NEIGHBORHOODS, landmarks and destinations in Walnut Creek are marked with colorful signs (Tribune photo).

What’s better? A cozy small town or a bustling, exciting city?

The Tribune’s executive staff – Marilyn and I (Shadow had other commitments) recently visited both and my conclusion was, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have the best of both?”

In the area generally called the East Bay (that is, east of the San Francisco Bay), we first went to Lafayette, a small city nestled in a heavily forested area aligned among one main street.

After that it was off to Walnut Creek, the third-largest city in Contra Costa County. There were differences and similarities.

In Lafayette (population 25,390) there’s a calm, relaxed vibe. It is blessed with a large artisan community with the vast majority of businesses seeming to be locally owned and operated.

The biggest store in town is the Safeway (identical twin sister to Vons) and the only other recognizable business was a Taco Bell. But there is a home-grown department store chain called McCullough’s that puts Macy’s to shame, in quality if not size.

This lesson might be, if you want a nice store, maybe “we” need to build it ourselves.

A study in contrast was Walnut Creek (70,130). While smaller than Concord (about 125,000 people), it’s the economic center of the area, with the most crowded (and loudest!) downtown we’ve seen in years.
It’s thronged with movie theaters, restaurants, bookstores, etc. It’s upscale, racially mixed and very much in a hurry.

In trying to find lessons in all of this, it finally occurred to me that maybe one size does not fit all, but what seems to be universally true is that each of those cities has developed a unique character. They’re not just a collection of housing tracts plunked down by a developer who has long since moved on.
So what should the “character” of our towns be? Some more thoughts on that next week.