SN: as fashion, tastes, and community planning ideals evolve over time, it is not surprising to see past developments revisited for their pioneering visions. Within their lifetimes, these towns will continue to see their influence and desirability ebb with the times. It is entirely foreseeable that within a generation, the Kentlands development outlined below could see its relevance fade or its critics become harsher. But for all it’s warts, the many trappings of car centric suburban design, Kentlands was unique in its time and a break from the sprawl of the 90s that still genericizes so much of the US urban landscape (although too wonder bead for my tastes)

This Innovative Suburb Once Seemed Like a Failure Why Kentlands has now become surprisingly influential.

Kentlands, a DC area planned community that opened in 1988 to much fanfare, once received Time Magazine’s “Best of 1991” design award, heralding it as a new kind of suburban living that captured the best parts of city life without all of the downsides.

But Kentlands was a flop, at least at first. Critics found it too prefab, and many suburbanites at the time didn’t actually want to feel like they were living in the city. But as Kentlands celebrates its 30th anniversary, its innovative design now feels remarkably prescient. In the 1990s, it spawned several copycat neighborhoods around Washington, such as King Farm in Rockville and Cameron Station in Alexandria. Those were followed by the creation of higher-density town centers such as Bethesda’s and Reston’s that transformed their surroundings, and renewed interest in urban living even helped spur the revival of DC neighborhoods including Shaw and Petworth. More recently, inner-city projects like the Wharf are similarly striving to replicate the feel of an unplanned community.

Kentlands’ ups and downs offer some intriguing insight into how life in Washington—and urban planning in general—has evolved.

Kentlands was created by local developer Joe Alfandre, who wanted to capture the feel of DC-area neighborhoods he loved as a kid. After buying a 352-acre estate on Gaithersburg’s west side, he tapped architects Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, who led a five-day brainstorming workshop that included community members and city officials. The houses would be close together, they decided, so neighbors could get to know one another, and they’d be a mix of traditional styles—Colonial, Victorian, Craftsman, etc.—so it would look as if it had been built over time rather than all at once.

Instead of typical suburban loops and cul-de-sacs, the streets would form a tightly connected urban-style grid, enabling easy walking and biking. A series of parks and lakes would weave through the complex; at the center was an elementary school, a house of worship, and a Main Street lined with shops. The idea was to offer something often lost in the sprawl: a real community.

Duany and Plater-Zyberk called the style New Urbanism, and the idea eventually took off around the country. In their 2000 book, Suburban Nation, they write about a “direct causal relationship between the character of the physical environment and the social health of families and the community at large.” In other words, building new towns that look like old towns could be good for people.

Still…