I was out visiting a friend two Saturdays ago, and I was intrigued by the “new urbanism” development of the Streets of St. Charles. It’s becoming increasingly common for wealthier suburbs of major cities to build these mixed-use developments, where there are ground floor restaurants and stores below apartments or condos. There’s usually a hotel thrown in, as well.
This development, on the site of the former Noah’s Ark restaurant and motel, was fully occupied and crowded on the day I visited. It is interesting to see; a relatively well designed area for walking in the middle of suburbia. With the City of St. Louis approving QuikTrips and drive thrus, demolishing historic urban building in the process, left and right with little review, it can hardly make fun of suburbia anymore.
Quite often these mixed use faux-urban utopias are constructed with the conceit that Millennials will ditch their cars and maneuver the area in their scooters and bikes. The very nature of these suburban enclaves are seriously car centric so it defies logic that you can actually live there without a car. After long abandoning the real urban streetscape in the city, they now want to create a ‘Disneyland’ replacement.