Once upon a time there was a sleepy 'burb called Lone Tree, largely abandoned by developers in the late '80s housing crash. (Did it have something to do with the oil industry? It's hard to remember.) Still, people noted its access to highways and trickled in, spurning neighboring Highlands Ranch, deemed too much like suburbs everywhere.

Occasionally, a new builder appeared and people abruptly attended homeowners' association meetings. What about reduced setbacks and zoning changes? They cried. My view will be disrupted! Have you considered drainage? Why can't they put it somewhere else? Those new people have to go to another school; we already have multiple trailers! But emotions quieted and stuff trickled in.

Then one day in 1995, the suburbanites decided to become a city. They wanted to control the development around their little world. Over the years, they got brick fences, a mall, a police department, the light rail, 8,000 extra people, a City Staff, their own hospital and a bunch more real estate; in 2000, they voted in Rampart Range (now known as RidgeGate), where the City of Dreams would take shape. It would be like an updated city of yesteryear, where everybody knew their neighbor and people walked across the street for a cup of coffee before dropping a Boy Scout uniform at the corner tailor.

In 2008, housing and the economy didn't look so good again. The people developing RidgeGate came to the Lone Tree representatives with an urgent plan so the City of Dreams did not become the Land That Time Forgot. A few people even came to the meeting without poster board and PowerPoint.

Developers didn't mention New Urbanism anymore, calling it mixed-use. Mostly they talked about visibility from Lincoln, skittish anchor clients, a four-story parking garage and places that look just the same in Virginia and Minnesota and Stapleton. The designs, with faux second stories for scale and towers guiding consumers to shopping districts, were attractive in a suburban sort of way, compressed in a city sort of way.

The people who urgently needed to build before no one wants the buildings anymore hoped these new guidelines for the new City wouldn't require every building be reviewed by people who live here. City-dwellers serving on the Planning Commission, part of the original idea about controlling development, didn't think that was a very good idea. In the end, the developer agreed to bring everything to them, but not bother the elected representatives with small stuff unless the Planning Commission didn't like it.

The thing is, the people in the City know they are committed to a path now. There are big budgets and project deadlines and revenue demands. The people building things know this, too. There will be concessions and compromises, but the City will never be what anyone envisioned. Markets evolve, plans must change. Who could predict unpredictability?

One day, years later, old-timers will meet on the street, shaking their heads about traffic, pollution, taxes, crowds, the cost of change they once thought free, exchanging remember whens.

Oh, have you heard this story before?