Urban/Suburban and Transit Development

My neighborhood is definitely urban and not city.....

really? how do you define those?

Colonial-era small town serving as a suburb of New York.


My immediate neighborhood is a subdivision of pre-fab condos in a wannabe-British brick townhouse style. It was built in the 1990s when the local elementary school moved out of their century-old building into new premises. (Old picture of Franklin School look gorgeous, whereas the new subdivision is a bit of an eysore compared to the rest of the city, which is beautiful and old. Unfortunately, the rest of the city had no rooms available when I was looking.)

In the wider neighborhood, there's a funeral home (actually quite pretty, and they always play pleasant classical music.), several cafes, and, half a mile further, the town's business district and its train station.


The cafes and the funeral home I already mentioned (not that I plan to use the funeral home's services anytime soon), barbershops, three used-book shops (they were the ones that clinched the deal for Metuchen), several pedicurists (why, I wonder, can't Americans take care of their own feet?), several massage therapists.... pretty much everything. The only items that are a mile and a half away, near the edge of my pedestrian range, are fresh fruit.


The schools share their sporting facilities. There's a swimming pool. They were building a hiking trail where some railroad tracks used to be, but construction has stalled, presumably because of the economy.


There's a bus stop a block away from me, and a train station half a mile away. The commuter trains bring me to New York Penn Station in 50 minutes, and to Philadelphia in maybe 70.


My last job was three miles away. I sometimes drove my car, sometimes took the train.


A place to buy decent margharitas in. An independent cinema. Maybe a vegetarian restaurant. But overall, I'm happy with my town.

Sorry, I was asking for the name of the city and then if you lived in an urban part or suburban part. I didn't make that clear.

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As defined previously by Tsar.

Trenza Village south of Santa Fe-on the old road to Albuquerque surrounded by 13,000 acres of natural preserved land with light-rail to Santa Fe and Albuquerque already in place, My ideal.

The conservation-based village was named to reflect its carefully woven land plan: Trenza, which is Spanish for “braid.” The name Trenza speaks to the strength of a diverse and inclusive community—where the interdependency of people, land, water, and wildlife is explicitly acknowledged and celebrated. It also refers to the way water moves through a desert watershed: braided, layered, and interconnected.

Gracefully held by the surrounding red rock hills and ridges in the northeast corner of the Preserve, the proposed village plan for Trenza will serve a broad range of land conservation and community building goals. The mixed-use master-planned community is designed to:

* directly connect people to the land they inhabit
* actively employ planning practices and building methods that respect the land and water resources of the region
* thoughtfully and visibly support the cultural and economic diversity of northern New Mexico

Trenza is designed to support an inclusive, mixed-income community of 965 homes that reflect a variety of housing types and neighborhoods (e.g., town homes, courtyard homes, detached homes, co-housing, elder housing). A tight cluster of residential neighborhoods linked via pathways, neighborhood parks, and alamedas will be anchored by a pedestrian-scale commercial and civic center.

As a model of conservation-based community development, the proposed village will leverage the sale of its homes to underwrite the conservation and restoration of approximately 13,000 acres of open space.

Educational, civic, and commercial land uses are also planned. Trenza's village center will likely include a café, general store, post office, business incubator, outpatient care medical facility, fire station, ATM, chapel, environmental center, and live-work commercial space for local artisans and community-based businesses. A dual-language, environmentally focused charter high school is planned to be physically and programmatically integrated into the community. As currently envisioned, the school will support a number of joint-use facilities, including playfields, a library, indoor swimming pool, meeting spaces, and continuing-education classrooms.

At the southern edge of Trenza, a small organic farm, greenhouses, and a "memorial landscape" are proposed. In addition to neighborhood parks, village residents and the general public will have access to 50 miles of planned public and private trails for hiking, biking, and equestrian use.

With its proximity to a proposed commuter rail line, its innovative water conservation program, solar-oriented site plan, and "healthy buildings" construction practice, Trenza's village plan demonstrates the efficacy of green development in a workforce-housing/conservation-development context.

Village Progress

* Commonweal Conservancy secured Master Plan approval for the Village from Santa Fe County in June 2007.
* Commonweal Conservancy gained preliminary plat approval for Phase I of the Village from Santa Fe County in February 2010.
* We expect the approval and pre-construction process to continue through 2010.
* The first home construction in the village is expected to begin in 2011.

1) Where do you live? (city, urban area or suburban area, rural area)
I live up on a hillside in a small tourist town (La Jolla) right on the Pacific that is part of San Diego - urban area.

2) Describe your neighborhood. (parks, schools, libraries, etc)
It's strictly residential, but we have a small park at the peak of
our hillside here. The cross on top of the hill has been subject to great
controversy by atheist groups who favored a removal. It ultimately became
a small memorial for veterans and the cross remains standing.
We have a village down the hill (ca. 2 miles) with tons of little shops,
parks right on the water, and beautiful beaches. We have a nice library,
quite a few hotels and lots of good restaurants with a variety of ethnic foods - no fast food whatsoever (thank you).

3) What types of businesses are within your pedestrian range (walking or bicycling)?
Within pedestrian range there is a tiny shopping area with a deli, cleaner,
hairdresser and a small restaurant. I could go down to the village which
would take a good 30 min walk. We have lots of bicycle lanes though and
they're used frequently, especially on weekends.

4) What types of recreational places are within your pedestrian range?
Well, we have the beach right in front of our noses, we have great restaurants, promenades to walk along the beach, bicycle lanes, and concerts by the beach on Sundays.

5) Describe the public transportation options you have in your neighborhood and what other areas they grant access to.
None actually. I'd have to go down to the village to catch a bus, and I think
they're not as reliable as they should be. However, some beach towns have
the "Coaster" going through - a commuter train servicing downtown San Diego.

6) How far is your commute to work? How do you commute? How long does it take?
I have 25 miles one way and it takes me 20 min - freeway all the way and
against the traffic. Naturally I take my car to work. There is a trolley stop
close by the office, but the trolley services downtown only. Perhaps in the coming years, we'll see an expansion of the trolley service and I definitely
would use it then.

What I would like to see more of in my town are outdoor cafes and
outdoor restaurants. We do have some of them, but since our town is
very European looking, it would be nice if we had all the outdoor cafes
to go along with it, after all, we have perfect weather here, almost all
year long.

Please don't move here now, we're overcrowded already - one more thing
I would change if I could: the density is interfering with our enjoyment of life here.

My dad just moved back to San Deigo to take care of my grandparents. He used to surf La Jolla, then climb the cliffs to the golf course and chip balls before school. Beautiful.

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Yeah, you can do all that on one day and even go out to the desert or up to the mountains for skiing.