New Urbanism and Planning History: Back to the Future

by Christopher Silver

At the annual conference of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning held in Atlanta in November 2000, the session which drew by far the largest attendance was architect Andreas Duany’s presentation on New Urbanism. Those in attendance were treated to an animated and at times vitriolic attack on planners, not unlike the vinegary verbal assaults Jane Jacobs dished out in the early 1960s in The Death and Life of Great American Cities and in her many reviews, essays and public presentations on planning. Both Duany and Jacobs decried the lack of consideration of human scale in the products of modernists, and challenged planners to revise the rules of development to safeguard vibrant urban places. What was distinctive about Duany’s critique was that he celebrated a variety of community designers and builders while bashing the ordinary planners as regulators. He contended in his Atlanta presentation, like he has in other writings, that the period prior to World War II (especially during the 1920s) was a golden era in community design and development. Planning was less institutionalized, subdivision regulations were based upon tradition rather than formulas, and community design schemes were the visionary products of landscape architects, architects and planning consultants given broad latitude by their private developer clients. New uniform community design standards perpetuated by the Federal Housing Administration beginning in the 1940s, coupled with the impact of the federal highway program on residential dispersal, created an automobile-dependent residential fabric devoid of interconnectedness and lacking civic virtue. Duany urged the Atlanta audience to look backward for best practices and to revise the development rules for the future, to recapture lost elements from past planning as an antidote to sprawl.

What the New Urbanists offer, according to Duany, is a set of principles and range of development models to guide public policy, development practice, urban planning and design in order to reduce sprawl. New Urbanists regard the metropolis as the fundamental economic unit of the contemporary world, but see it is a finite place with clear edges that separate its inhabitants from farmlands, watersheds, open spaces and river basins. Development practices should sustain the metropolis as a whole through infill development and redevelopment that takes precedence over peripheral expansion.

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Middleton Hills, Wisconsin: planned by DPZ, photo by Mulad

 

 

Middleton Hills, Wisconsin: planned by DPZ, photo by Mulad

more about New Urbanism:

In Markham, the dream of an urban village that never was

New Urbanism: A Salve or Bane to Urban Wounds?

From Suburb to City: An Opportunity Born of Necessity

New Urbanism Now: Catching up with Andrés Duany

by Cody Winchester, National Post

If you’ve heard about New Urbanism, the anti-sprawl philosophy practised in many planning circles, chances are it’s because of Andrés Duany, the Miami-based architect, urban planner and evangelist-in-chief for the popular design movement. Mr. Duany, born in America but raised in Cuba and Spain, has for three decades boosted the ideals of New Urbanism in forums from Rome to Sydney to Harvard Square.

It wasn’t always so. In 1977, Mr. Duany helped found the techie modernist firm Arquitectonica, in Miami (one of its condos is featured in the opening credits of Miami Vice). In 1980, he and his partner, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, left to form Duany, Plater-Zyberk & Co., and promptly shifted gears. They dropped the high-rise glass-and-steel look in favour of traditionally designed, self-contained communities that emphasize density, walkability and mixed use — the New Urbanism. In 1993, they signed on as charter members of the influential Congress for the New Urbanism.

In the interim, New Urbanism has become quite popular — DPZ has designed more than 300 projects worldwide, including eight in Canada. We spoke with Mr. Duany about smart growth, why Canada produces an excellent bureaucrat, and why human happiness is the best measure of a development’s success.

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Andres Duany, by Stephen Rees

more posts about Andres Duany:

What Andres Duany and Peter Calthrope Beieved in 1995

New Urbanist Silverback Andres Duany and the Young Locusts

New Urbanism, Smart Growth, & Andres Duany: A Critique From Suburbia

The Roots and Origins of New Urbanism

By Houshmand E. Masoumi

New Urbanism is one of the most important approaches of the Neo-Traditional Development flow. Although New Urbanism looks almost new, it has roots in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the early 1980s, Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk as two of the early leaders of the New Urbanism movement conducted a research on the urban form and architectural characteristics of the late nineteenth and twentieth century settlements of the east and northeast of America. It was before starting to work on the master plan of the most famous planning practice of New Urbanism: Seaside, Florida.
They extracted the main characteristics and formulated them as a number of guidelines, which in 1990s were developed into New Urbanism principles by the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU).

Howard’s Garden City

The works of Duany and Plater-Zyberk along with Katz, Molle, Polizoides, Corbett, and others were quite influential in the formation of New Urbanism. Some believe that the idea of such neo-traditionalism was gotten from the first two decades of the twentieth century. As the most influential, Garden City movement was the main pattern of New Urbanist way of thinking.
The 6000-acre Garden City that Ebenezer Howard introduced in his well-known book: Garden Cities of To-morrow in 1902 was influenced by the neighborhood unit of Clarence Perry. The schools were the center of the neighborhood so that the children could easily go to school and get back. Garden City had important Anglo-American features like communality, mobility, individualism, and safety of children which can also be seen in New Urbanism (Lang, 1994).

A Garden City of 66000 acres for 250000 residents

Other Roots

Another source of inspiration of the New Urbanism was the City Beautiful movement. The City Beautiful movement idea originally comes from the neoclassical architectural movement of Beaux Arts (Municipal Arts) in the nineteenth-century France.
Although the shape of the buildings in Beaux Arts architecture is different from the new urban architecture, but there are similarities between the two movements. Human relationships, environmentalism, landscape architecture, and green spaces are basic features of City Beautiful. This is the point that some scholars think that it can be the starting point of the humanist ideology of New Urbanism.

San Francisco - Civic Center: Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, a good example of City Beautiful movement's works, Image by Walley Gobetz

Many critics of New Urbanism believe that unlike its name, it is not so “new”. As we see in this article, the ideas are not new. However, the views that the new urbanists have, by which they try to change the form of the sprawling cities of the United States, look fresh to many people.

References

• Howard, E. (1898), “Garden Cities of To-morrow”, London, U.K.: Sonnensc
• Lang, J. (1994), “Urban Design, the American Experience”, New York; Van Nostrand Reinhold.hein.

Civic Center: Civic Center Park - Voorhies Memorial in Denver in another examples of City Beautiful. image by Wally Gobetz

 More readings on New Urbanism:

neo-traditional development: a post modern way in urban design

What Andres Duany and Peter Calthrope Beieved in 1995

Designing Community: The Utopia of New Urbanism

 

 

 

neo-traditional development: a post modern way in urban design

May 1, 2010 

by Houshmand E. Masoumi

Neo-Traditional Development (NTD) or Neo-Traditional Town Planning is an urban design trend which has drawn the attention of planners and architects during the past two decades. This post modern flow is focused on creating well-planned, mixed-use, compact cities.
Density has an important role in NTDs. Neo-Traditionalists try to plan communities with dense fabric as well as promoting pedestrian and bicycle amenities. This is a reaction to the recent criticisms of urban sprawl. Critics of urban sprawl believe that sprawling urban areas and suburbs cause low sense of community, high construction costs, high automobile dependency, high environmental pollutions, low public health, etc.

The Different Forms of Neo-Traditional Developments

There are no definite categories for NTD. But some scholars have classified some planning trends as types of NTD. For example, in 1994 Alexander Christoforidis categorized NTD into five main approaches:

1. Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) or the New Urbanism
2. Transit Oriented Development (TOD)
3. Hamlets
4. Metropolitan purlieus
5. Revitalization of the existing traditional towns.

Later in 2006, Yosef Rafeq Jabareen defined the following 3 traditional types of planning as the most important NTDs:

1. New Urbanism
2. Transit Oriented Development (TOD)
3. The Urban Village

The Characteristics of Neo-Traditional Developments

The planners of the NTDs usually try to locate most of the following aspects in their plans:
Mixed use neighborhoods, civic centers, sense of community, public open spaces, connected network of streets, strong public transit, etc.

The gird-like network of streets usually helps people easily reach their destinations. Therefore there is a high connectivity in such urban fabrics. This connectivity is for pedestrians, bikers, and the cars. So it is obvious that the neo-traditionalist planners do not intend to omit the cars from the streets, but their aim is to lower the necessity of using car as a daily mode of transport.
This is done through designing and building special public, pedestrian and biking amenities like pedestrian routes, bicycle routes, and of course public transit. In Transit-Oriented Development, public transport is the base of the plans.
Another aspect of the neo-traditional plans is the features that are designed to promote socialization among the residents of the neighborhoods. For example the neighborhood centers and public spaces are of these features. They are often used in plans related to New Urbanism and Urban Village. Mixed land-use is effective in creating better social relations and diversity. In the meantime, it causes the proximity of houses and work places. So the daily trips to work can be shorter.

Prospect new town in Longmont, Colorado: designed based on New Urbanism principles

Generally, neo-traditional planning aims at providing better quality of life. It is tried to be done by means of traditional values which were used in the old neighborhoods and towns.
References:

• Christoforidis, A. (1994), “New Alternatives to the Suburb: Neo Traditional Developments”, Journal of Planning Literature 1994; 8; 429.
• Jabareen, Y. R. (2006), “Sustainable Urban Forms: Their Typologies, Models, and Concepts” Journal of Planning Education and Research 2006; 26; 38

more readings:

What Andres Duany and Peter Calthrope Beieved in 1995

The Definitions and Characteristics of Urban Sprawl

New Urbanism: An Alternative to Urban Sprawl

Designing Community: The Utopia of New Urbanism

by TSUI CM

The search of Utopia is a normal human desire: everyone wants to lead a better life; everyone wants to live in a better place. The emergence of the suburban new towns under the call of the New Urbanism are dream-homes for many Americans – to live in a well protected community with pleasant landscape, welcoming neighborhood and spacious single family houses. However, the suburban new towns reflect larger questions on our society that we should not ignored.

Firstly, it reflects people’s detestation to the city. People abandon the city center and escape to the suburb to look for their ideal living places - The city is no longer a “livable environment”. The gated communities in these suburban new towns, with self-sufficient facilities and services, reflect the people’s fears and reluctance to interact with the outside world.

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New Urbanist Silverback Andres Duany and the Young Locusts

by Sarah Goodyear
May 21, 2010

If you’ve been roaming the urbanist blogosphere this week, you may have happened upon the comments made by one of the progenitors of New Urbanism, Andres Duany, in an interview with the Atlantic. Duany, apparently, has a problem with young people coming into a city and using it in a way that he disapproves of:

There’s this generation who grew up in the suburbs, for whom the suburbs have no magic. The mall has no magic. They’re the ones that have discovered the city.

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Kentlands: a successful example of new urbanism in East Coast (photo: DrLandscape/Flickr)

                                                                                           
                                                                                                                           

Short online articles: New Urbanism: An Alternative to Urban Sprawl

New Urbanism: An Alternative to Urban Sprawl

Houshmand E. Masoumi

New Urbanism is a major type of a general post-modern urban planning and design flow called Neo-Traditional Development (NTD). Along with New Urbanism, other patterns of NTD, like Transit-Oriented Development (TOD), and Urban Village have been introduced during the past three decades.

What is New Urbanism?

The main idea that New Urbanism suggests is creating pedestrian-friendly mixed-use, human-scaled neighborhoods. The houses are within a walking distance of the center of the neighborhoods. The streets shape networks so the resulted structure has high connectivity. Therefore the lengths of the urban travels are shorter than the travels in conventional patterns. Different types of houses can be seen in a new urban neighborhood, because diversity of culture and income is what new urbanists are going to create.

The Principles of New Urbanism

There are different sets of principles that are published as the main regulations of New Urbanism. However, the most cited one is the set that were presented by Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, which is as follows:

1. The neighborhood has a discernible center. This is often a square or a green and sometimes a busy or memorable street corner. A transit stop would be located at this center.
2. Most of the dwellings are within a five-minute walk of the center, an average of roughly 2,000 feet.
3. There are a variety of dwelling types - usually houses, row houses and apartments - so that younger and older people, singles and families, the poor and the wealthy may find places to live.
4. At the edge of the neighborhood, there are shops and offices of sufficiently varied types to supply the weekly needs of a household.
5. A small ancillary building is permitted within the backyard of each house. It may be used as a rental unit or place to work (e.g., office or craft workshop).
6. An elementary school is close enough so that most children can walk from their home.
7. There are small playgrounds accessible to every dwelling, not more than a tenth of a mile away.
8. Streets within the neighborhood form a connected network, which disperses traffic by providing a variety of pedestrian and vehicular routes to any destination.
9. The streets are relatively narrow and shaded by rows of trees. This slows traffic, creating an environment suitable for pedestrians and bicycles.
10. Buildings in the neighborhood center are placed close to the street, creating a well-defined outdoor room.
11. Parking lots and garage doors rarely front the street. Parking is relegated to the rear of buildings, usually accessed by alleys.
12. Certain prominent sites at the termination of street vistas or in the neighborhood center are reserved for civic buildings. These provide sites for community meetings, education, and religious or cultural activities.
13. The neighborhood is organized to be self-governing. A formal association debates and decides matters of maintenance, security, and physical change. Taxation is the responsibility of the larger community.

At What Conditions Did New Urbanism Emerge?

The New Urbanism emerged in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s when the first debates about the shortcomings of the urban sprawl in American settlements were rising. The first practiced planning with New Urbanism ideas was Seaside in Florida. This small town was designed and planned by DPZ Company. The designers were Duany and Plater-Zyberk. After they were offered to do the planning job, they conducted a research on the form of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century towns of east and Northeast of the United States. So they concluded some guidelines to develop the master plan of Seaside. Seaside is still a prominent image of New Urbanism for planners and architects.

New Urbanism Versus Sprawl

The leaders of the New Urbanism movement and the advocates of neo-traditionalism believe that the urban pattern that New Urbanism presents is much more privileged to the one for sprawling suburbs. According to them, New Urbanism produces higher sense of community, less travels by car, less environmental pollutions, etc. Therefore they claim that they have found a good alternative to urban sprawl. Numerous studies have been published on this issue. Of course the urban sprawl has its own followers. Thus a distinct result has not been concluded.

Congress for the New Urbanism

New Urbanism is a well-organized movement. Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) is the official organization of the movement. It has had meetings every year since 1993. Since then, CNU has been a center for conversation about problems like Traditional Neighborhood Design (TND), smart growth, Transit-Oriented Development, and urban sprawl containment. CNU has been always growing during these years and the number of the members and attendances has been higher each year.

New Urbanists have been successful in drawing the attention of urban planners, public media, people, and finally homebuyers. Although it has aroused debates in the last 20 years, but there is a long way to change the form and image of the urban United States or other countries.

Read more at Suite101: New Urbanism: An Alternative to Urban Sprawl http://architecture.suite101.com/article.cfm/new-urbanism#ixzz0nDhDO5Zt