Ankeny lost part of what it was – a bucolic small town where neighbors chatted over the back fence and could dash off to the corner store for a carton of milk without starting their automobiles – during a period of unabated growth that started in the 1980s and shows no signs of slowing down. City leaders can hardly be faulted for trying to recapture some of that lost sense of community, but we had to chuckle some at the notion that the new Prairie Trail development will restore it.

Prairie Trail, a proposed 1,031-acre development, incorporates some of the principles of “new urbanism,” a civic movement that began on the coasts in efforts to revitalize parts of dying city centers. In general, the idea behind new urbanism is re-create a neighborhood feel, reduce reliance on the automobile, reduce urban sprawl and create a sustainable community with retail and employment opportunities within easy walking distance of residents’ homes.

Beyond all that, Prairie Trail, as well as some similar developments cropping up around Greater Des Moines, contradicts some of the basic tenets of new urbanism. Prairie Trail is being developed on previously undeveloped land that will be abandoned by Iowa State University when it moves its dairy research farm to a new location. Let’s call it what it is – “new suburbanism.”

The design principles incorporated in new urbanist developments – front porches and rear garages, small lots and short setbacks, narrow streets and expansive sidewalks, all built around a charming town square – seem a little contrived when plopped into a suburb. Alone, they don’t make a community, which is as much a social concept as it is a matter of geography.

All of that said, Prairie Trail looks to be a high-quality development that will help Ankeny break away from a cookie-cutter approach to development that leaves many suburban neighborhoods cold and uninviting. We wish the developers success and profit, which, hopefully, they’ll reinvest in some crumbling urban neighborhoods in the central city and first-ring suburbs, where the concepts of restoring communities are more appropriately applied.