Suburbs trying to create a sense of community
By BETSY TAYLOR
Associated PressPosted: March 24, 2007
Dardenne Prairie, Mo. - Right now, City Hall is in a doublewide trailer where the power just went out.
But if Mayor Pam Fogarty has her way, a new municipal building, still on the drawing boards, - or, really, still in her imagination - will become part of a new chapter in this growing town's story.
The mayor and other supporters, with design help from a firm known for pioneering the New Urbanism movement in architecture, are planning a place to bring people together, where they can walk the streets and pass time, and where a sense of community can flourish.
Dardenne Prairie is getting a downtown.
Once an agricultural community with fields of corn, wheat and soybeans and the occasional cattle farm dotting the landscape, Dardenne Prairie is located about 35 miles west of St. Louis.
It is a stone's throw from the two Missouri cities that are growing most rapidly, Wentzville and O'Fallon.
By Tom Gannam, AP
Today, bedroom communities have sprouted in Dardenne Prairie's pastures, and franchise stores line the roads into and out of town.
Its population has expanded by about three-fourths, from about 4,000 people at the start of this decade to nearly 7,000 in 2005, according to U.S. Census figures.
But, Fogarty says, her little city is missing something.
"Everybody wants a third place. You have your work. You have your home, but everybody wants a gathering place," says Fogarty, a mother of five.
Her reference is a nod to sociologist Ray Oldenburg who defines the third place as "a setting beyond home and work (the 'first' and 'second' places respectively) in which people relax in good company and do so on a regular basis."
Fogarty's vision for her town: This third place will include a proper City Hall building, perhaps with a front porch where residents can gather.
The new district will give the community a place where people can have "cookies with Santa and the Fourth of July parade," she says, envisioning a walking district filled with shops, offices and living space.
"When you have a downtown, people say, 'There's Dardenne Prairie,'" the mayor says.
And she knows exactly where they'll be when they say that. The would-be downtown is 80 acres, part of it occupied by a baseball diamond that will remain, the rest open fields and a few privately owned houses. Several are rental properties whose owners are interested in selling, Fogarty said.
The site's transformation into a downtown begins with town meetings in April.
Dardenne Prairie isn't the only community seeking to establish a sense of place by designing it.
In Storrs, Conn., the University of Connecticut has drawn notice for a plan to essentially build itself a college town, with shops, restaurants, apartments, and even a traditional New England town green. UConn officials have said they don't know of another university that has attempted the same thing.
The belief that aspects of traditional neighborhoods can enhance communities has been growing with certain architects in recent years.
After World War II, suburbs flourished. As many commuters moved farther from cities into housing subdivisions, their lives became more separate from one another. Homes were no longer down the block from the corner store. Offices sprung up in business parks. It became yet another drive to get to church or school.
Inspired by small towns
In their book, "Suburban Nation, The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream," Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk and Jeff Speck criticize suburban sprawl and related development that appear to have only one goal: "making cars happy."
Duany and Plater-Zyberk are among about a dozen people credited with the New Urbanism movement. They drew much attention after developer Robert Davis asked them in 1979 to design Seaside, Fla., which was inspired by aspects of small-town life.
Now Dardenne Prairie has hired their firm, Miami-based Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co., to help shape its downtown and its future.
Not far from Dardenne Prairie, a made-from-scratch community with the fitting name New Town is rising from fields that were mainly used for growing sod.
The 750-acre development, whose full name is The New Town at St. Charles, drew from classic city architecture, with detached garages in back of homes and a church, a bookstore, a market and other shops with more on the way.
Residents can swim, kayak and fish in manmade lakes with fountains and canals that are a storm water system.
Wide front porches and parks are intended to encourage neighbors to get to know one another.
New Town is pitched by its creators as "a return to the towns of yesterday."
Developer Greg Whittaker said he wanted to build a community where, "once you park your car, you don't have to get back into it."
In all, 5,700 homes could be built in the instant community. Residents pick up their mail at a mail center, a decision made in part to get people socializing and out of their homes, Whittaker said.
Several residents said they've found just what they were looking for in New Town.
Peggy Riley, 56, recently had lunch at the Prancing Pony bookstore with her grandson, Will Statler, 3, before heading to a meeting with a couple of women from St. Charles Christian Church.
She said her family is related to eight other families that have moved to New Town.
She loves how the community looks, but more importantly she's fond of the other residents.
To many of them family is important, she said, and they like to stay active, taking part in church and social gatherings.
New Town was planned by DPZ, the same firm that Dardenne Prairie is going to use for its downtown.
A DPZ team plans to come to Dardenne Prairie in late April to talk with residents, business owners and other decision-makers and sketch ideas about their hopes for the new downtown.
To help fund the more traditional downtown it is seeking, the town used an unusual approach to development, first drawing some big-box retailers to generate tax revenue.
Link: JS Online: Suburbs trying to create a sense of community
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