Downtown Los Altos, California. Strict height limitations and zoning codes have kept its village character intact, thus far. This is a photo from the city's web site.
Greed is not good, in spite of what Gordon Gekko so famously said in the movie Wall Street. Bernie Madoff and the truly creepy underbelly of the "mortgage crisis" should be a lesson in that--if nothing else. But it certainly is ubiquitous.
In charming little towns across America where the real estate gets pricey, you can bet there will be a sudden symbiosis of developers-realtors-business property owners-Chambers of Commerce, and, ta-dah, politicians to "redevelop" the "downtown core" to get "more feet on the street," while, supposedly "preserving our village character."
