gtZip wrote:No... they are little villages to get things that you need, be entertained and get stuff done, without having to drive 40 miles to do it all.
A little post office, store, a few restaurants, a dry cleaner. Maybe a theatre.
Some people want to just be in a nice neighborhood and not have to go into the city proper.
Of course, none of you have ever encountered one if you haven't spent any time in a large metropolitan area.
I'm for them.
(And no, I'm not talking about the Boizeee area. They had a few in the Denver metro area.)
That's what we call a "strip mall," Zip. They're all over the place out here, & I won't call them "vibrant suburban town centers," cuz that is just too pretty a term for yet another ugly buncha stores clutterin' up the roadsides in the name of the almighty dollar. Ppl don't mingle there. They get thier sh*t & they get the hell out.
I'm not really all that far out in the STICKS, btw. I'm a mere 100 miles from DC, an hour away from Frederick, MD (which is solidly chock-FULL of these vibrant suburban markets, btw!), & 45 min from Winchester, VA (which also has a bunch of 'em), & 20 min from Hagerstown, MD (which has more than ITS fair share of these wonderful community gathering spots). Hell, even Martiansburg has the same old crap, complete with the post office.
Our mall, the former "vibrant" meeting place, has been sold to Mountain State University, cuz the stores within haven't been raking in the big bucks. The ppl that HAVE the big bucks work in the city, & shop there, so the WalMart is even moving out of its location by the mall, & into a strip mall. They just BUILT a strip mall with Target & all of the usual attending stores in it, about 1/2 mile from the mall. How many frikken "vibrant suburban town centers" can YOUR area support? Frederick, MD has 5 whole miles of them! It's STILL called "the Golden Mile." Now, it's just an extremely cluttered ugly line of stores & restaurants, mostly fast food, btw, & you can see the light pollution from the top of the nearest hill, & the place is an hour away.
It'd be NICE to be able to see the frikken SKY! I could when I came here, back in '84, but it's been blotted out by the "vibrant suburban town centers" over the years.
Can't Americans find ANYTHING to do but f*ckin' SHOP? We are the only country in the world decadent enough to make a "sport" out of it! We even encourage our elderly to join in the fun, as "mall-walkers," in the name of thier "health" (though there's little that can be called "healthy" about walking on concrete for hours on end). Gimme a break from American consumerism!