Chances for Urban Charm Seen Amid O.C.’s Sprawl

Researchers are finding that much of Orange County is in a unique position to transform its endless sprawl into walkable communities with vibrant downtown centers.

In fact, it may even be inevitable.

You can thank the “boomburbs.”

Those would-be suburban cities, so named by a recent Fannie Mae Foundation study, were quiet commuter outposts not that long ago, but have boomed to become home to more than 100,000 residents.

These sprawling cities remain loosely configured, but small urban pockets of dense developments have been popping up. Experts at the foundation say those bits of urbanism can be strung into charming, walkable downtowns.

“This is a new kind of species of suburb,” said Robert E. Lang, director of urban and metropolitan research for the foundation.

Of the 53 boomburbs the foundation discovered nationwide, almost half are in California. Half a dozen are in northern and central Orange County: Anaheim, Costa Mesa, Fullerton, Irvine, Orange and Santa Ana. A dozen others are elsewhere in the Southland.

In the Northeast and Midwest, the foundation located only one--Naperville, Ill., outside Chicago.

Orange County already has some walkable districts: 4th Street in Santa Ana, Brea’s revitalized Birch Street downtown, and Anaheim’s resort area. But the report contends that more can and should be done to create pedestrian-friendly areas.

Boomburbs were born in the latter part of the 20th century and are mostly a product of the suburban-dominated metropolises of the West. Many grew out of master-planned community developments and of the need to form large water districts--something less common in other parts of the country, where well water and septic tanks are used.

Unlike satellite cities of the Eastern megalopolis--places like Newark and Camden, N.J.--boomburbs have remained suburban in character. The report suggests that they are “the ultimate symbol” of postwar sprawl.

The report highlights planning opportunities that this suburban hybrid creates. In many cases, their futures are still being planned as if they are traditional suburbs, when in fact, they are the size of large cities and have taken on many urban characteristics--something the foundation argues makes them prime candidates for being fitted with walkable downtowns.

More than 18% of the people in the Southland live in these 18 cities, which were initially attractive to new residents because they afforded what seemed limitless opportunities for low-density suburban growth.

Now these cities are nearly out of land. So the same communities formed largely by homeowners fleeing big cities are destined to take on urban characteristics.

“Ultimately, you will see a lot more pedestrian friendliness,” Lang said. “This may take a while, but I think it will happen.”

These boomburbs have grown bigger than some of America’s traditional big cities. Santa Ana is now larger than Pittsburgh and rapidly approaching Miami. Anaheim is nearly the size of Cincinnati.

The prediction that these boomburbs will start to become more pedestrian-friendly is based on demographic projections that show people continuing to flood into the area after all the vacant land is gone. State forecasts show Los Angeles and Orange counties running out of vacant land between 2010 and 2025.

While other sprawl capitals, like Atlanta, have room to grow outward, the Southland does not. The mountains and the desert limit the sprawl. Atlanta has no boomburbs; Los Angeles is full of them.

“The region is going to be forced to follow a very different land development pattern than it has been,” Lang said. That doesn’t mean parts of Irvine are going to start to resemble downtown Los Angeles. At least not any time soon. Think Westwood Village, or maybe the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica.

“Los Angeles is full of these pleasant little environments,” Lang said. “In 20 or 30 years, Orange County will have a lot of them too.”

Some builders are already seeing opportunities in retrofitting blighted commercial areas in the boomburbs to mixed-use developments that combine stores with apartments and condominiums.

“In the past, developers laughed at that kind of thing as a dream,” said Hal Lynch of RGC Corp., a home-design company based in Newport Beach. He said that attitude is changing fast as vacant land disappears and developers look for new ways of creating homes in the suburbs. “Now we find there is a big demand for it.”