The Death of Newtown Square (Philadelphia, Pittsburgh: for sale, new house, buyers)

[cpomp]

Originally Posted by jennifercheswold

Don't get me wrong. I am very pro development. I've always wished that Philadelphia had its own version of Buckhead in Atlanta or Stamford in CT (I'm hoping Conshohocken turns into this a little bit). But to me, Newtown Square is not the place for all this mass development. NS does't have the same character it used to. I think overall, it would have been better to redevelop older, more obsolete buildings on Route 3 than to build up the Ellis Preserve.

Where is the mass development in Newtown Square?! There are some larger home developments and new retail along 252 and Route 3, which are much needed because most of the previous shopping centers are tired.

However, a majority of the township is very leafy and wooded, with a lot of open space, and a majority of the homes constructed are mansions or boutique housing developments with 20 or so homes (Worthing is a perfect example). And there is a gorgeous reservoir.

I dont understand some you people lol.

Here are some google map shots to show how quaint Newtown Square is.
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.0149...7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9865...7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.0220...!7i3328!8i1664

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9629...7i13312!8i6656

Here are the most built-up/ mass development areas.. as you call them.
https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9868...7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9756...7i13312!8i6656

Very built up.. let me tell ya....

I personally think Newtown Square along with neighboring Upper Providence, Edgemont, and Berwyn are among the most beautiful suburban areas in Philadelphia and among the best in the nation.

I actually grew up in the area, right by the reservoir, and when I come home to visit I take my car and just drive the windy roads and enjoy the scenery. And if you are going to play the whole traffic arguement, save it... There is traffic everywhere.

[ElijahAstin]

I haven't taken this ride since 2008 and things may have changed considerably, but all throughout my childhood in the '90s and '00s, the drive on Goshen Road between Darby Paoli and Providence was one of the prettiest and most peaceful in the region. It's especially gorgeous once you reach the covered bridge. The Edgmont area is beautiful as well.

I'm no Newtown Square expert, but it seems pretty serene outside of the PA-3 corridor.

[mls128]

Originally Posted by cpomp

Where is the mass development in Newtown Square?! There are some larger home developments and new retail along 252 and Route 3, which are much needed because most of the previous shopping centers are tired.

However, a majority of the township is very leafy and wooded, with a lot of open space, and a majority of the homes constructed are mansions or boutique housing developments with 20 or so homes (Worthing is a perfect example). And there is a gorgeous reservoir.

I dont understand some you people lol.

Here are some google map shots to show how quaint Newtown Square is.
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.0149...7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9865...7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.0220...!7i3328!8i1664

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9629...7i13312!8i6656

Here are the most built-up/ mass development areas.. as you call them.
https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9868...7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9756...7i13312!8i6656

Very built up.. let me tell ya....

I personally think Newtown Square along with neighboring Upper Providence, Edgemont, and Berwyn are among the most beautiful suburban areas in Philadelphia and among the best in the nation.

I actually grew up in the area, right by the reservoir, and when I come home to visit I take my car and just drive the windy roads and enjoy the scenery. And if you are going to play the whole traffic arguement, save it... There is traffic everywhere.

I generally agree with you, but just FYI third picture I know exactly where that is (Inveraray road) and that is radnor township/villanova. The fourth picture I don't think is newtown square either I think that is upper providence but close to newtown square.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by cpomp

[...]

I hear the same argument about Media, that it’s no longer “everyone’s hometown”which I think is stupid because Media is by far the most active and bustling and well-kept its every been! That not only adds more families (well to dofamilies), but more customers, more business, more tax dollars, more people invested in the community. It kind of defeats the purpose of Media’s slogan when old bags complain about newcomers and fancy homes, shouldn’t these additions be welcomed rather then threatened? What are the other alternatives?

New arrivals with demographics similar to those of the current residents?

I consider Media one of the true suburban success stories of the 30-odd years I've lived in this area.

As is my wont, not long after moving here in the fall of 1983, I took the 101 trolley all the way to its end (it would be some years before I did the same with the 102) and strolled along State Street in Media before heading back. The K-cars (Kawasaki-built trolleys, not boxy Chrysler products) were still almost new, and State Street looked to me somewhat down at heels.

That hasn't been the case for some time now, and I attribute this to some very smart work on the part of borough officials, the local redevelopment authority, the people who backed the transformation of the Media Theater into a performing arts center, and the borough's dominant real estate brokerage. Media Real Estate Co. Between them, they've managed to polish State Street to a high gloss without turning it into an ersatz Princeton. (Princeton, N.J., is the textbook example of a quality I call "terminal charm." If you've ever laid eyes on it, you should be able to figure out what the quality is that I'm talking about; otherwise, I'd be happy to explain it to you.)

Originally Posted by Pilot1

Most of the suburbs around Denver are newer, and yes, cul-de-sac tract housing similar to SoCal. The older suburbs are still nice however, without the grittiness of the Upper Darby's like around Philly. I don' t consider Philly burbs slow growing. We're seeing more, and more McMansions in Chester County. I am not against growth, just not poorly planned growth where the infrastructure cannot handle the population.


I shouldn't lump the entire Declo in with the inner burbs, and I'm sure the outer sections, closer to Chesco, are fine, but again traffic has become terrible.

One of the antidotes for ever-worsening car traffic is communities designed so that most of the basic needs of everyday life are within walking distance. "Neotraditional" town planning as well as what's known as New Urbanism (after the organization that promotes it, the Congress for the New Urbanism) both emphasize this aspect of land use and community design. Are either of the Newtown Square developments mentioned here of this type?

I must confess that on the one or two times I've driven or traveled out that way, it seemed to me that Newtown Square didn't have much of a "center" along the lines of Media's State Street or the Main Line communities' railroad-station-oriented Main Streets. If any of the developments mentioned are helping it define one, that's to the good.

[soulsurv]

Newtown Square has been "trying" to become an extension of the main line for decades. Personally, I never saw the "attraction" of the main line with it's untouchable, entitled attitude. By contrast the "old-guard" of places such as Chadds Ford with their muddy boots, 15-yr-old Volvos and top-notch public school district has much less attitude and BEAUTIFUL countryside in every direction.

[ElijahAstin]

Originally Posted by soulsurv

Newtown Square has been "trying" to become an extension of the main line for decades. Personally, I never saw the "attraction" of the main line with it's untouchable, entitled attitude. By contrast the "old-guard" of places such as Chadds Ford with their muddy boots, 15-yr-old Volvos and top-notch public school district has much less attitude and BEAUTIFUL countryside in every direction.

Oh, how ironic to lambast the Oldest of the Old Guard suburbs (in which many Old Guard families still reside), as not being Old Guard enough. We can spar over this more later.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by ElijahAstin

Oh, how ironic to lambast the Oldest of the Old Guard suburbs (in which many Old Guard families still reside), as not being Old Guard enough. We can spar over this more later.

Newtown Square "the oldest of the Old Guard"?

The money's lived in Gladwyne for as long as I've been here, and all the big old mansions that were built by the "New Money" around the turn of the 20th century are either there or in Cheltenham Township.

I think it may depend on what Old Guard you're talking about. Pennsylvania Railroad money lived along it, unless it was developing Chestnut Hill. The Biddles and the Cadwaladers IIRC were also Main Line. Which families do you have in mind?

[ElijahAstin]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

Newtown Square "the oldest of the Old Guard"?

The money's lived in Gladwyne for as long as I've been here, and all the big old mansions that were built by the "New Money" around the turn of the 20th century are either there or in Cheltenham Township.

I think it may depend on what Old Guard you're talking about. Pennsylvania Railroad money lived along it, unless it was developing Chestnut Hill. The Biddles and the Cadwaladers IIRC were also Main Line. Which families do you have in mind?

Not Newtown Square--the Main Line (which soulsurv seems to be panning in relation to the supposed Newtown Square wannabes). Apologies if that wasn't clear.

[ElijahAstin]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

Newtown Square "the oldest of the Old Guard"?

The money's lived in Gladwyne for as long as I've been here, and all the big old mansions that were built by the "New Money" around the turn of the 20th century are either there or in Cheltenham Township.

I think it may depend on what Old Guard you're talking about. Pennsylvania Railroad money lived along it, unless it was developing Chestnut Hill. The Biddles and the Cadwaladers IIRC were also Main Line. Which families do you have in mind?

Incidentally, Gladwyne is going on almost 40 years as a mixed old and new money neighborhood. As a public school Lower Merion Yid, I didn't see many old money kids, which overwhelmingly self-selected into private schools, on a day-to-day basis. I met some more outside of school as I got older. Some exhibited the positive stereotypes of being unassuming, laid back, and down-to-earth. Others were cordial enough, but chilly and distant and made clear that they wouldn't join any club that would have me as a member (and being a Jew who hit the recessive gene "lottery" has made me privy to some ugly conversations). That's the thing about stereotypes: if you're going to tout the positives, then you also have to own up to the negatives. On that note, run in the opposite direction whenever you meet someone who uses the term "good breeding" unironically.

Getting back to Newtown Square (which is on the Waspier side but has plenty of Irish and Italians, as Delaware County is wont to do), I can't think of anything that makes it stand out from other affluent, spread out, new-ish Philadelphia suburbs. It tapers off in density as you head toward, and into, Chester County, but it's also a large zip code that straddles middle and outer ring suburbia. Hay is for horses, and horses are for glue factories.

[cpomp]

Originally Posted by mls128

I generally agree with you, but just FYI third picture I know exactly where that is (Inveraray road) and that is radnor township/villanova. The fourth picture I don't think is newtown square either I think that is upper providence but close to newtown square.

The third picture is quite literally on the border of Radnor and Newtown Square which is why I included it.

Fourth picture is Newtown Square, North of the reservior on Bishop Hollow and Gradyville Rds is Newtown Square, South of it is Upper Providence. As you go East toward DCCC that is again Upper Providence.