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I think the failure of Northstowe & other Cambridge developments (Cambourne, the further parts of Trumptington) are that they try to combine being an urban expansion with a new town. If 95% (not really, but the vast majority) of people are meant to be travelling into a bigger city, then there is a pretty low incentive for a lot of community structures. However, these are also too far away from Cambridge for there to be a sort of "community spillover" (i.e., people using non-essential facilities due to the Cambridge ones being too busy). I will say that both Cambourne and the further parts of Trumpington seem to have experienced what feels a similar lack of sort of "secondary" spaces as Northstowe, although luckily nowhere near as acute as in Northstowe. Cambridge is not of the size to spawn sort of cities-within-cities, like comparable rich places like London. It is an amateur's view, so I have no evidence other than general "vibes" of each of these three places. I think lessons to be learnt from this are to use the airport (closer in), increase public transport, and angle for a new town somewhere around Stansted (a new village is already being developed there).

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