The Perfect Small Town?

"One Tom -- surname Comitta -- is a city planner, landscape designer, and self-professed New Urbanist, who has lived and worked in West Chester for 28 of his 52 years. The other Tom - Spackman - is a local real estate dealer whose family has been in the West Chester area since the 18th century. Together they are giving me a living lesson in urban design and sociology, with the corner of Gay and High as our case study."Gay Street is a classic Main Street," Tom Comitta says, just before stepping off the curb. "Sixty feet, six inches, from wall to wall." The walls he refers to are the rows of storefronts lining each side of the street. "Like an outdoor room," he says. And it's true: In the contained corridor of Gay Street, the connected buildings feel like walls, the awnings and tree canopies spread overhead like a ceiling, street and sidewalk become a floor."

Thanks to The Practice of New Urbanism