NEW URBANISM’S TRUE ROOTS:
GREENFIELD TRADITIONAL TOWN PLANNING OR URBAN INFILL REVITALIZATION
By Steve Wright
As New Urbanism looks back over its first decade-plus of existence, a key question arises: are the movement’s true roots in building new towns such as Seaside and Kentlands, or should they lie in rebuilding Main Street America?
New Urbanism may ultimately have a larger impact in dense urban settings, but its leading proponents say greenfields have to remain high on the agenda.
“From the beginning, the New Urbanism has been dedicated to both the inner city and greenfield development. One is not more important than the other, as the Charter states. However, I think that the greenfield project is the most urgent because that is where 95 percent of the construction in this country is taking place,” said Andres Duany, co-founder of the Congress for New Urbanism (CNU).
“The inner city can be ‘on hold.’ Were the New Urbanism to turn away from greenfield projects, it will have removed the only alternative -- the only friction, that conventional suburban developers have,” Duany said. “The root of the New Urbanism is reform after the failure of the promises of suburbia.”
The principal of Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company, a Miami-based firm famed for planning in more than 250 new and existing communities, is more interested in fusing with environmentalism than debating infill vs. greenfield.
“The New Urbanism is headed toward a fusion with environmentalism. Environmentalism is currently in crisis because it has not made a proposal for the human habitat. Its tendency to ‘green’ everything prevents urbanism. They are crashing because of their limited toolbox. The New Urbanism is entirely symbiotic with the environmental movement. Because the environmental movement is infinitely more powerful politically, we should propel ourselves into a new paradigm that will effectively counter suburban sprawl.”
Tomorrow: John Norquist, president and CEO of CNU
Although a strong proponent of new urbanism, I'm sorry to hear Mr. Duany say that the inner city can be "on hold." After 50 years of trying and failing at the same old thing, the inner cities definitely need to try something new.
ReplyDeleteWhile his firm may need to concentrate on one area, and while I would agree that the largest impact can be made in engaging the political system where greenfield development is occurring, there are others of us who still can be proponents of new urbanism in the inner city and all the places in between the inner city and the greenfields. The recession and foreclosure crisis has created many opportunities for new urbanism as existing suburbs 20-50 years old are being rethought.
To capture the hearts and minds of the environmental movement, our opinion is that new urbanism will have to be more watchful that greenfield developments do not create sprawl. We use the term sprawl to mean land development rate outpacing population or household growth. There are many such cities in the country, and when people develop greenfields in the name of new urbanism in this environment, it will be difficult to impossible to partner with environmentalists in those locations.