I've been playing AC:NL on and off since it came out. I completed the old DS version but for some reason just never really got into New Leaf. Or my interest kinda waned. I moved right after I got it twice and changed jobs, and just got distracted.

I never got Gracie's shop. I built some monuments in town and collected all of the fossils. But meh. Should I just start over?

The only thing stopping me is I live in Korea and no one has a DS, so street pass will be dismal for harvesting furniture from other people's houses. On the other hand it'll be a reason to be more active here.

Can I download a second version of the game into my 3DS? Maybe that's the answer.

Anyone else started over recently?

I don't know if you can download a second version, but I know that if you buy a new cartridge, they would be two separate towns. You could transfer stuff between the two perhaps

You can only have one downloaded version of your game on your DS. You CAN play/make a 2nd town if you get a physical copy, and you can play it on the same system, but you won't be able to visit yourself in the other town if you plan on transferring items over.

But - food for thought - if you're not happy with the 1st town, buying a 2nd town, won't make the 1st one any better, and you're just as likely to get bored of the 2nd town.

I realize you have some work put into your first town, and if you'd like to keep that progress, then you need to figure out what it is you dislike about your current town and make a goal to fix the things you can. Having a goal in this game, even a small one, gives people the reason to play it.

I've just started a 5th town, so I sorta feel like I'm starting over, and my goals this time is to finish a museum and play much more casually than I had before. (My other towns had different themes, specific villagers, specific PWPs, houses had to be in particular spots, etc. and I'm kinda tired of playing that way!)

You can have more than one town (one downloaded, and as many cartridges as you care to buy) but you can't visit/exchange between your towns unless you have more than one 3ds.  I have a second cartridge, but I also have access to another 3ds so I can exchange between my towns. In some ways that's fun since I like playing around with new themes, so having one to restart keeps it fresh. Beware, though - if your give your new town TOO much help from your old one, It takes away the element of surprise and the motivation to play to build the town. I set rules and try to limit the town to town assistance.

Cicee is giving great advice, to consider first what you don't like about town 1. If you dislike the town layout, your character, ALL of your villagers, the basic idea/theme of your town - you could cure those with a new start. But if you are just kinda "meh" about the whole thing, a new town might not make any difference either. You could try out some new ideas in your existing town first to see if you can respark the interest - move in a new character with a themed house you like, or redo just part of your town into what you might enjoy in a new one, to see what you think.

On the other hand, if you aren't really interested in your town any more anyway - what have you got to lose?  

When I played Wild World I really played it to complete it. I logged all the items I had collected and bugs, fish etc in my game guide so I knew what I needed to buy at nooks and what could be sold off without running around. I've never been much on town design in that version. I just like breeding flowers and planting hybrids all over the place in meticulous color patterns.. I didn't bother much with paths or anything.

This time around, I really wish I had kept the log like before. Now that there's more design elements to the town I wish I had spent more time really taking the time to lay out the town. There's a few areas I like. I have a fountain park and I have this little inlet that has the big Japanese gong bell and zen rock with lots of very well organized flowers so it looks like a shinto shrine. And I like my house interior. I have a lot of Japan exclusive items because I lived there and my other ds (which if it were in my current country this would be less of a problem) is Japanese)

Even though the town has a perfect status because flowers are everywhere, the whole thing feels jumbled and disorganized. I'd really like to make a nice organized town but going through the motions of paths and stuff is kinda bleh. So I was thinking making a fresh start would really encourage me to consider layout more seriously.

Then again I will miss my bells, store fronts and inventory. I've never restarted any version of AC before, so maybe that's what's holding me back. But mostly, much like I hate cleaning up my apartment, the idea of spending a few hours cutting stuff down and laying paths everywhere is kinda meh.

Maybe I should just knock down the monuments and redesign the town I have.

As you can tell, I'm very wishy washy on the issue.

"Maybe I should just knock down the monuments and redesign the town I have. "

I did that with one of my towns! I tore down everything I could and worked in sections across my map. I started around my house - and once I got that looking the way I wished, I moved to the space in front of it, and then behind it. Instead of being overwhelmed with having to make the entire town come together all at once, it felt more like a natural progression, with each small area giving me ideas for the next area that I'd work on.
I didn't like the ideas of paths either, but eventually it did help me make sense of what I wanted to do, and where, and how I might arrange things.
And you really don't lose anything going this route!

Yes, maybe that's the place to start, then.  Keep the sections of your town you like, and get rid of the rest and redesign in small sections,  Then if you still don't like it or find it boring, then get a person you can trust to hold your bells and non-replaceable items like the JP rares, until you get a new layout you love, and then just pick them up again.  It's a compromise because the physical part of the town would have to start all over, but at least you wouldn't lose everything.  

keep playin ur main town and work on geting badges and villager pics.. it extends gameplay

After not playing one of my towns for a while, I almost restarted but instead I chopped down all of the trees, some of the flowers and put the others on the beach. I went to November and tt to get the mush furniture for another town, because why not? Nothing to lose if I hated it anyway. I planted all the perfect apples that were still in storage and made a pathway of sorts and then added rows here and there and fir trees in front of city hall for winter lights. Then I found low turnip prices in that town and was happy to be able to just run all over the place and not worry about it. This right now is my new favorite town because it's just fun. All her stuff is in the museum and her house has patterns for wall and floor...that's how committed I was to tearing it down. Today I made 25 million bells selling those turnips that I only paid 92 for and I think she'll stay around for a while....might even let her move her stuff back into her house. Bahaha....this is fun.

I couldn't take the leap to restart, and so grabbed a new copy of the game

I get very emotionally attached to my towns so I don't ever feel like restarting. That being said I do understand getting bored and frustrated with the game. I think landscaping is a great place to start. I recently did that with my town as I was bored with how it looked. I'm much happier with the way it looks now - still forestry and a bit haphazard but with flowers outlining paths (of sorts) and only my native fruit trees.

I'm not sure if someone else has mentioned this (admittedly I didn't read all of the comments), but you CAN have 2 copies of the game on one device - you just need to have 1 physical cartridge and download the second copy from the Nintendo Store. This is what I do.

In the past, I've used the cartridge as my main game and didn't restart it. I used my electronic copy as my "restart" town.

However, I recently decided to completely redo my main town. I had pretty much done everything there was to do. Now that I've restarted and committed to playing without time travel I've found my interest is renewed.