New cities north of 526?

Where and how will the region grow in the years ahead? There are promising ideas to concentrate more population close to today's jobs, in the Charleston-North Charleston Neck Area.

But North of Interstate 526, there's potential for intense development too. Logical locations are in the area of the intersection of U.S. Highways 176 and 17A in Berkeley County, or U.S. Highway 52 toward the Cooper River, between Goose Creek and Moncks Corner. All are in the bull's-eye of where The Post & Courier has identified the thickest numbers of housing permits already approved or actually under construction in the region.

So here's the regional challenge:

Could these locations, many slated for pockets of as many as 5,000 to 9,000 housing units, be developed more sensitively to the needs of our times? Converted from standard sprawling suburbia — offices, plants and subdivisions strung along single major roadways with big setbacks — into one or more well-planned, livable new cities? Could they achieve a mix of high-rise offices and smaller businesses that make them significant job centers, with store-lined streets and a compact design that puts many homes within easy walking or biking distance?

That would take lots of new code writing. And persuading major corporations (the big new Google catch, for example) to accept in-town instead of campuslike settings that everyone has to drive to. Plus incentives to get residential developers to start converting their off-the-shelf subdivision models into more compact, mixed-use communities.

But if clogged traffic arteries are becoming the Charleston region's severest challenge, why not search out the urban development model that creates the least congestion? Charlestonians don't need to look far, notes the Coastal Conservation League's president, Dana Beach. It's the world-famed Old City of Charleston and its traditional urban street grid: "The Charleston peninsula has 35,000 people on less than 5,000 acres. But even with millions of tourists each year, it doesn't have backup stop-and-go traffic every workday. People have options of short drives, walking, biking, or transit. With options and compactness, trips are short and the roads aren't so packed they become dysfunctional."

Downtown Charleston's not the region's sole model of historical, people-friendly development. Consider old Summerville, the original village of Mount Pleasant, and North Charleston's Park Circle. These places function well because they have human scale — churches next to homes, easy walk to parks or the town center, and community schools. They're also healthier: people walk more often, ride less (a big deal in a generation of dangerously expanding belt lines).

As Ron Brinson, an occasional columnist for and former associate editor of The Post and Courier, has noted: "Old Charleston provided defining national leadership in formulating standards and disciplines for historic preservation. Why shouldn't new Charleston become the leader for defining the disciplines for orderly and quality suburban growth that always enhances lifestyle values?"

We'd agree, adding only that new suburbs can be incorporated into handsome and livable 21st century cities — if they're planned upfront, and not left to raw real estate speculation.