Belmar, a 22-block downtown in the making, exemplifies the potential for transforming post–World War II bedroom suburbs into more diverse, compact, sustainable, pedestrian-oriented, and transit-oriented communities. When completed, it promises to be a model for the redefinition of suburban communities that have been buffeted by inexorable growth over the past several decades.
Thirty-five years after it was built, the Prudential Center had an established identity as a large-scale, mixeduse complex of office, retail, hotel, and residential buildings in Boston’s Back Bay, the city’s second-largest office district, in addition to being the site of Boston’s convention center. Yet the “Pru,” as it was locally known, had never been able to attract key downtown office tenants, nor had it achieved rent levels comparable to those of downtown buildings. It also was suffering the consequences of a 1960s site plan that walled it off from the surrounding urban streetscape.
If the physical archetype for traditional neighborhood developments (TNDs) in the United States is colonial Charleston, Savannah, or Annapolis, the holistic prototype has always been Chautauqua. Founded in 1874 on Lake Chautauqua in southwestern New York state by two Methodist ministers as a summer retreat for Sunday-school teachers, it has grown to be ecumenical in its religious, cultural, educational, and recreational programs, and it has grown in size as well, from 129 acres (52 ha) at the beginning to 600 acres (243 ha) today. “Chautauqua,” a Seneca word meaning “one has taken the fish out there,” soon came to mean leisure time adult education with a somewhat evangelistic but nondenominational fervor, and today it means, more broadly, a retreat from daily life for reflection, discussion, and instruction in the company of like-minded people.
The new Pueblo del Sol, containing 377 rental apartments and 93 for-sale attached houses, replaces a 685-unit public housing project, Aliso Village, that was built in 1942 and condemned in 1998. It was not so much that the buildings were structurally unsound, as that uncontrollable drug gangs made them unsafe. Located in predominantly Latino East Los Angeles, Aliso Village was part of Pico Aliso—the largest public housing complex west of the Mississippi and home to 11 active street gangs.
Hangzhou, an important tourist destination in China, is 180 kilometers (112 mi.) southwest of Shanghai. It has served ancient emperors as a capital city and is still a cultural center. To the Chinese, Hangzhou’s West Lake is as familiar an icon as the Great Wall or the Forbidden City. Marco Polo visited Hangzhou in the late 13th century and called the city “beyond dispute the finest and the noblest in the world.” For the Chinese, a pilgrimage to Hangzhou is an essential life experience. Of the 30 million tourists who visit West Lake each year, 2 million are foreigners.
A city shattered during the 20th century by two world wars, Warsaw, over the last two decades, has too often been developed in an exploitative and incoherent manner. Miasteczko Wilanów, a new town for more than 20,000 residents approximately ten kilometers (6 mi) southeast of the city center, is a modern incarnation of the urban typology that Warsaw lost during the last century: a mixed-use, architecturally rich, pedestrian-oriented district. With a planned 240,500 square meters (2.6 million sf) of office, 68,000 square meters (732,000 sf) of retail, and 19,500 residential units underway, the new town has contributed to a rise in land value, from $50 per square meter ($4.65 per sf) to $470 per square meter ($43.66 per sf) as of 2010.
Andares is a retail-led mixed-use project comprising a linear, 197-store shopping center; nine apartment towers; two office buildings; and plans for a luxury hotel. Located in Zapopan, a northwest suburb of Guadalajara—Mexico’s second-largest city—Andares is one of the largest shopping centers in western Mexico and represents the largest private investment in the country in 2009. Developed by Desarrolladora Mexicana de Inmuebles, S.A., the $320 million development mixes luxury retail with residences and office space amid more than two hectares (5 ac) of open spaces, plazas, water mirrors, and gardens.
Located in the heart of downtown Fort Worth, Sundance Square is a 38-block commercial, residential, and entertainment district that is a paragon of successful, long-term downtown master planning and revitalization. Through a lasting partnership that began in the 1980s and continues today, Sundance Square Management and David M. Schwarz Architects, with frequent input and support from local property owners and the city, have created and adhered to an ambitious master plan that has enlivened downtown Fort Worth. Developer Ed Bass, a key visionary behind Sundance Square, noted that “we have always believed, from the time we started with the restoration of the initial two-block area in the early 1980s, to today with 20 redeveloped blocks, that Sundance Square is both a financial investment and an investment in the future of our hometown…. I am proud that our generation is giving the next a healthy, vibrant downtown to enjoy and work with going forward.”
Since Beijing was awarded the 2008 Summer Olympics, the capital city has undergone a physical transformation on a massive scale. At the center of the enormous, citywide development effort lies Beijing Finance Street—a 3.36 million-square-meter (36.2 million-sf) mixed-use development that features offices, luxury hotels, retail space, and apartments arranged around a meandering central park. The CNY31.6 billion (US$4.6 billion) project is situated on the former site of a dilapidated hutong neighborhood—a cluster of narrow alleys lined by traditional courtyard residences—five blocks west of the Forbidden City, Beijing’s historic center.
More than 30 years after it was originally built, the Landmark still stands out as a most prominent upscale retail center and office address in Hong Kong. The Landmark Scheme, a HK$1.64 billion (US$210 million) upgrade completed in November 2006, has reinforced the prominence of this commercial complex that occupies a one-hectare (2.5 ac) site in Hong Kong’s central business district (known as Central Hong Kong, or Central).