New Urbanism, Bringing it in to Focus

This post will be one in a series of discussions on the New Urbanist movement that are the primary reason behind this blog's creation.   

While the idea of “New Urbanism” has caught on relatively easily among planners, it has drifted from its intended purposes and now encompasses ideas which were not intended to be parts of it. In short, we need to redefine it (or abandon the term altogether) in order for it to gain true success in the real world. This is an expansion of the point I made in my first post.  

The phrase “New Urbanism” can now mean anything from the redevelopment of an urban core to a suburb designed in the way of “traditional urban planning”. This needs to stop.

    

If we continue along the path of creating “New Suburbanism” as the latter is commonly called, we run the risk of creating distinct, urban nodes that are not substantially connected to each other to form the economic, political and social whole that is a city. Instead, extremely small neighborhoods and districts will be created, small enough to prohibit effective community organization or foster economic development, as well as becoming political nightmares to manage.  

It should be the goal of the New Urbanist movement to re-develop and re-purpose worn and decaying urban areas, not to build medium density suburbs. As these decaying or worn areas are re-built, suburban areas will either be vacated by people moving to redeveloped areas or integrated into the fabric of the city as it expands, at which point they can be rebuilt with precise ideas of how they will be used and at appropriate density.

We should fix what we have and retrofit inwards before we start building or retrofitting outwards.

In addition to this, when suburban areas are re-built, they need to be correctly integrated into a city's mass transit network. If one does not exist, one should be developed.

A good example of this is Celebration, Florida. It was designed to resemble a “traditionally styled” community, yet most of its residents live in single family units and the majority of commuting is done by car. It is often hailed as a success of New Urbanism, but it does not function as a true city. It has no effective districts, no transit system spurring redevelopment and expansion, and little diversity, economic or ethnic.

Celebration has a population of 11,000 people. This is too small to constitute an effective district (which requires over 100,000) should Celebration be surrounded by like-designed places and merged into an urban center.