MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5 at American University in Washington, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your neighborhood with the world. You've probably noticed that no one's building indoor shopping centers anymore. In fact, they're dismantling shopping centers and strip malls and replacing them with urban-style walkable retail districts.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIAcross our region, planners and retailers are joining forces to recreate the outdoor downtown-style shopping experience that you enjoy on foot rather than by car, where you can stroll up and down the block, poke in the stores, stop at a cafe for a latte or a restaurant for lunch. As a result, they're trying to figure out what combination of design and business selection will bring a shopping district to life, what makes some shopping streets catch on as lively popular destinations while others misfire, proving too sleepy or too bland to attract the foot traffic they need to succeed.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIJoining me to explore what makes a great shopping street is Roger Lewis. We started talking about this in December of 2011. We're now continuing the conversation. Roger Lewis is an architect. And he writes the "Shaping the City" column for The Washington Post. He's professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Maryland. Roger, always a pleasure.

MR. ROGER LEWISAlways a pleasure to be here. Thank you.

NNAMDIThe trend in retail today is away from shopping malls and toward mixed-use developments with street-level stores. How do we relate differently to walking down a sidewalk lined with shops and restaurants as opposed to being inside a shopping center?

LEWISInside a shopping center, of course, that is a place where you can avoid the weather. You can presumably not have to worry about traffic. I mean, there are things that shopping centers do. And, of course, one of the main reasons for their existence, they were really created -- what we're talking about are the large centers. They were created after World War II as a way of rounding up, putting into one place, a tremendous amount of retail, including some major department stores, which are thought of as the magnets or the anchor stores for these things.

LEWISSo it was a formulaic strategy that developed, and it was very successful. And there are still shopping centers that are successful. But it's a very different experience. Going to a shopping center, you have to drive. You get in your car. You have to find a parking space, which, by the way, during Christmas season and few other times of the year, can be, in itself, a daunting challenge, finding a place to park.

LEWISAs opposed to what we think of as the more traditional mode of shopping, which is either by car or transit, getting into a neighborhood or walking or biking -- there are different ways of getting there -- and then walking, walking around and shopping, even if you don't buy a single thing. Just looking in the windows for some people is a treat. It's -- you can do that in a mall, but it's not the same as doing it in a neighborhood along streets and blocks that have this great diversity of retail and...

NNAMDIWhen I was growing up in Guyana in the 1950s, early 1960s, we always talked about going to Water Street because that was the street where all the department stores were. And even though they were not all technically on the same street, they were all in the same general area, so that the whole area was referred to as Water Street. If you'd like to join the conversation, what's your favorite shopping street, and what makes it so appealing?

NNAMDICall us at 800-433-8850. Or you can send us email to kojo@wamu.org, send us a tweet, @kojoshow, or simply make a comment or ask a question at our website, kojoshow.org. Before the broadcast, you and I were talking about a concept that now applies to retail buildings. I'll let you name the concept because one of the words is French.

LEWISOh, we were talking about architecture parlante, talking -- architecture that speaks, architecture that speaks. And that came up in the context of looking at buildings in which retail, street-level, sidewalk-level retail is included within in the building, is on the ground floor, obviously, immediately accessible from the sidewalk, lots of transparency, picture windows and doorways that lead you readily into the shops or the eateries that line the street.

LEWISAnd there -- this is an image, kind of the Main Street image. I mean, the other term that I wanted to throw in here was -- is the notion of Main Street in -- which is a small town firm -- term -- excuse me -- that implies, I think, in most people's minds a place that you would walk and see buildings in which the ground level was occupied by shops.

NNAMDIYes.

LEWISAnd that's what is -- we're currently seeing being recreated from scratch in many of these redevelopments. Now, there's a potential problem or risk, and that is you can -- you know, if you don't get the right -- if you don't get it in the right place and you don't get the street the right proportions, you don't do it right, you can end up with something that doesn't quite work like the charming intimate main streets that we associate with all the wonderful towns. And we can sit here and cite places here in Washington region that, in fact, have both good and bad shopping streets.

NNAMDIWe will, ultimately. But before that, last June, after several redesigns, Apple opened a store on Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown that combines its usual clean lines and white storefront with a more traditional facade. The opening followed a battle with preservationists who complained that the original design didn't fit in with the neighborhood's historic look. How do you think the compromise design turned out?

LEWISWell, I think it turned out fairly well. I -- two observations, I don't think what they finally did, even though it's different from what Apple has done, let's say, in its Bethesda row store, where it -- which is essentially almost an uninterrupted sheet of glass, which is what they wanted to do in Georgetown. What they've done in Georgetown, for listeners who haven't seen it, is there's still a lot of glass, but there are dividers.

LEWISThey're mullions. They're separating panes of glass, so it looks a little more like a window in scale with the windows of Georgetown. I think, in fact, it has proved satisfactory. I don't know how Apple feels about it, but I -- my guess is that, from a marketing and business point of view, it hasn't made any difference at all that they couldn't do the clean mullion-free glass storefront that they so -- that they've put everywhere else.

NNAMDIWell, you know, we live in a retail world that's dominated by chain stores that each have their own look or color scheme or logo. You think of Target. You think of the bull's-eye. You think of Best Buy; you think of that deep blue. A lot of stores think brand loyalty is a bigger draw than a window full of wares. How do planners create a unique-looking shopping district while still letting stores put their own easily identified design and signs out front?

LEWISWell, the general strategy is that when you build a building -- let's say it's an office building or an office building with a hotel or an office building with housing, a mixed-use building -- in which the ground level, the sidewalk level is to be shops, generally, there's -- part of the building facade reaches the sidewalk, comes down to the ground. Columns or piers create a kind of framework, marching along the street, and then the merchant comes along and fills that in.

LEWISThat's what Apple is doing in Georgetown. That's what has happened in many, many other places. And that's probably the most typical condition, which is to, on the one hand, still see the building holistically as a total composition from sky down to sidewalk, but, within that framework, within that multi-columned framework at the ground level, the store proprietor can then come in and do its own thing.

LEWISNow, that -- some places control that more than others. What's generally hoped for, I think, by designers and planners and -- when they make these is that the infill, that storefront that gets filled in between columns, will be transparent, well-lighted, active, things people will want to look at and, in fact, go in the door and check it out. I mean, that's what they're after. And that's -- even restaurants, I've -- I think, they -- I've noticed they will often, if it's not too full, they'll often seat people, unless they ask for something different, near those windows because they want people to see activity.

NNAMDIWe're talking with Roger Lewis about designing a great shopping street and taking your calls at 800-433-8850. What's more likely to draw you into a store, seeing the logo of a company you like, or seeing something interesting in the store window? What features attract you to a shopping district? 800-433-8850 is the number to call. Send us email to kojo@wamu.org.

NNAMDIRoger, you were involved in designing a portion of the new Rockville Town Square project and recommended that the visual arts center building have a unified look from top to bottom rather than letting retailers take over the whole street-level frontage. Explain what your vision was and how it eventually turned out.

LEWISThat was a building in which the ground level -- the first floor, the ground floor was actually owned by a different entity than the upper floor. So it was a condominium in effect. And this is increasingly common, by the way, in mixed-use buildings, where you have different ownerships from floor to floor. And the -- in the case of the building in Rockville facing the town square, the owners said, look, we really don't even want the columns of the building.

LEWISWe don't want to -- have the building structure and its facade materials. We don't want them to penetrate down to the ground. We want to stop at the, you know, 16, 18 feet above the level of the sidewalk and then let the retailers do...

NNAMDIDo their own thing.

LEWIS...do their own thing, you know, with essentially no division between one and the next, so that in a -- that framework of columns or piers disappears. It's behind the wall. It's -- they're in there, but you don't see them. And it -- so the result is that you get this five-story building in which the ground level is a continuous strip of minor facades, many of which are quite inharmonious with one another. And then above that, you see the building. It's almost as if someone built something on the ground level, and then someone else came along and put this glass -- very rectilinear glass structure on top.

NNAMDILooked like two different facilities...

LEWISYeah.

NNAMDI...completely.

LEWISVery definitely. And it's not -- I don't know that it's hindered the success economically of the building, but, from an architectural point of view, the architects -- this is not what we all wanted.

NNAMDIDo you work or shop at a place that you think really works? For instance, what is it that works or doesn't work for you about shopping or working in, say, Shirlington or Old Town Alexandria, Barracks Row in D.C. or Bethesda Row? Call us at 800-433-8850. Roger, you're working on a project in Tysons that will only let the retailers design a portion of the street-level facade. How will that shape the look of that shopping street?

LEWISWell, that -- we're very intentionally trying to do what I described earlier, which is to have the building, the architecture of the building, overall, stay intact with, again, the storefronts inserted in between the columns that come to the sidewalk. And the merchants will be fairly free to do their own thing within that -- the framework of that series of columns. We have -- there's signage criteria, lighting criteria, most of which, again, are fairly liberal, the notion being to encourage them to be creative, to make it as inviting as possible.

LEWISPart of the key to making these kinds of streets successful, incidentally, is making sure the sidewalk is wide enough so that people can walk.

NNAMDIYeah, that helps.

LEWISAnd there will be eateries, so you also want to leave space for outdoor dining, for trees and foliage, vegetation along the street. But you also don't want the street to be too wide, so we should mention that -- you know, there are some streets -- everybody has probably been on K Street in D.C.

NNAMDIOf course.

LEWISThere's retail line in K Street, but no one, I think, would argue that K Street in downtown Washington is a wonderful, intimate shopping street, even though you (unintelligible).

NNAMDIIt takes 20 minutes to cross the street.

LEWISYeah, exactly. Exactly. Even Connecticut Avenue is not the ideal shopping street. I think that most people would probably agree that the streets that are there, that are most comfortable to walk along and shop, are relatively intimate in feeling. The scale is such that it doesn't take 10 minutes to get across...

NNAMDIYou feel like you can cross the street without a problem.

LEWISExactly.

NNAMDIHere is Sandra in Prince George's County. Sandra, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

SANDRAYes. I wanted to ask your guest. I've always been curious when I'm in Georgetown why the second and third floors, they seem vacant. And I'm not sure as why they're not used for living space. I'm from Buffalo, N.Y., and -- which has just hundreds of Victorians with retail on the first floor, and all the second and third floors are living space. What is all that second level space in Georgetown?

LEWISWell, that -- I assure you, most of that space is used.

NNAMDII thought so.

LEWISIt's -- there are some places where it's residential, but a lot of those places along, specifically, M Street and Wisconsin Avenue, the two main retail streets, those second and third floors are often occupied by offices where you don't see necessarily on the facade what's going on. So they're almost all office space on those two streets.

NNAMDIWhy do they seem vacant to you, Sandra?

SANDRAThere's -- they just look -- they seem dark, and there's limited number of windows, I guess. And so I always think, well, it'll be a great living space for college students or anyone, and they definitely don't look like living spaces or a loft or anything like that.

NNAMDIWell, there are people in those spaces. You might not be able to see them from the street very easily.

LEWISSandra is observing something that certainly, historically, was the case, which is people did live in those spaces once upon a time. Those -- almost all of those buildings that line Wisconsin and M Street were built as residential buildings. But, again, there's a long tradition of building, here and abroad, of building retail commercial space on the sidewalk or the street level, and then above that are people either living or working in offices.

NNAMDIHow do features like lighting and signage affects the P-level retail block?

LEWISWell, I think lighting and signage can be really important. You know, they can be -- a lack of it can take away the kind of visual vivacity of a street, can make it seem kind of dull and boring. And I think that -- I know that in Tysons Corner we're encouraging the merchants when they come -- this is years away in this development, but we are encouraging them to be creative and to make these places really almost showcase looking.

LEWISI think one of the things, if you walk around some places, like, if you walk along Elm Street or in Bethesda Row in the area of -- that's been redeveloped in recent decades...

NNAMDIWhich I do a lot, yes.

LEWIS...you know, some of the storefronts are really quite wonderful because you see -- often, you see the whole store, plus a bunch of really cool stuff in the window. That's certainly -- in New York, if you walk along Fifth Avenue or some of those wonderful streets in New York, I mean, you have to look in the windows. You can't walk down those streets and not be pulled in visually to see what's behind those large sheets of glass.

NNAMDIOn to Susan in Reston, Va. Susan, your turn.

SUSANHi. How are you, Kojo? About seven years ago, I moved from the Takoma Park/Silver Spring area to Northern Virginia. And I loved living in Takoma Park, but there wasn't any shopping nearby. What used to be called Montgomery Mall was (unintelligible) and there were very little storefronts. I moved to Northern Virginia, and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I mean, Dulles Town Center, Fair Oaks Mall.

SUSANBut, interestingly, after living here now the last seven years, I find myself migrating to the smaller shopping areas like Reston Town Center or those that have a window front. They seem much more aesthetically appealing. I have a teenager, and that's where all the kids go. They don't go to the mall. So I was very interested in hearing what the -- what your guest had to say about sort of the aesthetics of what draws people in because I thought I'd end up being a real mall rat, and I find myself going the much smaller shopping areas.

LEWISWell, you're the person the developers and the planners all want to hear from.

LEWISI mean, you're -- I think that what they are operating under is the assumption that there are more and more people like you who've decided that somehow walking around a 800,000 square foot mall where you don't know whether it's raining, snowing, sunny or whatever outside is not the best experience who -- probably, without your stating it, you probably enjoyed the social dimension, the social aspect of shopping that, I think, is probably a little more enhanced when you're in a more traditionally configured shopping street than in a giant mall.

LEWISThe -- you know, if you go to the Pentagon City, for example, you know, there's this huge food court at the -- on the ground level of that.

NNAMDISure is.

LEWISIt's immense. You know, it's hardly, though, a place that -- where you feel like the same as if you walk into a small cafe or a corner bar, or even a Starbucks, that you might find along a shopping street. I think what your -- my guess, Susan, is you're responding to this different physical and social environment in a way that, I think, a lot more people are responding to.

NNAMDISusan, thank you very much for your call. On the other hand, here is Bill in Bethesda, Md. Bill, your turn.

BILLHi. I just wanted to express pretty much the opposite opinion, having lived in Northern Virginia near Tysons, and now I can...

NNAMDIThat's why I said, on the other hand.

BILL...walk to the Bethesda Row. I personally wish that that whole half-block development had been a Target or a Wal-Mart, something useful and instead of all of these oddity stores that tend to sell very expensive and not very useful things. And very much along the same lines, I hope that the Wal-Mart that's proposed for the Rockville-White Flint area winds up being a big Wal-Mart and not being forced to downsize.

NNAMDIWhat is it that you don't like about those smaller stores that line Bethesda Row?

BILLIn the Bethesda area itself, I think, one of the things we're missing are things like, you know, a large department store and so on. You can go down to -- along Wisconsin a little bit further down, and we have a couple of the large department stores. But in Bethesda proper, we just don't tend to have those kinds of things.

NNAMDIThank you very much for your call, Bill. Roger, one gets the impression that Bill might be trending in the opposite direction of most other people these days.

LEWISWell, I think, the reality is that our market is segmented. We haven't talked about Internet shopping and the effect that's going to have on retail. I was at a dinner party last night, and I was doing a promo for this show to -- for the dinner guests. And I met -- we got into a discussion about this and how the -- people shopping on the Internet, which is -- we've seen that going up dramatically in the Christmas season, this past 2011 Christmas season. There was an immense jump in that.

LEWISYou know, what's happening is you've got Internet shopping. That's probably -- that could, in the long run, reduce the amount of retail that is justifiable in many, many parts of Americans -- America's metropolitan areas. You've got the Wal-Mart -- you've got the big-box shopping areas, which need tremendous amounts of parking. You can't put that in the middle of Bethesda or the middle of -- and, you know, the places that just -- where these things don't work. I don't think it's an either-or. I think it's a both-and situation.

LEWISI think we need places like Bethesda Row or, you know, Annapolis or Alexandria -- Old Town Alexandria where there are these smaller shops, where you're not going to have the big department stores, where you shouldn't have the giant department stores, where you can't physically install these giant department stores. By the way, the thing that makes a lot of these places with the intimate shops working is the fact that they are mixed in with a lot of places to eat.

LEWISAnd I don't think there's any question that the key to success to a lot of these kinds of wonderful, intimate streets as opposed to the Wal-Mart environment is the fact there are lots of places to go in and eat instead of shop.

NNAMDIBecause shopping makes us hungry. We're going to take a short break. When we come back, we'll continue this conversation. If you've called, stay on the line. We'll try to get to your call. If the lines are busy, go to our website, kojoshow.org. Join the conversation there. Send email to kojo@wamu.org, or send us a tweet, @kojoshow. We're talking with Roger Lewis about designing a great shopping street. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWelcome back to our conversation with Roger Lewis about designing a great shopping street. Roger Lewis is an architect. And he's the columnist writing the "Shaping the City" column for The Washington Post. He's also professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Maryland, College Park. Roger, what role does building height play in making a shopping street inviting for pedestrians?

LEWISI think, as we see in Washington, there is a relationship between the width of a street and the height of the buildings that flank the street. I think that what probably most matters is not so much the absolute numbers. I mean, I don't think it matters a whole lot whether you're walking along a street that has three-story buildings or 23-story buildings as long as the cross-section of the street includes a sufficiently wide sidewalk, has a reasonably efficient cartway, the place where cars are parked and travel, and, perhaps, some street trees that make sense ecologically, horticulturally.

LEWISI mean, I think one of the things that always bothers me is to see trees that are the wrong things to put along the street because of lack of light or whatever. I think what's -- where the height might -- where you could critique the height decisions -- for example, in Bethesda Row -- we were talking about that earlier -- I think the buildings that line Woodmont could be taller, and it would not detract at all from the experience of the street. It would probably enhance the experience of the street.

LEWISSo height -- what height does, and density, along with height, is, of course, it puts more bodies out there to walk along the street and patronize the retail establishment. So from an -- from the retailer's point of view, additional density and height are desirable.

NNAMDIOn to the telephones again. Speaking of Bethesda Row, here is Kristen in Bethesda. Kristen, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

KRISTENOh, hi. Thank you, Kojo. I just wanted to say how much I've enjoyed your show over the years.

NNAMDIThank you.

KRISTENI wanted to say, in contrast to the gentleman -- the last gentleman who called from Bethesda, how much I really enjoy Bethesda Row, and particularly that section that goes perpendicular to this -- to the Bethesda (unintelligible) Street that's also parallel to Arlington Road, that pedestrian walkway that you -- through, and there are no cars. And it's where Le Pain Quotidien is, and it's just -- it's gorgeous. It reminds me of Paris, just that one tiny section.

KRISTENAnd I'm wondering, you know, these sort of perpendicular walkways, if more of them are planned and could be made, and also, for a time in college, I lived in Fryeburg. And that city is great because they actually block off all traffic to the downtown, the traditional downtown section. And it's all pedestrian walkways and cafes and sidewalk cafes. And it's just a beautiful experience to be able to walk around and sit outside on a spring day and, you know, enjoy being at a cafe without all the noise of the traffic.

KRISTENAnd they have, you know, public transportation that goes through, but that's it. And I'm wondering if there's something that you have, you know, ever envisioned yourself. Or are you planning to do more of these pedestrian walkways?

NNAMDIWhat do you say, Roger?

LEWISYeah, well, I think she -- Kristen, thank you for your call. Through-block passages -- and the one in Bethesda Row I know very well -- they are -- they can be very successful. And, of course, as you point out, you see them throughout the world and Europe. Many cities, particularly where the blocks are large rather than small, through-block passages are commonplace, and there -- including passages where -- wide enough where you can have even people eating, sitting at tables and chairs within the passages.

LEWISI think they -- I think what has to happen is there has to be a balance if -- you don't want the passages to pull too much of the traffic, pedestrian traffic and activity off of the street. I mean, the current thinking, I believe, the correct thinking is that you want to animate streets. You want to -- actually, again, if -- as in Bethesda Row, if the sidewalk's sufficiently dimensioned, if there -- if you have a lot -- lots and lots of porosity along the ground floors of buildings, the streetscape itself is where you want to concentrate most of the activity.

LEWISI think, in Bethesda Row, that that passage -- there must be a name for it. I can't remember the name of it -- is very effective, again, in part, because of its dimension and because there are -- it's lined by some places people want to go. If it were -- you know, if it had -- on both sides, if it had two banks, three real estate offices and shops that no one wanted to go through, it would be a dead space. And we haven't -- we need -- we always ought to point out that all of this depends on having shopping destinations people want to go to.

NNAMDIOh, of course. Kristen, thank you very much for your call. We got an email from Catherine in Silver Spring, Md., who says, "One of my favorite shopping streets is Las Olas Boulevard in downtown Fort Lauderdale, Fla. There are quaint shops, art galleries and a very simple good French restaurant Le Cafe de Paris. There's also the Riverside Hotel that backs up to a canal, and the dining there is great.

NNAMDI"I'd also recommend architects and others take a look at the great little downtowns of Madison, Wis., Highland Park and Evanston, Ill. or Ridgewood and Maplewood, N.J." Care to comment?

LEWISWell, there are lots of them. I mean, you could do a whole book. Someone should do a whole book on wonderful streets on which to shop. And -- but we can look at Washington. I mean, look what -- at the transformation of the Penn Quarter in 7th Street Northwest. I mean, 7th Street Northwest near Chinatown -- we've talked about that -- totally transformed in the last 15, 20 years into a street that is just constantly animated with people going to the places to eat and theater and museum and so forth.

LEWISAgain, it's a success partly because of that mixture of uses and mixture of destinations people want to be at -- attend. And even Connecticut Avenue in Cleveland Park, between Macomb and Porter, while it's not the easiest street to get across, it's not an animate portion of Connecticut. On the other hand, there's lots and lots and lots of places on both sides that people want to go to. You could do a PhD thesis on the places one might hold up as great examples of shopping streets.

NNAMDIHere is Janie in Woodbridge, Va. Janie, your turn.

JANIEHi. Good afternoon. Thank you. I appreciate your show. I just had a comment that I do love the outdoor shopping areas and the shopping streets and the landscaping. However, I think that the traditional malls have their place for...

NNAMDIUh-oh. Janie, are you still there? We seem to have lost the connection with Janie. Janie, I'm going to put you on hold, and we'll see if we can resume that connection with Janie. And I think Janie wanted to ask about the availability of facilities for people with handicaps. But we'll see if we can get Janie back. Here's an email we got from Richard: "I really think Union Station is a great place to shop and eat. Recently, however, the West Hall has been taken over by smelly, intrusive, ugly fast food restaurants.

NNAMDI"Two more are going in. Who made this terrible decision? Meanwhile, the wonderful Center Cafe seems likely to be removed in the name of historic preservation and sightlines, to be replaced by, what, benches and holes in the floor leading to the lower level?" Do you know which (word?) preservationists come up with these terrible ideas and why, Roger?

LEWISWell, I don't know the answer. Union Station keeps getting revisited. It's -- and I'm just not up-to-date on what's happening within the station and its shopping facilities. That's -- I think we'll have to take a look at that. I do remember hearing something about they're wanting to do a makeover on part of it, but I don't know the details.

NNAMDIThen there is this email we got from Margaret: "The problem with shopping in Shirlington is that all the restaurants and shops are in the same price range, not really high-end boutiques but not cheap either. There's no diversity in price and, it seems, a lack of diversity in the types of shoppers they're trying to attract." How do you design for a wide variety of diversity in income of your shoppers?

LEWISThat's a very good question because one of the great challenges is that -- and they're facing this in Silver Spring, for example, and I suspect many other places in this region and elsewhere in the country. When these areas get redeveloped, the cost of redevelopment, when that's finally translated into a rent to be charged for street level retail space, often, the people who either used to be there or people who would like to be there with -- that are not chain stores, that are not well-financed but rather community-based retail, more convenience retail shopping, they can't afford the rents.

LEWISAnd that is a problem that has not been solved because it's just -- and it's a -- it's fundamentally an economic problem if -- I may have a business where I could pay $25 a square foot for rent, but not $50, and they -- that -- I don't know the solution to that. I think that one of the things a lot of the jurisdictions are looking into, when they make these redevelopment plans for places like White Flint, they are -- they really are looking for some way to create a subsidy that, in effect, allows some of the retail space to be rented at below-market rates.

NNAMDIOn to Amy in Takoma Park, Md. Amy, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

AMYHi. It's nice to be listening to the show. It's interesting. I wanted to -- I live in Takoma Park. And I think my husband and I lucked into timing. We had our son in 1991. And just at the point when he was wanting to be able to be out on his own a little bit and we felt comfortable letting him do that, downtown Takoma Park was up and running. So it was an easy place for him to be with friends. It's small amount -- small enough that we felt that he was safe.

AMYAnd then just to the point when that became -- you know, he was old enough to feel that -- enough of this, I've moved on to bigger stuff, it could have meant that he wanted to go downtown to D.C., which might have been a bit much for maybe age 13, 14, 15. But then downtown Silver Spring was available, so that same group of friends could now go downtown to Silver Spring and hit Chipotle's. You were mentioning this food is a major draw.

AMYWell, that's for sure with Subway. When it was in Takoma Park, it was Subway and some of the local shops. And then there was Chipotle, and I forget the name of the other places. But that became the place that they could go that was, you know, a step further away from hanging out at home. So we were very lucky in that respect, and now he's at college.

NNAMDIWell, Amy, here's an email we got from Anne. Yes, of course, your son is 20 years old now since he was -- or 21.

AMYYes, right.

NNAMDIHere's an email we got from Anne that I'd like both you and Roger to comment on. Anne said, "One of my favorite shopping streets is the Main Street in Takoma Park, Md. I like it because it's old-fashioned. It's clear that not everything was created all at one time, which is, to me, one of the biggest things I dislike about most new shopping destinations. The stores and people around them are interesting. Nothing matches, but somehow it all fits together beautifully. I love to shop there for holidays and birthdays and to go to the farmer's market when I can." How do you feel about that, Amy?

AMYOh, I -- that's great. I mean, that speaks to it very explicitly. It's small enough that it's, no question, small town. I mean, it's not Shirlington. It is small. But for -- but it's very nice as a neighborhood place. In fact, there's a kind of a running joke around moms around here that if you buy something for a friend from Takoma Park, they're going to know it because they've probably been in that same store.

AMYSo birthday gifts tend to repeat, but, you know, that's -- we all are big on shopping local. And it's very homey. It's one of the things people like about being here. It can also feel very tight, and you want to move on. I mean, I spend enough time up at Wheaton, doing bigger shopping, but it's very -- it's a nice hometown atmosphere.

NNAMDIRoger, Anne also says the stores and people around them in the Republic of Takoma Park are interesting.

LEWISYeah. Well, I've -- I don't shop there, but I've been through there. It's -- no, I think there are a lot of people who feel that way. I think it's -- and I think that phenomenon, that sense of enjoying places that are older, that are -- that have -- that haven't been sort of thrown together all at once and homogenized is pretty common. I think it's why you -- if you drive along H Street Northeast in Washington, where a lot of the buildings, the older buildings are being saved, why people like the -- King Street in Alexandria or the Main Street in Annapolis.

LEWISThese places -- the charm -- there's an architectural element to this, an urban element of the -- this venerable character, this character that we associate with having been around a long time and having not all been built at once and evolving through many generations of ownership and activity. I think people appreciate that. I think it's not the only way to do retail, but it's certainly one of the things that most jurisdictions are doing a lot to protect...

NNAMDIAmy, thank you very much for your call. Several emailers, Roger, are asking for your observations on whether you think Silver Spring -- I guess, downtown Silver Spring -- is a success or not.

LEWISI think a lot of it has been successful. I think there are a number of things that I would like to have seen done differently. I feel that way even about the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor in Arlington. We haven't touched on it. Arlington is another place where there's -- they've had a lot of success creating destination shopping and places people want to be and walk instead of drive cars, et cetera.

LEWISI think the -- what's worked in Silver Spring, again, has, I think, mostly to do with creating enough of a critical mass, enough destinations, places to dine, places to shop, movie theaters, civic building, the Whole Foods store. You know, if you get enough stuff in an area that is walkable...

NNAMDIYep.

LEWIS...that's -- I'll emphasize that -- walkable, where you don't have to keep getting in your car like you do at Tysons Corner to go from one place to another, that -- that's a big part of the success story.

NNAMDIHere's Mark in Silver Spring, Md. Mark, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

MARKYeah. I just wanted to add in a comment about Silver Spring. I mean, I think I'm glad it's been brought up in the emails and the recent comments here. But I wanted to hear your comment on not just the fact that there are a lot of destinations there, but I think -- let's say, in comparison to Bethesda and some other places like that, I think there's a great vibrancy and diversity of people that go there.

MARKThere are a lot of music events that are held there, food festivals and other things like that, which I really think add a lot to that Silver Spring shopping area. And I think it's great, personally.

NNAMDIOK. Thank you very much for your call. Roger, because I think we're running out of time, I'd like to read you this tweet from Peter, who says, "Roger Lewis is absolutely correct that increased density focused primarily on residential uses would improve Bethesda retail environment. Further upstairs at Bethesda Road, the mixed-used product -- project that replaced old Giant Food, moved across Arlington Road, is a great example of scale."

LEWISI would agree.

NNAMDIIt's my understanding that the current thinking in urban design is to put shopping streets perpendicular to the main drag, but not on it. Why is that?

LEWISWell, because often the main drags are large, wide, very busy with traffic, and, again, if you're trying to create a pedestrian experience, it's usually better not to be on an arterial or on a main commuting road. That's -- it's -- and, I think, that's increasingly being -- almost becoming standard operating procedure for planners.

NNAMDIRoger Lewis is an architect. He's the columnist for the "Shaping the City" column for The Washington Post and professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Maryland, College Park. Roger, thank you so much for joining us.

LEWISYou're very welcome. It's been a pleasure.

NNAMDIAnd thank you all for listening. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.