For more than a generation, the suburb of New Rochelle, N.Y., has been struggling with a stagnant economy, closed storefronts and tax revenue that has fallen even as New York City has boomed just 15 miles to the south.

Now this bedroom community is forging ahead with a plan to remake its low-slung downtown into a landscape checkered with office towers, high-rise apartments and new retail. Over the past year and a half, it has changed its zoning and signed on a team of developers to start building some of the planned towers—all in a bid to attract new employers and residents and breathe life into the local economy.

In short, this suburb is trying to look urban. And it isn’t the only one. Urbanization efforts in New Rochelle, a city of 79,000, offer a glimpse of changes taking shape in suburbs around the country. While the approaches vary, what they share is a general desire for urban-style development meant to appeal to youth and attract employers who might otherwise gravitate to cities.

Coast to coast

Tysons Corner, a giant collection of suburban-style office parks in Virginia near Washington, D.C., is pushing developers to build apartments, tall office towers and street grids. North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park—a bastion of isolated corporate campuses built in the second half of last century—is now trying to develop about 1,500 apartments mixed with offices for multiple companies, a first for the park. Officials there hope more will follow.

Similar campaigns are under way from Plano, Texas, to San Ramon, Calif. These efforts mark a major shift, planners say, particularly given that cities were trying to compete with suburbs just a few decades ago, plowing highways through downtowns and building enclosed urban malls.