What's a Better Burb Look Like? Ask the People Who Live There

Long Island, stretching 125 miles east of Manhattan, has one stresser other suburbs do not: the Atlantic Ocean. Having water on all sides gives the suburban crisis on Long Island the effect of a slow-moving disaster, in which longtime residents are exiting while they can. "The older people are moving to Florida and the younger ones to Dallas," Columbia University urban historian Kenneth T. Jackson told The New York Times in 2005.

Like other suburbs, though, Long Island has another immoveable object: the public. Besieged as they are by their own sprawl, Long Islanders fear that changing the thrust of development will destroy the island's unique character as an overgrown beach community.

Hoping to overcome these fears and foster smart development at the same time, the nonprofit Long Island Index has created the "Build a Better Burb" challenge, which recruits the public to come up with ideas for improving Long Island's 156 mostly underutilized yet highly developed downtowns.

Many of Long Island's downtowns are ideal platforms for suburban hubs. Centered around a Long Island Rail Road station, the majority of town centers boast vast deserts of parking lots, empty big-box stores and other space available for infill development--8,300 acres of it, according to the Build a Better Burb website. By opening the challenge to anyone with a viable plan (though they recommend partnering with a draftsman), the Indexers seem dedicated to reconfiguring hearts and minds as much as the "underperforming asphalt."

Small projects focused on existing transit and shopping centers may serve as a palatable precedent than the large-scale visions put forward by former Nassau County executive Thomas Suozzi. With computer magnate Charles Wang, Suozzi pushed for the creation of a suburban hub in Uniondale, on the edge of the sparely developed Mitchell Field, a former Navy airbase. Suozzi hoped the complex would combine residential and commercial buildings, nestled against a refurbished Nassau Coliseum, owned by Wang. Suozzi lost his re-election bid last year, and the proposal has been assigned for further study by the Town of Hempstead.