Unlike small towns of the past that attracted tradesmen to provide services to the surrounding country folk and where manufacturing became part of the economic base of these communities, suburbs are instead an urban phenomena.
They serve primarily to accommodate population growth of the city and those who have the means to build new homes, and today in Shorewood, for those who would upgrade existing ones, or buy condos and who can afford the daily trips to and from the city center or place of work.
These earlier fringe developments of the city did not have the social community characteristics of small towns.
The population growth was not from “within” as in the towns but was the outer crust, the fringe development of growing cities. But they lacked the long term characteristics that created the neighborhood milieu of the cities.
Therefore, suburbs seldom have an economic base and the social characteristics of community that was found in many of our small towns. Consequently physical planners have been challenged and have tried to find ways of bringing social and economic characteristics of small towns to the suburbs.
As the city planner for an average of 12 years each for Oconomowoc and Muskego, both small towns, one of our most important tasks became the development of Industrial Parks for the purpose of attracting industry. In both of these small towns, beyond the suburban belt. We had plenty of land for these purposes.
The earlier suburbs, closest to the urban fringe, usually have a higher density than the outer suburbs because they've been squeezed in between the city itself and the later forming suburbs.
Many of these never planned for industry, for the industrial environment was being avoided by those moving away from negative city characteristics. The suburb was seen a the newer part of the city.
Although some small and "clean-type industries" found their way into suburbs like Shorewood at first, few were able to afford the high land costs. Even many of these were being attracted to the lower cost industrial parks of the outer suburbs.
Therefore, suburbs like Shorewood were left to obtain their revenue mainly from residents and whatever commercial properties were able to “make it” here.
In today's world, the growing need for parking by both industry and commercial enterprises has made it even more difficult for older suburbs to accommodate this overall non-residential requirement.
So suburbs tend to lose their industries, let alone attract them and have largely found it difficult to revitalize or to attract viable commercial ventures.
Never-the-less, to avoid the increasing residential tax burden because of these situations, many suburbs are attempting to increase the commercial component to help carry the high cost of municipal operation that is reflected in their ever-increasing and anticipated taxes.
The attraction of development for commercial ventures is a difficult task and in most cases, an impossible one. The more static process of industrial operations made the subsidy of land quite attractive.
Land subsidy alone does not work in attracting commercial ventures for the purpose of creating attractive business districts, however.
Now, suburbs like Shorewood are trying to create an atmosphere conducive for small commercial operations on a bit by bit basis, governed by the ups and downs of the market rather than by a totally designed effort that would function as its own market within the market.
On the other hand, industrial park development success was also attributed to its total and overall design as well as to a high quality appearance. Streetscaping is not enough in developing this overall design.
Commercial develop is more dependent on the milieu that brings people to an area that also provides an attractive social atmosphere. This is more important than subsidies and it is more difficult to create.
It seems that those involved in the redevelopment of existing commercial strips in many suburbs, believe that replacement of old with new buildings with expensive residents on top will do the trick.
I don't believe it's going to work. What is needed is organized design of commercial alcoves, innovatively designed, that will create the milieu for people on foot to mill around not only for shopping but for socializing at a central place within their community.
Strip commercial is not going to work here, not in Whitefish Bay nor in any other suburb where commercial is to be lined up along fast moving traffic. However, there are other known solutions for doing this.
