Insofar as community involves social grammar plus habits and attitudes, it can happen almost anywhere, but design can powerfully foster or obstruct it. The design and spacing in Kentlands worked very well compared to the sprawl around it. Any one streetscape was quite satisfying, like an old town. Still, the multitude of those streetscapes felt more suburban.
Also, there were no workshops or insurance agencies or corner stores or auto repair interspersed as there might have been in a town that size. On the other hand, Kentlands mixes housing levels and types, which makes for juxtapositions, for instance half a block of town houses followed by half a block of large houses, or oddly separated town houses, that look abrupt to the usual suburban eye.
(c) David Kolb, 1 August 2001