The Suburban General Store

Those of us who live in New York forget that buying a carton of milk or a loaf of bread can mean a trip in the car rather than a sprint to the corner store. But what if every suburban subdivision had the equivalent of a local bodega? That’s the idea behind the Suburban General Store, which would provide a central place for residents to pick up sundry items as well as recycle their bottles, drop off DVDs, and buy stamps—all within a five-minute walk. “We began thinking about subdivisions much less as vast areas of suburbia but as towns,” says Frank Ruchala, a 31-year-old urban planner and architect. “Then we wondered whether a general store could work just as well in that context as it did in small villages a hundred years ago.” (The we refers to his cohorts: Michael Piper, 33, an architect; Pippa Brashear, 29, a planner and landscape architect; and Tom Alberty, 32, a graphic designer.) Under their scheme, everyday amenities would be shoehorned into an existing building such as a pool house, and an added porch would create space for socializing. The team estimates that the average 500-unit subdivision would save approximately 45,000 gallons of oil per year if such a plan were adopted—and that’s a big if, as current zoning currently prohibits retail in residential areas.