ABSTRACT
Suburban development before World War II produced lively town centers and walkable neighborhoods. At Daniel Island, a 4,000-acre planned community in South Carolina, the urban design plan seeks to bring back desirable features of pre-World War II development, while dealing with today's building types and economic conditions. Instead of the usual cloverleaf roadways, the highway interchange has been made an integral part of the street system, possible because one company owned all the land. This interchange could become a prototype for other compact town centers if there were planning grants available to local governments before highways were built. A comparable street network to the one on Daniel Island could be mapped and built, implementing a plan arrived at by a public process. The residential neighborhoods at Daniel Island are all walkable, although they are also car-dependent for any longer distance travel. Individual office and apartment buildings are often typical of suburban development types, but they form part of a walkable town center. Schools, libraries, recreation, employment opportunities, and a retail center are all an integral part of the community. The equivalent of Daniel Island is being built in suburbs all the time, but made up of tracts of single-family houses, shopping strips, and isolated pockets of offices or other commercial development. Daniel Island is a prototype within reach of many communities.
