Has the phrase "New Urbanism" lost meaning?

[bsteckler]

I'm sure all of us are familiar with the wide range of projects and ideas promoted under the banner of "New Urbanism". Is there any consensus out there that this phrase still has enough definition to merit continued use, or is it time to find language that more appropriately describes pedestrian oriented urban development?

For example, this can be labeled as New Urbanism:



But so can this:



And this:



And finally, this:



The first one I would characterize as the modern day equivalent of a streetcar suburb, or rather "polite suburbanism". Still single use and car oriented, but denser and walkable. The second one is more characteristic of a mixed use area around a metro station. Dense, but relatively small. The third is slightly worse than the first, in my opinion, due to the size of these developments and the fact that they are still single use (read: nobody uses the sidewalks). The last is what I personally think of when I hear the phrase "New Urbanism". A large, formerly decayed area of a city that has been made usable again.

So what are everyone's views?

[Hink]

It never had any meaning. It was a rebranding of an old concept.

[stroskey]

Dense does equal walkable, so I keep my definition of NU very simple: walkable developments.

[Dan]

This thread needs a bit more love.

I've made the argument before: if you read the Charter of the New Urbanism, urban design is only part of the picture. Capital-N-U New Urbanism is intended to be more than just a label for a particular type of development, but rather a broad, holistic school of planning that ideally should not be applied piecemeal.

The first photo in the OP depicts a form of development that has been labeled agricultural urbanism.

The third photo depicts traditional neighborhood development, which may or may not be developed according to New Urbanist principles. A grid of streets, alleys, and Craftsman-style houses alone do not make a development "new urbanist". Here's an extreme example of what I'm going to call "nuwashing", a standard loop-and-lollypop subdivision labeled as "new urbanism". Nothing "new", "urban" or "traditional" about it, except for the Craftsman architecture that seems to be go-to style for most current TND projects.

The fourth photo depicts a healthy traditional downtown. Again, something the Charter supports, but not necessarily "new urbanist" by itself.

The phrase "new urbanism", lowercase-n-u, never lost its meaning, because it never had one outside of the Charter. The problem is that most people, including most planners, get the term "new urbanism" confused with "traditional neighborhood development".

[Pragmatic Idealist]

The rural-to-urban transect, which was lost or marginalized through the increasing domination of cars, oil, and freeways, is at the heart of the New Urbanism.

What strategies can be applied to transform homogeneous suburban sprawl back into cities, towns, villages, hamlets, and countryside when cars, oil, and freeways are still dominant?

[stroskey]

Dense does NOT equal walkable, so I keep my definition of NU very simple: walkable developments.

oops i can't edit my original post.

[Howl]

In my opinion the founders of “New Urbanism” would have had more success if they had been a lot more subtle. Claiming you’ve discovered a new way to save the world is just opening yourself up to criticism and counter-movements. If the idea of walkable, health, sustainable and complete communities had been allowed to grow slowly (under the radar as it were) we would probably be further ahead today. While I’ve always been a supporter of the ideas behind new urbanism I would never claim to be a New Urbanist for fear of committing myself to having to support and defend a rigid set tenets that may not be applicable in all situations. However committing to creating walkable, health, sustainable and complete communities is easy and is applicable in almost every situation.

I feel the same way about LEED. Creating energy efficent and environmentally sustainable buildings and neighbourhoods = good. Following a relatively rigid set of rules that may or may not actually create more energy efficent and environmentally sustainable buildings and neighbourhoods = not so good.

[bsteckler]

In my opinion the founders of “New Urbanism” would have had more success if they had been a lot more subtle. Claiming you’ve discovered a new way to save the world is just opening yourself up to criticism and counter-movements.

I completely agree with that.

I personally think that the phrase "New Urbanism", with or without caps, is still useful but is too broad to be understood or recognized in practice. I have always associated it with revitalizing downtown areas because they are heavily used and attract people in ways suburban development doesn't. I've always characterized suburbs developed this way as "pedestrian friendly" but not New Urbanist.

[DetroitPlanner]

forget about transects.

I am digging the phone booth in photo 4!

[hilldweller]

My sense is that new urbanism has become a catch-all term for any development project that has urban-scaled components, even if the greater whole fails to meet true new urbanist criteria. Two factors have contributed to this IMO: 1) local news media who report on development projects often reference new urbanism in terms of a movement away from auto-oriented development, but don't understand the subleties of development forms/context and often apply the NU incorrectly, and 2) NU has been totally co-opted by developers for marketing purposes who often use it as a selling point but aren't interested in execution so much.

[Kevin Colin]

While I’ve always been a supporter of the ideas behind new urbanism I would never claim to be a New Urbanist for fear of committing myself to having to support and defend a rigid set tenets that may not be applicable in all situations.

It's a common misconception that the CNU operates under a "rigid set of tenets."

Is this comment particular to the Charter of the New Urbanism?

If not, what other rigid tenets are being referred to?

Curious to understand where you're coming from. Part of the reason I ask is that I've often encountered folks who don't even know there is such a thing as the Charter.

[Pragmatic Idealist]

From what I understand, C.N.U. has a loose leadership structure, which is, instead, more collegial so that people from several disciplines can share ideas that all, ultimately, attempt to make places more friendly to human-scaled transportation and to passengers of public transportation. ... no more. .... no less.

It's a simple proposition that every fair-minded person should support.

Cismontane has argued in the past that only parking restrictions are effective at encouraging a shift to modes other than privately-owned standard-size cars, but just tightening parking and removing the subsidies doesn't improve livability or make a place where people want to live, work, and visit. And, while better managing demand for this infrastructure is important, one only look at all the popular places to which people sometimes spend hours driving in order to park once and visit on foot as evidence that walking, cycling, and similar activities can be enjoyable for people, if they are given an environment that is better-designed.

[DetroitPlanner]

Cismontane has argued in the past that only parking restrictions are effective at encouraging a shift to modes other than privately-owned standard-size cars, but just tightening parking and removing the subsidies doesn't improve livability or make a place where people want to live, work, and visit. And, while better managing demand for this infrastructure is important, one only look at all the popular places to which people sometimes spend hours driving in order to park once and visit on foot as evidence that walking, cycling, and similar activities can be enjoyable for people, if they are given an environment that is better-designed.

How about those who will not go anywhere they cannot drive? Shall we p*ss on them? Suppose you have a family that uses a minivan to transport seven people. Surely that is as affordable as taking transit in many cases. How about those who are disabled? Do we only give them access via transit? Transit can be a pain in the @$$ for those who have mobility issues.

I support anything that makes alternative modes more attractive, but if we start limiting access by mode, we are not using all of the tools in our toolbox.

[docwatson]

I agree we should not forget the transect as an organizing principle of NU. NU operates at many scales. Too often NU is described only in terms of greenfield subdivisions. But it also includes infill planning in cities, as well as regional planning ranging from preservation of open lands to creation of transit-oriented nodes around transit systems. Seen in this context, I have heard it said that NU is essentially just another term for Smart Growth (an equally contested term). NU is also always evolving to incorporate needed concepts, such as incorporating green infrastructure rather than simply rolling out the urban modified grid of streets.

Given this, I see the value of NU and the CNU as a movement more so that just a term. Not a rigid movement, because it evolves, but one that has been very strategic. I got more out of transportation 202 sessions highlighting recent research at the CNU conference than I ever did at APA conferences, for example.

Claiming you’ve discovered a new way to save the world is just opening yourself up to criticism and counter-movements. If the idea of walkable, health, sustainable and complete communities had been allowed to grow slowly (under the radar as it were) we would probably be further ahead today

I really do think that the CNU has mobilized a lot of people influential in the development of our cities and brought together many ideas into a coherent approach. One thing that impressed me with Duany's thought was his strategy of "capturing the transmitters" - i.e. the codes, standards, conventions of doing things. In his thinking, a lot of bad developments got built simply because "that's the way we did it." An architect looked in a standards manual and found a typical way to layout an auto-oriented apartment complex, for example. What if they found instead a walkable complex with on-street parking? [Of course, this is what gives us the formulaic NU that is often critiqued]. Things like the CNU-ITE partnership, for example, will give engineers a whole new way of looking at streets - one that is sanctioned by their professional masters. So suddenly it is OK to have on-street parking near commercial and apartments, for example, rather than having to fight for it as an "exception." When things are exceptions requiring variances, I don't think they will have the ability to transform cities and draw financing.

The standards created during the 1930s and beyond, backed by FHA, ITE, etc., and becoming the norm for financing and development industries, seem to have gotten us where we are, so I think CNU's activities in reforming these have been critical.

[Gotta Speakup]

How about those who will not go anywhere they cannot drive? Shall we p*ss on them? Suppose you have a family that uses a minivan to transport seven people. Surely that is as affordable as taking transit in many cases. How about those who are disabled? Do we only give them access via transit? Transit can be a pain in the @$$ for those who have mobility issues.

I support anything that makes alternative modes more attractive, but if we start limiting access by mode, we are not using all of the tools in our toolbox.

Well. For the most part, we p*ss on people who will not go anyplace they HAVE to drive. Or we ignore the needs of disabled people who cannot drive. Driving can be a pain in the @$$ for those with driving issues.

If we start limiting access by mode (95%of he US, at least, is only accessible by car) we are not using all the tools of out toolbox.

[docwatson]

How about those who will not go anywhere they cannot drive? Shall we p*ss on them? Suppose you have a family that uses a minivan to transport seven people. Surely that is as affordable as taking transit in many cases. How about those who are disabled? Do we only give them access via transit? Transit can be a pain in the @$$ for those who have mobility issues

As for those who will not go where they cannot drive, out of choice - they simply will not go to places that are hard to drive to or hard to park in, but I think behaviors are fairly dependent on environment - if such a person took a job in a city center, for example, they may change their preferences, just as a transit-rider moving to a rural area would. I don't think anyone is advocating removing parking as an option - only that we need not oversupply and make all parking free, with the expected results that the landscape is broken up by large lots and rendered low density in an unpleasant way. With something like 8 spaces for every car in the US, I think it is hard for one to argue that drivers are being oppressed.

For large families, certainly driving can become more economical than transit. I've always felt that at off-peak hours, kids should ride transit free. But again, if parking is not oversupplied, the driver will have to make the calculation (based on price of parking, difficulty finding a free spot, distance walked, whatever) if they want to park or use another mode. Its the same calculation we already make, except the calculation has been biased in favor of the car in most places. While not the case in most locations, in places like Denmark and even San Francisco, families with small children DO walk and take transit and can get many places this way.

As for people with disabilities, I agree that for many who are mobility challenged but can drive, driving may be more convenient and this should be considered - I fully agree that transit can be a pain for those with mobility issues. Then again, they may find living in a walkable, rollable neighborhood with stores, post office, doctor all nearby (like where I am moving) to be convenient. Transit is even more of a pain when one lives in an auto-oriented area with 1 bus an hour and 2-3 transfers to get where you need to go. No one here is advocating removing or not providing accessible spaces - when I worked in downtown planning, we worked to try to get PW to think more about the needs of the disabled, since the ADA doesn't cover on-street parking.

[Cismontane]

Cismontane has argued in the past that only parking restrictions are effective at encouraging a shift to modes other than privately-owned standard-size cars

Thought I heard my name getting used in vain. To clarify, what I said is that reduction in parking ratios has been the only single, commonly investigated variable that consistently correlates with decreases in private automobile modal share. Empirical studies don't show a clear (consistently statistically significant) relationship for other variables (other than with income.. the wealthier you are, the more you rely on private cars). That doesn't mean that there aren't other drivers of modal choice, just that they either haven't been discovered or haven't been tested with sufficient diligence yet.

I should further qualify it to say that, in the presence of nearby transit options, reduction in parking ratios is highly correlated to reductions in private car modal share.

My problem is that what you seem to consider livable design, I consider to be backward and .. well.. to my eye, bears a vague resemblance to a Communist Chinese collective in the 1960s. There cannot be one single definition of what is appropriate design for any one given density on your transect. There is not one answer to what makes a good city.

[Pragmatic Idealist]

I take exception with that last assertion. Several places around the world are effective in encouraging walking, and they have commonalities.

Why wouldn't urban designers want to learn from these direct observations, instead of only looking at a spreadsheet in which data are presented and considered in a vacuum? Best practices do exist, and their effectiveness is self-evident.

[Cismontane]

I take exception with that last assertion.

So.. in other words, you claim that there is only ONE correct means of urban design and one standard of aesthetic quality and you know this because you can think of some one-off examples that you happen to like and which you and the High Commissioner of Worldwide Design Orthodoxy Enforcement believe constitute best practices? Yeah.. that's a defensible criterion.

[Pragmatic Idealist]

So.. in other words, you claim that there is only ONE correct means of urban design and one standard of aesthetic quality and you know this because you can think of some one-off examples that you happen to like and which you and the High Commissioner of Worldwide Design Orthodoxy Enforcement believe constitute best practices? Yeah.. that's a defensible criterion.

The commonalities found in the forms of built environments in which people are observed choosing to walk and to spend time is the criterion.

I can objectively say, for example, that Apple's single-use spaceship with the internalized design and the sprawling campus sucks because no one will choose to walk to the damn thing. That statement has everything to do with the actual behavior of the human beings that have to live in the zoo that you, and many of the other people in these forums, are providing. Why are Homo sapiens the only species that doesn't deserve to have a habitat that makes its members happy and that contributes to their health and overall well-being?

[Linda_D]

The commonalities found in the forms of built environments in which people are observed choosing to walk and to spend time is the criterion.

I can objectively say, for example, that Apple's single-use spaceship with the internalized design and the sprawling campus sucks because no one will choose to walk to the damn thing. That statement has everything to do with the actual behavior of the human beings that have to live in the zoo that you, and many of the other people in these forums, are providing. Why are Homo sapiens the only species that doesn't deserve to have a habitat that makes its members happy and that contributes to their health and overall well-being?

This statement simply underscores the truth of Cismontane's statement. Not everybody wants to live the way YOU think that they should. IT'S NOT UP TO YOU TO DECIDE HOW THEY LIVE! Capiche?

What would make me happy is to live on a 1,000 acre tract at the end of some gravel road where my dogs could safely sleep in the road all day and where I could wander around naked if I was so inclined because there'd be no neighbors and no traffic. The only time I like crowds is when I go to a football game, a NASCAR race or some other event. I sure as hell don't enjoy listening to my neighbors' music, kids, arguments or hotrods.

As for "walkabity" in urban neighborhoods, it's highly over-rated. I'll do my walking on hiking trails, thank you very much. Less chance of getting mugged or tripping over an uneven sidewalk.

Unlike you, however, I recognize that what makes ME happy wouldn't appeal to everybody else -- or probably even very many other people.

Just because YOU want to live cheek-to-jowl with strangers whom you can pretend to know doesn't mean everybody else does.

[ColoGI]

Unlike you, however, I recognize that what makes ME happy wouldn't appeal to everybody else -- or probably even very many other people.

Just because YOU want to live cheek-to-jowl with strangers whom you can pretend to know doesn't mean everybody else does.

Word.

A reeeeallllllly bad way to plan is to think everyone wants the same things you do.

[Tarf]

A reeeeallllllly bad way to plan is to think everyone wants the same things you do.

That's not planning - that's engineering

[Gotta Speakup]

That's not planning - that's engineering

Sounds like 90%+ of US suburbs.

[Hink]

Sounds like 90%+ of US suburbs.

Which is yet another reason that each development needs to have a unique set of regulations. Not a cookie cutter set of standards that create "expected" living conditions that are not well received for the area based on a stamp concept.