By: Walker Evans

Walker Evans
Thu, 22 Mar 2018 19:30:29 +0000

All across the country you can find chain stores in urban areas and independent businesses in suburban areas. They’re not synonymous.

A suburban-style shopping plaza is generally a single-story car-centric retail strip with a larger-than-necessary parking lot in the front and zero walkability to anything else. What’s being built on High Street is dense, mixed-use and walkable. In other words, it’s urban by design.

I do agree that culture and flavor is lost when independent and local businesses are replaced with chains, but this new development is not “suburban” in the least.