01:00 AM EST on Monday, December 13, 2004

NEW HAVEN

ON OCT 12, The Providence Journal published an essay portraying Mashpee Commons -- the best-known example of New Urbanism on Cape Cod -- as a fancy, auto-dependent shopping center that masquerades as a traditional town center. Editorial-Page Editor Robert Whitcomb, in "I can get it for you retail" (Commentary), scorned Mashpee Commons for its conspicuous complement of upscale chain retailers, such as Gap and Talbots; for its lack of the "raffishness" found in many "real" village centers; and for being marketed as "pedestrian-friendly" while in fact relying on automobiles to bring customers to and from the center.

"What Mashpee Commons and other such avatars of 'The New Urbanism' evoke is a sense that they are one unified product, poured out of a can, to be consumed by Americans searching for the warm bath of familiar brand names," Whitcomb wrote.

Criticism of this sort is misleading on several counts.

-- Is New Urbanism a "unified product"? Not to my eyes. I travel the United States to conduct interviews in and report on New Urbanist developments. What has struck me is how much distinctiveness the various centers possess, despite the tendency of the developers to favor traditional architecture.

Mashpee Commons is quite different from Market Square, in the Kentlands-Lakeland section of Gaithersburg, Md. -- which is different from Harbor Town, in Memphis, which is different from Orenco Station, in Hillsboro, Ore., and so on. The materials, building forms, street networks, and public spaces are remarkably varied. All of them offer relief from the sameness of roadside commercial strips: environments that really do seem "poured out of a can."

The character of New Urbanist development is even more pronounced in dense city settings, as in Providence, where the Johnson & Wales University campus fits stunningly into Weybosset Street, and where Arnold "Buff" Chace and Douglas Storrs (Mashpee Commons's Providence-based developers) have produced more than 200 downtown apartments. New Urbanist ideas -- such as creating walkable places in which residential, retail, and other activities intermingle -- generate a distinctiveness and local flavor that conventional development typically lacks.

-- Is New Urbanism overwhelmingly aimed at affluent shoppers? The great analyst of American cities, Jane Jacobs, wrote more than 40 years ago that offbeat start-up and low-profit enterprises can rarely afford new buildings. Since town centers such as Mashpee Commons have arisen only within the past 15 years, it's not surprising that most of their retailers are mainstream and that many of them feature well-advertised national names. If some of the real estate becomes less high-priced as it ages, however, it's possible that New Urbanist town centers will become less mainstream. Diversity is partly a function of time.

-- Should New Urbanist centers be dismissed because of their chain retailers? It's worth noting that by the 1940s New England already had an abundance of chains: F.W. Woolworth, W.T. Grant, A&P, Stop & Shop, White Tower, Howard Johnson's, to name a few. If chains seem conspicuous in Mashpee Commons, it's partly because they can afford the largest or most prominent buildings. Developers Chace and Storrs have actually built a number of small retail spaces, so that start-ups can co-exist with the big boys. About a third of the retailers at Mashpee Commons are independents -- a considerable accomplishment, given America's proliferation of chains.

-- Is nothing sold at ordinary prices? Some visitors willingly pay a premium for small treats, such as hand-squeezed orange juice. But at Mashpee Commons they don't have to go far to find retailers that meet routine needs, at everyday prices. Many of those retailers, such as the pharmacy giant CVS, occupy buildings more handsome and congenial than the corporate standard.

-- Are New Urbanist centers automobile-dependent? On Cape Cod, yes. By themselves, one or two developers cannot reverse regional patterns of development. But New Urbanists deserve credit for developing a genuine mix of uses -- offices and housing, as well as stores and restaurants -- and for encouraging civic and religious uses within walking distance of retail. Developers such as Chace have required the chains to occupy buildings that cluster together and front on sidewalks -- an arrangement that makes bus transportation possible. At Mashpee Commons, you can go to the bank, the post office, the library, restaurants, stores and other destinations without making an extra car trip.

As long as Americans want to shop at national chains for "upscale" merchandise, New Urbanist town centers will tend to have a substantial number of retailers of the sort that Whitcomb finds dismaying. New Urbanism is not and cannot be immune from America's dominant tastes and lifestyles. Utopia has not arrived. Nonetheless, centers such as Mashpee Commons are a step in the right direction.

Philip Langdon, of New Haven, is senior editor of New Urban News, a national newsletter on New Urbanist planning and design.