Thursday, August 26, 2010

NEW URBANISM ROAD TRIP -- PART 7


Heading back into Miami-Dade County, we check out the most unlikely home of New Urbanism: Hialeah.

Kicked around for decades because of its industry, blue collar housing stock and frayed retail market, Hialeah is getting national notice for its downtown redevelopment.

The former CVV firm worked with the city to improve the downtown with wider sidewalks, narrower streets, more landscaping and more defined plazas.

After going more than a decade with no building permits being issued for its downtown, Hialeah has seen more than 3,000 market rate residential units built recently.

These include single-family, apartments and live-work units, a New Urbanist dream concept that has space for a small business on the ground floor and room to live above.

Jaime Correa, who teaches at Miami’s architecture school, said to see what New Urbanism seeks to undo, people should visit the sprawl that is Kendal (a Miami-Dade Community).

To understand what New Urbanists seek to recreate, he suggests a tour of Coral Gables and Miami Beach – “places that have a history, places with old urbanism that really works.”

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