6 ms·

New Urbanism

48 points by MikeCapone 17y ago

ugh 17y ago
Sounds like what you can still get in many European cities. Luckily. It’s a sad day whenever some ugly shopping monster is built outside old city centers. Sprawl is a blight which has to be fought vigorously.
- pchristensen 17y ago
  I'm no fan of sprawl, but once a critical mass of households own a car, it's economically much more efficient because people can travel point to point rather than fixed paths. Sprawl can be made much nicer and less economically competitive by eliminating or raising maximum density limits, eliminating or lowering minimum parking limits, and channeling development into designated areas so that transit is easier. For instance, look at Skarholmen, outside of Stockholm (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=skarholmen,+stockholm&mrt=all&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Sk%C3%A4rholmen,+Stockholm,+Sweden&ll=59.267372,17.8969&spn=0.060091,0.154324&t=h&z=13 http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q...) . It's Stockholm's sprawl, built in the 60's to handle population growth as Sweden urbanized. The subway runs parallel to the highway, with regional draws (factories for employment, big shopping like Ikea) by the highway and local shopping like a grocery store, a small mall (Skarholmen Centrum), post office, etc clustered around the subway stop (the "T" on the map). There are apartments (3-6 stories) clustered around the Centrum, then townhouses beyond that and some houses beyond that. Nearby stops have small grocery stores (similar to a CVS or Walgreens) and apartments around them, and if people need more stuff they ride the train to Skarholmen. For specialized stuff they ride into Stockholm or drive/bus to the big stores by the highway. So most people don't need cars even for work or shopping. Overcrowding? No, apartments are very affordable so people don't need to pack into them. Concrete jungle? Hardly, there are parks between every apartment building and raw forest less than a mile away. So what's missing from here? That's not rhetorical, I'd really like to know what is bad about this compared to American-style suburbia. The only thing I can really think of is that very people have a private yard or an apartment big enough to entertain a lot of people.
  - ugh 17y ago
    I just despise the bad kind of sprawl :) (i.e. where you need a car) It’s also more of an aesthetic judgement. I want to be able to get to work with a bike. I want many nice restaurants and coffeehouse within walking distance. I want to able to do all my shopping with my bike. I’m more than happy to give up huge cheap living spaces and big malls and all the other little convenient things which make living in suburbia easy. I can see how others might have different opinions. Convenience vs. all the nice things. I pick all the nice things :)
  - evanrmurphy 17y ago
    It sounds like most people are driving cars instead of walking or cycling and small businesses are virtually nonexistant. This seems like a problem to me.
    - pchristensen 17y ago
      No, most people are walking or riding trains. Very few people have cars. Small businesses were about as common as in US suburbs.
      - evanrmurphy 17y ago
        > No, most people are walking or riding trains. Very few people have cars. I guess I misinterpreted your "once a critical mass of households own a car" comment. > Small businesses were about as common as in US suburbs. Virtually nonexistant in the US suburbs I come from. I think this quality is representative of suburbs in general, but mine may also be an extreme case.
        pchristensen 17y ago
        I started out saying that auto-burbs are economically efficient once enough people own cars, then gave Skarholmen as an example of how it could be. The lack of small businesses is typical of suburbs, which are primarily places to live without a specific local economic purpose. Exceptions are typically hair salons, small restaurants, dry cleaners, etc.
evanrmurphy 17y ago
It's fascinating how much positive-sounding language can amount to basically saying, "We fucked up on the whole suburban sprawl thing. It's pretty lame. Undo." (Please note that, despite my tone in the above, I am very excited about the movement. :)
pchristensen 17y ago
New Urbanism was one of the things that got me to take a hiatus from computers to get a degree in urban planning - I've read way too much about it and visited many of the featured communities. (My wife is a doll - "You want to visit a neighborhood outside of Gainesville? O...K...") To address the major criticism (affordability and lack of economic mixing): each NU development requires haggling over special zoning, density, and street engineering, so there's a greater up front cost and risk for the developer which gets passed on to buyers. Second, there are very few NU housing units relative to standard suburban houses so demand outstrips supply, keeping prices high. Third, they make a conscious effort to be attractive and pleasant, both in the houses and neighborhood as a whole, so people are willing to pay higher prices. With explicit zoning approval, developers could build more units and there would be more competition so prices would go down. The end result would probably be prices about the same as standard houses, with a smaller lot, slightly smaller house, but in a more attractive, liveable neighborhood. The biggest weakness I see is that they have only been done on the scale of a subdivision so it hasn't really effected shopping or employment patterns. Sure, many of them have pleasant town centers, but they get low traffic and are therefore much more suitable for professional offices or a few local things like a dry cleaner or child care. New Urbanism is useful mainly as a showcase of how residential development could be. The work that has the potential to change the built environment much more are form-based zoning codes, also by Duany Plater-Zyberk. It basically specifies the envelope you're allowed to build in based on where you are but doesn't specify function. So in a dense district where 6 story buildings are allowed, it doesn't matter whether they are offices, condos, light manufacturing, etc, just as long as they're consistent with the form of the neighborhood and the road and transit capacity. Form based codes actually deal with the entire economy of residential, commercial, and office/light-industry, while New Urbanism only (in practice) deals with residential. If a fast-growing municipality were to adopt these, it would give a good feel for what level of density and urbanity people were actually willing to buy. Urbanity and density that is a) low crime and b) has acceptable schools is extremely high priced because zoning has made it illegal to build almost everywhere.
- anamax 17y ago
  > If a fast-growing municipality were to adopt these, it would give a good feel for what level of density and urbanity people were actually willing to buy. Urbanity and density that is a) low crime and b) has acceptable schools is extremely high priced because zoning has made it illegal to build almost everywhere. Huh? It's easy to find places in the US that will let you build something like that. It's only hard to do it inside a core city. Yes, it's probably true that no one is willing to let you run their whole city. FWIW - I've found that ideas that only work on an unattainable scale have other problems that are often fatal on smaller scales.
mscantland 17y ago
I've been going to Seaside FL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaside,_Florida http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaside,_Florida), one of the early NU towns for many years, and just had my wedding there. The highway 30A coast, which includes Seaside has at least four examples of New Urbanist towns within a 20 mile stretch that is all bike-able. If you're into this kind of thing, it makes a great vacation spot. If you want activities or restaurant recommendations, check out my wedding website which is still up: http://mattandmeara.com/more/ http://mattandmeara.com/more/
MikeCapone 17y ago
For a lot of great videos about what new urbanism is all about (mostly for walking/biking/transit infrastructure), check out the excellent: http://www.streetfilms.org/ http://www.streetfilms.org/ They're part of the Livable Streets organization..
rwhitman 17y ago
Anybody who's interested in this and lives in the Bay Area should take a drive over to Hercules on the east bay. They build a whole town complete with mixed use urban center
j053003 17y ago
I think a lot of us played SimCity when we were little.
lobo-tuerto 17y ago
I have been longing for the ideas of Christopher Alexander to be put to good (world wide) use. Or at least wishing for them to be noticed outside the little circle of minds that "get it".
Sukotto 17y ago
This reminds me of a wonderful site from a few years back: http://carfree.com/ http://carfree.com/ The basic premise being to deliberately create small, architecturally distinct neighborhoods with swaths of greenspace separating them, then joining them all together with a highly efficient public transit system. It's an interesting read.
anamax 17y ago
New Urbanism comes from a belief that cars and lawns are bad. If you agree with that premise, it might be okay although it's not clear that it's a significant win over other urban forms. If you disagree with that premise, it's a total disaster. The typical response by new urbanists to folks who disagree with the premise is ridicule. Note that the folks who disagree with the premise are perfectly willing to let the new urbanists do their thing.
- potatolicious 17y ago
  > "New Urbanism comes from a belief that cars and lawns are bad." I like how you coupled something a lot of people think is bad, with something few people think is bad, and present it as an all-or-nothing choice. > "Note that the folks who disagree with the premise are perfectly willing to let the new urbanists do their thing." I disagree. Suburban developers, along with the people who live there, are currently in the process of torpedoing a new mass transit rail system in Seattle - this is something that will take a lot of cars off the road, create new residential and commercial corridors with excellent transit coverage, and make communities more connected. Suburbanites fear the accessibility will destroy the exclusivity of their enclaves (which is probably true), and thus are trying to prevent this from being built. Whether or not you agree or disagree with the concept of effective mass transit, there's no way you can claim that pro-suburb folk are a-ok with urbanist policies. American cities are littered with stories of urban initiatives torpedoed by people in fear of the destruction of their suburban lifestyles.
  - anamax 17y ago
    > I like how you coupled something a lot of people think is bad, with something few people think is bad, and present it as an all-or-nothing choice. It's not my coupling - it's the new urbanists' coupling. I don't know what a "hate cars, like lawns" or "like cars, hate lawns" vision would be, but neither is relevant if we're discussing new urbanists. > > "Note that the folks who disagree with the premise are perfectly willing to let the new urbanists do their thing." > I disagree. Suburban developers, along with the people who live there, are currently in the process of torpedoing a new mass transit rail system in Seattle Not so fast - they're refusing to pay for it. That's very different. If it was such a great idea, if there actually were people who placed as much value on these things as they cost, you wouldn't need funding from other people. > this is something that will take a lot of cars off the road, create new residential and commercial corridors with excellent transit coverage These are things that you value - they don't. > Suburbanites fear the accessibility will destroy the exclusivity of their enclaves (which is probably true), and thus are trying to prevent this from being built. "exclusivity of their enclaves" sounds like projection. > American cities are littered with stories of urban initiatives torpedoed by people in fear of the destruction of their suburban lifestyles. Not at all. They're merely refusing to pay for the lifestyle that you'd prefer.
patrickgzill 17y ago
NU is the pretty face of the death of private property in America. If you own something, you have control of it; zoning removes your control over property you own.
- MartinCron 17y ago
  "Old" or "New" -Urbanism has never been about absolute property rights. City dwellers have, for generations, traded the conveniences of density over pure private property rights. How would you feel about your next-door neighbor turning their home into a slaughterhouse or paper mill or adult bookstore?
  - patrickgzill 17y ago
    Can you point to examples in Houston, TX, where this has happened? Houston has no formal zoning code.
    - MartinCron 17y ago
      Zoning is just one of many ways that people, through democratically elected governments, restrict private property rights in cities. While Houston doesn't have formal zoning, a quick Google search (I've never been there) shows they do have extensive land-use regulation, including minimum lot size for single family homes (5000 sq feet) and requirements for parking for businesses. So, if I wanted to place two single-family homes on my 9000 sq feet of land, or open a retail shop without providing parking, my private property rights would be infringed.
- icco 17y ago
  Yes, and I don't think anyone is hiding this. New Urbanism exists to turn areas which previously were only sparsely dense into much more populace areas. If you want your private property, you'll now have to move farther away from the current "big" cities to a smaller town or into an area where they still sell hundreds of acres of land for the price of a new york loft.
- joe_the_user 17y ago

48 points by MikeCapone 17y ago

ugh 17y ago

Sounds like what you can still get in many European cities. Luckily. It’s a sad day whenever some ugly shopping monster is built outside old city centers. Sprawl is a blight which has to be fought vigorously.

pchristensen 17y ago
I'm no fan of sprawl, but once a critical mass of households own a car, it's economically much more efficient because people can travel point to point rather than fixed paths. Sprawl can be made much nicer and less economically competitive by eliminating or raising maximum density limits, eliminating or lowering minimum parking limits, and channeling development into designated areas so that transit is easier. For instance, look at Skarholmen, outside of Stockholm (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=skarholmen,+stockholm&mrt=all&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Sk%C3%A4rholmen,+Stockholm,+Sweden&ll=59.267372,17.8969&spn=0.060091,0.154324&t=h&z=13 http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q...) . It's Stockholm's sprawl, built in the 60's to handle population growth as Sweden urbanized. The subway runs parallel to the highway, with regional draws (factories for employment, big shopping like Ikea) by the highway and local shopping like a grocery store, a small mall (Skarholmen Centrum), post office, etc clustered around the subway stop (the "T" on the map). There are apartments (3-6 stories) clustered around the Centrum, then townhouses beyond that and some houses beyond that. Nearby stops have small grocery stores (similar to a CVS or Walgreens) and apartments around them, and if people need more stuff they ride the train to Skarholmen. For specialized stuff they ride into Stockholm or drive/bus to the big stores by the highway. So most people don't need cars even for work or shopping. Overcrowding? No, apartments are very affordable so people don't need to pack into them. Concrete jungle? Hardly, there are parks between every apartment building and raw forest less than a mile away. So what's missing from here? That's not rhetorical, I'd really like to know what is bad about this compared to American-style suburbia. The only thing I can really think of is that very people have a private yard or an apartment big enough to entertain a lot of people.
- ugh 17y ago
  I just despise the bad kind of sprawl :) (i.e. where you need a car) It’s also more of an aesthetic judgement. I want to be able to get to work with a bike. I want many nice restaurants and coffeehouse within walking distance. I want to able to do all my shopping with my bike. I’m more than happy to give up huge cheap living spaces and big malls and all the other little convenient things which make living in suburbia easy. I can see how others might have different opinions. Convenience vs. all the nice things. I pick all the nice things :)
- evanrmurphy 17y ago
  It sounds like most people are driving cars instead of walking or cycling and small businesses are virtually nonexistant. This seems like a problem to me.
  - pchristensen 17y ago
    No, most people are walking or riding trains. Very few people have cars. Small businesses were about as common as in US suburbs.
    - evanrmurphy 17y ago
      > No, most people are walking or riding trains. Very few people have cars. I guess I misinterpreted your "once a critical mass of households own a car" comment. > Small businesses were about as common as in US suburbs. Virtually nonexistant in the US suburbs I come from. I think this quality is representative of suburbs in general, but mine may also be an extreme case.
      - pchristensen 17y ago
        I started out saying that auto-burbs are economically efficient once enough people own cars, then gave Skarholmen as an example of how it could be. The lack of small businesses is typical of suburbs, which are primarily places to live without a specific local economic purpose. Exceptions are typically hair salons, small restaurants, dry cleaners, etc.

evanrmurphy 17y ago

It's fascinating how much positive-sounding language can amount to basically saying, "We fucked up on the whole suburban sprawl thing. It's pretty lame. Undo." (Please note that, despite my tone in the above, I am very excited about the movement. :)

pchristensen 17y ago

New Urbanism was one of the things that got me to take a hiatus from computers to get a degree in urban planning - I've read way too much about it and visited many of the featured communities. (My wife is a doll - "You want to visit a neighborhood outside of Gainesville? O...K...") To address the major criticism (affordability and lack of economic mixing): each NU development requires haggling over special zoning, density, and street engineering, so there's a greater up front cost and risk for the developer which gets passed on to buyers. Second, there are very few NU housing units relative to standard suburban houses so demand outstrips supply, keeping prices high. Third, they make a conscious effort to be attractive and pleasant, both in the houses and neighborhood as a whole, so people are willing to pay higher prices. With explicit zoning approval, developers could build more units and there would be more competition so prices would go down. The end result would probably be prices about the same as standard houses, with a smaller lot, slightly smaller house, but in a more attractive, liveable neighborhood. The biggest weakness I see is that they have only been done on the scale of a subdivision so it hasn't really effected shopping or employment patterns. Sure, many of them have pleasant town centers, but they get low traffic and are therefore much more suitable for professional offices or a few local things like a dry cleaner or child care. New Urbanism is useful mainly as a showcase of how residential development could be. The work that has the potential to change the built environment much more are form-based zoning codes, also by Duany Plater-Zyberk. It basically specifies the envelope you're allowed to build in based on where you are but doesn't specify function. So in a dense district where 6 story buildings are allowed, it doesn't matter whether they are offices, condos, light manufacturing, etc, just as long as they're consistent with the form of the neighborhood and the road and transit capacity. Form based codes actually deal with the entire economy of residential, commercial, and office/light-industry, while New Urbanism only (in practice) deals with residential. If a fast-growing municipality were to adopt these, it would give a good feel for what level of density and urbanity people were actually willing to buy. Urbanity and density that is a) low crime and b) has acceptable schools is extremely high priced because zoning has made it illegal to build almost everywhere.

anamax 17y ago
> If a fast-growing municipality were to adopt these, it would give a good feel for what level of density and urbanity people were actually willing to buy. Urbanity and density that is a) low crime and b) has acceptable schools is extremely high priced because zoning has made it illegal to build almost everywhere. Huh? It's easy to find places in the US that will let you build something like that. It's only hard to do it inside a core city. Yes, it's probably true that no one is willing to let you run their whole city. FWIW - I've found that ideas that only work on an unattainable scale have other problems that are often fatal on smaller scales.

mscantland 17y ago

I've been going to Seaside FL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaside,_Florida http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaside,_Florida), one of the early NU towns for many years, and just had my wedding there. The highway 30A coast, which includes Seaside has at least four examples of New Urbanist towns within a 20 mile stretch that is all bike-able. If you're into this kind of thing, it makes a great vacation spot. If you want activities or restaurant recommendations, check out my wedding website which is still up: http://mattandmeara.com/more/ http://mattandmeara.com/more/

MikeCapone 17y ago

For a lot of great videos about what new urbanism is all about (mostly for walking/biking/transit infrastructure), check out the excellent: http://www.streetfilms.org/ http://www.streetfilms.org/ They're part of the Livable Streets organization..

rwhitman 17y ago

Anybody who's interested in this and lives in the Bay Area should take a drive over to Hercules on the east bay. They build a whole town complete with mixed use urban center

j053003 17y ago

I think a lot of us played SimCity when we were little.

lobo-tuerto 17y ago

I have been longing for the ideas of Christopher Alexander to be put to good (world wide) use. Or at least wishing for them to be noticed outside the little circle of minds that "get it".

Sukotto 17y ago

This reminds me of a wonderful site from a few years back: http://carfree.com/ http://carfree.com/ The basic premise being to deliberately create small, architecturally distinct neighborhoods with swaths of greenspace separating them, then joining them all together with a highly efficient public transit system. It's an interesting read.

anamax 17y ago

New Urbanism comes from a belief that cars and lawns are bad. If you agree with that premise, it might be okay although it's not clear that it's a significant win over other urban forms. If you disagree with that premise, it's a total disaster. The typical response by new urbanists to folks who disagree with the premise is ridicule. Note that the folks who disagree with the premise are perfectly willing to let the new urbanists do their thing.

potatolicious 17y ago
> "New Urbanism comes from a belief that cars and lawns are bad." I like how you coupled something a lot of people think is bad, with something few people think is bad, and present it as an all-or-nothing choice. > "Note that the folks who disagree with the premise are perfectly willing to let the new urbanists do their thing." I disagree. Suburban developers, along with the people who live there, are currently in the process of torpedoing a new mass transit rail system in Seattle - this is something that will take a lot of cars off the road, create new residential and commercial corridors with excellent transit coverage, and make communities more connected. Suburbanites fear the accessibility will destroy the exclusivity of their enclaves (which is probably true), and thus are trying to prevent this from being built. Whether or not you agree or disagree with the concept of effective mass transit, there's no way you can claim that pro-suburb folk are a-ok with urbanist policies. American cities are littered with stories of urban initiatives torpedoed by people in fear of the destruction of their suburban lifestyles.
- anamax 17y ago
  > I like how you coupled something a lot of people think is bad, with something few people think is bad, and present it as an all-or-nothing choice. It's not my coupling - it's the new urbanists' coupling. I don't know what a "hate cars, like lawns" or "like cars, hate lawns" vision would be, but neither is relevant if we're discussing new urbanists. > > "Note that the folks who disagree with the premise are perfectly willing to let the new urbanists do their thing." > I disagree. Suburban developers, along with the people who live there, are currently in the process of torpedoing a new mass transit rail system in Seattle Not so fast - they're refusing to pay for it. That's very different. If it was such a great idea, if there actually were people who placed as much value on these things as they cost, you wouldn't need funding from other people. > this is something that will take a lot of cars off the road, create new residential and commercial corridors with excellent transit coverage These are things that you value - they don't. > Suburbanites fear the accessibility will destroy the exclusivity of their enclaves (which is probably true), and thus are trying to prevent this from being built. "exclusivity of their enclaves" sounds like projection. > American cities are littered with stories of urban initiatives torpedoed by people in fear of the destruction of their suburban lifestyles. Not at all. They're merely refusing to pay for the lifestyle that you'd prefer.

patrickgzill 17y ago

NU is the pretty face of the death of private property in America. If you own something, you have control of it; zoning removes your control over property you own.

MartinCron 17y ago
"Old" or "New" -Urbanism has never been about absolute property rights. City dwellers have, for generations, traded the conveniences of density over pure private property rights. How would you feel about your next-door neighbor turning their home into a slaughterhouse or paper mill or adult bookstore?
- patrickgzill 17y ago
  Can you point to examples in Houston, TX, where this has happened? Houston has no formal zoning code.
  - MartinCron 17y ago
    Zoning is just one of many ways that people, through democratically elected governments, restrict private property rights in cities. While Houston doesn't have formal zoning, a quick Google search (I've never been there) shows they do have extensive land-use regulation, including minimum lot size for single family homes (5000 sq feet) and requirements for parking for businesses. So, if I wanted to place two single-family homes on my 9000 sq feet of land, or open a retail shop without providing parking, my private property rights would be infringed.
icco 17y ago
Yes, and I don't think anyone is hiding this. New Urbanism exists to turn areas which previously were only sparsely dense into much more populace areas. If you want your private property, you'll now have to move farther away from the current "big" cities to a smaller town or into an area where they still sell hundreds of acres of land for the price of a new york loft.
joe_the_user 17y ago