Does Urbanism Have A Place In Dallas' Suburbs?

"I remember when I first drove through Collin County several years ago and thought, 'Why do all these people live so far away?'

It took me a while to realize that these crazy people out in the sticks didn't live far away â€" not far away from the things that mattered to them: their churches, their shopping centers, their favorite restaurants and even their jobs.

Now that I live in East Dallas and work downtown, I run into the very kind of naïve, shallow thinking I was guilty of when I first experienced Collin County.

Can you believe they are now building these urban-style neighborhoods all the way out THERE?

Yes, I tell people, I can. Because they don't all work and play HERE, at least, not frequently.

And so, it seems, some city-dwelling snobs have ventured into the suburbs to see what in the world is going on. And they have reported back with some less-than-flattering findings. One recent article in The Wall Street Journal, dateline Plano, sneered at how 'fake' downtowns were springing up in the suburbs, but it's not just that paper or its readers who are the anti-suburban snobs."

Thanks to Mike Watkins