by Alex Marshall - articles and essays

The New Urbanism Articles:

I've been one of the most persistent critics of the design philosophy called New Urbanism, particularly of the strain known as neo-traditionalism. Here are some of my favorite articles on the subject. I include the Eurosprawl article here, because seeing and studying Europe helped change my thinking on New Urbanism:

Old Cities Versus New Urbanism - "Krieger said encouraging more suburban growth sucked people and resources from the center city. Duany said the suburban expansion was inevitable, and it was better to do it well than to waste energy trying to slow it down. Deciding who was right was left to the audience. More controversial were Duany's remarks on public housing, as he and other New Urbanists are actively involved in inner-city work." Click on link for full article.

Putting Some City Back In The Suburb - "Cities are products of something. They represent the effect, principally, of transportation systems. The classic 19th and early 20th century neighborhoods that many people love, and which New Urbanism apes, were created by the extension of streetcar lines. Levittown was a product of a new car culture. The mega malls and grab bag of subdivisions that surround Washington are products of the Beltway and the rest of the superhighway system that laces the region." Click on link for full article.

Suburb In Disguise - "Kentlands makes little sense without understanding suburban development in Montgomery County and elsewhere in the U.S. The essence of post-World War II development patterns is the old country road, from which sprout subdivisions and shopping centers. Tracts of housing, and eventually malls and office towers, are laid out as appendages to the main road, which quickly becomes congested and swells from two lanes to four and often eight lanes. This pattern of development did not emerge from the edicts of Le Corbusier or Frank Lloyd Wright; it happens because it suits a transportation system based around the car. Corbu, Wright, and the other anti-urbanists did not cause suburbia. They merely predicted it." Click on link for full article.

A More Benevolent Sprawl - " The authors' hostility to real sprawl-tackling can be seen with their damning-with-faint-praise treatment of Portland, Oregon. Essential to that city's success has been its urban-growth boundary. But in Suburban Nation, the authors say that 'while these boundaries have sometimes proved effective, they are rarely long-term solutions; Even Portland's lauded boundary faces constant legislative challenge.' Why does 'constant legislative challenge' make something unsuccessful? Actually, Portland's growth boundary has lasted 25 years, withstanding three statewide referendums called by developers." Click on link for full article.

Builiding New Urbanism - Less Filling, But Not So Tasty - "New Urbanism is a big tent philosophy and practice: that is, a lot goes on under that label. It is at various times: a theory or theories of urban design; a marketing campaign; a collection of people who love urban places; and a particular way of buildings suburbs that attempt to imitate older towns and city neighborhoods. Some of the former has some value. But it is the latter that concerns me here. On a practical level, most of what is physically built under the label New Urban are these newer suburbs out on bare land." Click on link for full article.

Eurosprawl - "In looking for the perfect European urban city, I held high hopes for Northern countries like Holland, Denmark or Sweden. These homogenous, progressive, well-planned societies would, I thought, certainly achieve the urbanity we in America had lost through our unplanned sprawl. In some respects, the societies worked as advertised. Around Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Copenhagen, I saw how cities and central governments laid down train, tram and bus lines, and only then allowed developers to move in and build houses. The cities or central governments decided the form, density and style of new neighborhoods. Bike paths were everywhere. But what they achieved by doing this was a more efficient suburb, not anything remotely urban." Click on link for full article.

Teaching New Urbanism - "Architecture schools are in deep denial' Polyzoides said."They support an architecture system based around star performers. But the chance of becoming a builder like Frank Gehry is equal to the chance of being a teammate of Michael Jordan. Polyzoides said he would like to reform the studio system that is the core of most architectural education. Having students design alone and compete with other students re-inforces the hyper-indivualistic and competitive tendencies of architecture. Instead, Polyzoides said he has his students work together to solve tasks like fitting streets and buildings into an oddly shaped parcel of land. The larger problem, said Solomon and others, is ending the division between planning and architecture. Some universities even house city or regional planning in separate schools." Click on link for full article.

A Story About Columbia, Maryland - "To a large degree, Rouses vision, both socially and otherwise, was realized. As of this year, about 85,000 people, with about 20 percent African-American, live in eight villages grouped loosely around a regional enclosed shopping mall, which is the town center. The ninth and last village is set to begin construction, which when finished, should bring the total population up to the planned 100,000 people. From the hindsight of 30 years , Its interesting to ask not only whether rouse got to where he was going, but whether he was going in the right direction. rouse and many others put a lot of freight on new towns, including that it would be a model for future development, spawn countless imitators and cure the ailing center cities. When Rouse conceived of Columbia in the early 1960s, he was determined, like the New Urbanists, that people would be able to live, work, play and other stuff at Columbia without leaving its borders. In his mind, this made Columbia a city. He never called or considered it a suburb or suburbia, which he despised. This of course, leads into a discussion about what is a real city..." Click on link for full article.

Seaside At 20 - "I was halfway through Seaside before I realized I was in it. The main state road coming from Panama City, 31A, is lined with condominium towers, resort subdivisions, roadside shops and other detritus. Seaside at first appeared to be just one more cluster of development, done in some vaguely historical style. "Damn, they really got their money out of Steven Brooke," I thought, gazing out from my rental car. Brooke, a photographer, had taken many of the archetypal images of Seaside that had flashed all over the world, via books and magazines. Often set against a skyline at twilight, his photos had turned Seaside into a latter day Acropolis, a remote outpost of civilization on the Florida coast. The more humdr um reality of the place was disorienting. I would see a beachfront home, and then on my brain plate would flash the archetypal photo I had seen of the same structure." Click on link for full article.

New Urbanism Versus An Old Neighborhood. "East Ocean View in Norfolk, Virginia, is a neighborhood on death row, awaiting execution by bulldozer. Residents are being forced from their homes to make way for a brand-new village designed by Andres Duany. If this sounds like old-fashioned urban renewal, well, that's what it is. It employs the same logic: cities can be fixed by plowing down neighborhoods and replacing them with better buildings and wealthier folks. The presence of Duany adds a twist. As a partner of Miami-based Duany/PlaterZyberk Town Planners, he is an acknowledged leader of the New Urbanists, the selfstyled white hats of contemporary architecture who seek to reform America's wayward landscape. Their remedy is as much moral as it is aesthetic. They believe that traditional town planning - by which they mean a grid of streets lined with trees and front porches, studded with shops and parks - can heal the nation's fractured sense of community. In East Ocean View, however, the New Urbanists' championing of the ideal of community is being put to the test. In essence, Duany is now facing the same charges that smeared the Modernists he so disdains: Is it people he cares about - or buildings?" Click on link for full article.

Alex Marshall Interviews Andres Duany Asks Alex: "You seem to be in the position of Baron Haussmann, who built his grand boulevards through the neighborhoods of nineteenth-century Paris. People are saying, "We love your ideas, but we don't want our houses torn down." What responsibility do you have to the people who now live in East Ocean View?" Click on link for full article.

What Makes A Neighborhood Viable? "The guts of Duany's defense are that it is okay to tear this neighborhood down because it is troubled and the people are poor and the buildings aren't pretty. I disagree with this philosophy. I won't say that a government can never level a neighborhood, but the area's existing homes would have to be in worse shape than those in East Ocean View, and the people who live in them treated more fairly.... Regarding the Norfolk City Council, Duany defends the urban renewal decision because the political decision was unanimous. The same urban renewal in the 1950s and 1960s, which Duany joins in criticizing, was also approved by duly elected democratic governments. Does this mean it was right, or exempt from criticism? The fact is, the people in the condemned neighborhood had little political voice." Click on link for full article.