GM post 02 October. Is a Mini-Microcosm an Imitation?

Thinking about Eco’s comment, “The fact is that the United States is filled with cities that imitate a city,” makes me think of Thornton Park, the Lake Eola Fountain, the Panera Bread on the corner of Eola Drive and Robinson Avenue, and the lakeshore area of St. Cloud. After attending a couple of poetry readings at Urban Think and having dinner a few times in the Thornton Park area, I began to realize how unique this particular area is, at least when I compare it to my own particular life experiences—I suppose.
Take any morning, tenish on any Sunday morning will do, and take a few moments to observe while you’re enjoying an egg soufflé and a low-fat latté. Over the sound of a piped-in string quartet, you’ll hear sounds of tapping laptops as students and business people quietly “do their thing,” interrupted only by an occasional free-sample being offered to them by a Panera employee. While outside, just across a beautiful, oak-lined brick street and the occasional panhandler, prostitute, and hustler, you’ll find mothers with young children, lovers, and joggers making their way around the Lake Eola Fountain. All of which blends together into mini-microcosm that works. Similar, but not really, things are happening in St. Cloud, Florida.
In St. Cloud, there is an older, residential area that’s located on East Lake Tohopekliga and, like all water front areas; the geographic area is limited creating a demand and waiting list for available properties. But what has happened there over the past several years is that a younger crowd has discovered this area and you’ll now find major renovations of older structures. Oddly though, must all renovations have been along the same theme without being required to do so by any regulation, government or private. People just want to be there and other than that there’s nothing really unique about the area just nice, older homes and quiet, oak-lined streets which, on any given evening, you can see mother’s, father’s, couples, and families simply walking and enjoying their environment.
I’m sure that these mini-microcosms are not unique to the areas that I describe above and I’m quit sure that there are several, similar situations throughout Orlando and Winter Park, let alone the rest of the country and the world. But I have to ask, how would Eco classify these mini-microcosms, how would they fit into his idea of imitation?