It’s been a while since my last installment of the Compleat History of Fairmount… I believe I left off poised to look at Fairmount’s connections to the State Fair and with the founding of the city of Syracuse. That’s still being left for another day, but I suppose it’s OK to jump back and forth in time. (This particular post does have to do with Fairmount’s relationship to the city of Syracuse, however, and was prompted by the recent news about Excellus fleeing to Dewitt.)

The big news in Fairmount is, and has been for some time, the redevelopment of Fairmount Fair plaza by Benderson, which was made possible by the fortuitous departure of Wal-Mart up the road to Camillus. This is happening in stages. A couple weeks ago, a shiny new PetSmart opened. The new Target looks for all the world like it’s ready to open, but that won’t happen until October, which is disappointing many locals. The same goes for Michael’s. In any case, when these new establishments finally do open, it’ll probably be the biggest thing to happen to Fairmount since the original FF opened on October 28, 1959. That was the final event in Fairmount’s transformation from a rural farming to a fully suburban community (FF taking up the last spot of agricultural land, the Terry farm). It finally had “all the amenities.”

Fairmount’s latest transformation from Wal-Mart country to Target country is intriguing. When it comes to the remodeling of western plazas by Benderson, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t think Fairmount got the better deal, although the new Camillus Plaza has “bigger” big-box stores. Thinking back to the history of development in the town of Camillus already covered, it sort of reminds me of Camillus getting the Erie Canal, but Fairmount eventually getting the better deal with the railroad coming through. That was a sign of the rapidly changing times in the 19th century when what seemed wonderful initially, was superceded by a new kind of progress. We live in a consumer culture now (not a producing and exporting one) so I guess applying that analogy to shopping centers isn’t off the mark.

I also have to wonder what happens when first- or even second-time homebuyers can no longer buy the new homes being built out in the Camillus hills, and up in Lysander and Van Buren too. With the collapse of subprime lending and associated skittishness in the mortgage industry, you have to wonder how Onondaga County’s “sprawl without growth” can keep sustaining itself. I mean, it already makes no sense that so many of those McMansion developments in Cicero and Camillus even exist. But then again, the state of home financing in this country makes absolutely no sense either — as Wall Street is now finding out.

I can’t help wondering if the perceived suitability and desirability of the smaller and older housing units (such as those found in Fairmount and Westvale) will appreciate in the future. The population of the western burbs is aging, and needs new blood. With the sort of stores that are coming in to Fairmount Fair this fall, Fairmount just got a lot more appealing in terms of “amenities.” The fact that places like Fairmount and Westvale and Taunton are in highly regarded school districts (West Genesee and Westhill) can’t hurt their future desirability either.

I’m not sure if this could ever actually happen, but it is interesting to contemplate. A contraction of suburban sprawl in the Syracuse area? Could such a thing ever happen?

What’s especially interesting is that a suburb like Fairmount is just about maxed out on building space. There is no place to build new houses, barring an incursion into the Split Rock area, and it seems to me that that is either unavailable or undesirable (after all, that was The Rock, and God only knows what industrial messes and scary ghosts are still up there). So if anyone wanted to set up house in Fairmount, they’re going to have to get used to having a smaller lawn and three or four bedrooms instead of six. (And a nice neighborhood park, and a good elementary school, and a library, and a nice shopping mall with a Target, all within walking distance for many…) There is of course more room for sprawl in the Town of Onondaga, but only so much.

As for what this means for the future of the city of Syracuse? Probably nothing, but you never know. Everyone talks about suburban sprawl in the Syracuse metro area, the notion of big new houses out in the swamps and wealthy outer suburbs surrounding a decaying urban core. But the reality is that there are healthy neighborhoods in the city of Syracuse and there are not-so-unaffordable suburbs in the inner ring, spread about over three converging town lines (Onondaga, Camillus, and Geddes). Even more interesting is that nice neighborhoods like Strathmore are… hmmm… roughly in the same quadrant as the inner ring suburbs I have mentioned above. (And yes, some down-and-out areas are, as well.) And then there’s OCC, which has got some big, big plans (and I assume, will add at least a few jobs to the economy, not to mention human activity).

This is the same quadrant, coincidentally, that the powers-that-be failed to slice apart with a proposed bypass, decades ago.

I don’t know where I’m going with this line of thought really, and there are probably factors I haven’t considered (like all those town lines). But I do know the southwestern quadrant of the Syracuse area has long been overlooked as an area with potential. All development has been centered on the far northern exurbs and on the center of Syracuse, it seems to me. Wouldn’t it be interesting if time and tide, and the overall changing economic fortunes of our country, somehow started reversing this disjointed process of growth (or decay) here in the Syracuse metro area? Can suburban America retrace its steps? (Even if it’s because the suburbanites might have to, not because they want to?)

Let’s imagine a Syracuse area where suburb and city start to draw toward each other again. Or, at the very least, suburbanites are somewhat closer to the city — and are encouraged to enjoy it, but also forced to deal with it.

If it is too ambitious to hope for a full-scale recolonization of downtown… where do you think re-engagement between suburb and city could begin?