Traditional Neighborhood Developments (TND's)

Traditional Neighborhood Developments (TND's) are supposed to be the wave of the future. But like a lot of things in suburbia, the concept is meeting with some pretty stiff resistance – most recently in East Hempfield. And, as some have said, if people want to live in traditional neighborhoods, why don’t they live in places like Lancaster City? Interesting.

Lost amid the talk about this “new” concept is the fact that traditional neighborhood development is actually an old concept that has been forgotten in the last few decades. Lancaster city is a complex web of traditional neighborhoods that dates back more than 250 years . A bunch of TND’s glued together, if you will.

What makes traditional neighborhoods attractive has much less to do with the actual density of the housing than what the physical structure of such neighborhoods do for their residents. They provide places where human interactions create a social and commercial fabric that makes the community not only richer but more competitive.

It might be the fate of every suburb to oppose even the very things that will increase their viability. But, in a changing world, our lot is probably better cast in a city.