New Town Center Takes A Cue From The Past

Rockville Town Square is a new $360 million redevelopment project that aims to give the Washington, D.C. suburb a vibrant mixed-use downtown.

"The design of the 15-acre pedestrian-oriented town square project -- which has wide basket-weave brick sidewalks, large trees, islands of flowers, and colorfully painted residences overlooking a fountain and benches in the town square -- is modeled after Italian piazzas."

"In the early 1970s, [the city's] first urban renewal plan included the behemoth mall that was torn down 25 years after it was built. ''In the first case.'' Mr. Chambers said, ''we created a place that everyone had to drive to, and once they got there, they had to stay indoors.''

''Now we're using the experience of the last several thousand years,'' he said. ''We're not separating uses in our communities from one another. We're bringing them all together.'' "