walkable, historic neighborhood that is right in the city vs some isolated development in Franklin, 25 miles from downtown.
reply
Lifestyle center=mall in 21st century parlance IMO. Developers figured out the operating costs of malls were too high(ie maintaining/heating/cooling those public hallways/spaces. So lets just build a strip mall but lay it out like Main Street, much cheaper to build, cheaper to operate. The other big factor is maybe the land/area supported some retail, but not a full-blown mall or huge strip center. Well with the lifestyle center concept, it allows you to diversify and they've marketed it to where people will actually buy condos/townhouses/single family residences in these types of developments. Personally I think the idea of mixed commerical/residential is a brilliant idea, but the pricing is all out of whack from what I've seen in suburban Nashville. If I'm buying a condo/townhouse in one of these new suburban mixed use developments, well for the same I can go live in east Nashville or some other old, walkable, historic neighborhood that is right in the city vs some isolated development in Franklin, 25 miles from downtown.
reply
microcolonel
It's not necessarily the case that private property has degraded rights of expression, or that you are likely to be kicked out. It has been tested in the supreme court, and in some instances, private operators of streets and other amenities which are broadly considered public have many of the same constitutional constraints that public operators do. I looked into this because I'm looking at building a privately-operated space which is at least partially public (in the social sense) in a community that would otherwise have nothing like it. On that matter I'd like to know what you think are the most compelling aspects of real main streets vs. fake ones; my main gripe with the fake ones is that they are built like shopping malls in the way that they are designed to make it difficult to leave, I find that so offputting that none of the other issues with malls are really memorable. Cheers: - )
reply
It's not necessarily the case that private property has degraded rights of expression, or that you are likely to be kicked out. It has been tested in the supreme court, and in some instances, private operators of streets and other amenities which are broadly considered public have many of the same constitutional constraints that public operators do. I looked into this because I'm looking at building a privately-operated space which is at least partially public (in the social sense) in a community that would otherwise have nothing like it. On that matter I'd like to know what you think are the most compelling aspects of real main streets vs. fake ones; my main gripe with the fake ones is that they are built like shopping malls in the way that they are designed to make it difficult to leave, I find that so offputting that none of the other issues with malls are really memorable. Cheers: - )
reply
David Reynolds
Big country with low population density. Many towns only established properly in the age of automobiles. The boom in car ownership after WWII meant everyone had a car and wanted parking. The land was plentiful so why wouldnt you provide ample parking. Hence the straggling main streets with individual building, each with parking lots in front. Leads to an soulless feeling. The new pastiche main streets are much better but ideally the ownership of the thoroughfares should revert to the state. As you say, the quasi public but yet private aspect is slightly unnerving. You know only a cop and tell you to leave a public place. Otherwise you have every right to be there. The risk, however slim, of being approached by security or management in these developments is uncomfortable and these places will never truly be accepted by locals as theirs like a real town centre would.
reply
Big country with low population density. Many towns only established properly in the age of automobiles. The boom in car ownership after WWII meant everyone had a car and wanted parking. The land was plentiful so why wouldnt you provide ample parking. Hence the straggling main streets with individual building, each with parking lots in front. Leads to an soulless feeling. The new pastiche main streets are much better but ideally the ownership of the thoroughfares should revert to the state. As you say, the quasi public but yet private aspect is slightly unnerving. You know only a cop and tell you to leave a public place. Otherwise you have every right to be there. The risk, however slim, of being approached by security or management in these developments is uncomfortable and these places will never truly be accepted by locals as theirs like a real town centre would.
reply
Add a review, comment
Other channel videos
