Came across a great article over at Huffington Post.  Mark Oppenheimer asks some interesting questions about the ongoing debate between New Urbanist and proponents of suburan “sprawl” (not sure they have a collective name).  Mark writes:

I don’t know. On the one hand, I don’t want to underestimate children’s capacity for self-mystification. I suspect that most children, at least most of those who grow up middle-class, and sheltered from anything too abysmal in the family’s home life, look back at their early years with a certain sense of awe and wonder. Those lookalike houses in Del Boca Vista Estates are not lookalike to the children inside them, who know which house has the best video-game system, which kid has the dad who makes the best forts with the dining room table and some blankets, whose parents go out late and don’t hire a babysitter (all the better for watching verboten TV channels).

On the other hand, there is empirical evidence that suburban life of this kind can lead to bad things: obesity, too much time in the car, fewer friends, less play. And teenagers — forget about it. If they can, they flee to the city. Or at least the curious ones do.

But what I don’t have are good sympathetic non-fiction books about life in suburban sprawl. For every book critical of that way of life — Langdon’s book, Duany et al.’s Suburban Nation, Ray Oldenburg’s The Great Good Place — there seem to be exactly zero books about why it can be pleasurable to grow up in spaces that are, after all, safe, predictable, and quiet, which are all good things.

I want the other side of the story. Ideas, anyone?

It seems like a fair question to me.  There surely is another side to the story and there must be people that like to live on the outer edge of suburbia.  I mean, they choose to live there, right?  One of the commenters – Steve Mouzon – says that yes, there are some who like to live there, but many suburbanites are simply there because they lack options.  He use some rough estimates to make a point, but the point is still interesting to consider:

grew up in suburbia, and could go on for pages about its deficiencies, but that would just be anecdotal, wouldn’t it? If you discount the “sprawl lobby” that is funded by the asphalt companies or the road-builders, then you’re right: you find precious little sympathy for sprawl. ESPECIALLY concerning its lovability. Maybe that’s a clue.
The bottom line is that sprawl proliferated not because it was well-loved, but because it was the only choice of an industrial-grade land development system that actually outlawed everything else. When the New Urbanism began, all of its proposals were either illegal or otherwise impossible, even though its principles were based on the places in each region that people loved the most.

In the end, we’ve built so much sprawl that it now constitutes half of American buildings. Let’s assume for a moment that 1/3 of Americans loved sprawl. That’s dubious, given your noted lack of evidence of sympathy for sprawl. But just being generous, let’s assume that 100 million of 300 million Americans love sprawl. But if half (150 million) live in sprawl, then we have huge oversupply of sprawl. To eat up the oversupply, America would have to grow from 300 million to 450 million so that the 1/3 (150 million) who possibly love sprawl could match the sprawl units. That means we’d need to build 150 million units of New Urbanism and not a single new unit of sprawl to meet the market preferences.

Interesting food for thought.

Steve Lackmeyer has been blogging an ongoing series related to all things planning. Digging through topics like Jane Jacobs vs. Robert Moses, talking about William Whyte, and opening up a debate on New Urbanism. Yesterday he posted this video which led to an interesting discussion. I thought I would share the video with you and my comment where I attempt to defend some of the cliche criticisms of NU.  After that, head over to OKC Central to join in the discussion and see what else Steve has to say.

And if you didn’t catch my rant over the weekend, just remember, “a convention centers IS NOT about quality of life.”


VIDEO

MY COMMENT

The subsequent discussion about the video led to some rather harsh treatment of NU.  Here is my response:

If you confuse the New Urbanist principles of planning and urban design with the architectural aesthetic of many of the NU communities, it is easy knock them as contrived. In truth, New Urbanism is a complete framework of steadfast, proven, and effective planning principles that (in most places) can be utilized within the current regulatory and developmental contexts.

It can be applied at every scale, from downtown to the outer fringe, using the transect approach that Chad mentioned [above].

Most of the criticism comes from modernist architects that feel the framework limits their creative freedom. In truth, what New Urbanism tries to do is bring up the urban design caliber of the average building designed by the average architect. Most buildings are designed, not by Louis Kahn, but by people that try to be him without the same God given abilities and without the high profile projects. The lack of contemporary architectural solutions that offer pedestrian-scaled design detail is part of the reason developers have to rely on older styles.

The other branch of criticism comes from reactionaries that paint NU as an elitist group that only builds communities for rich people. In truth, the planning principles push for mixed-income communities; and the density and development mix should make housing more affordable in the long run (as soon as the regulatory framework makes things easier and the home builders adapt). That said, so far many of the communities have been so popular that housing prices have escalated, making many of them out of reach for the average home buyer.

[and this in response to the idea that NU is not "organic" enough]

Nothing is more utopian than the ideal of an “organic city.” The only thing that keeps the whole idea from crashing down is that the definition of what constitutes an “organic city” is never provided. Is Paris an “organic city”? No. Is Chicago an “organic city”? Certainly not.

I am sure when we are all dead and gone people will be criticizing some new development concept because it is not “organic” like Seaside and Kentlands.

Suburban Nation is an excellent read and nice overview for anyone interested in getting NU straight from the source.

Or for free you can check out the Smart Code to see New Urbanist planning principles in detail.

http://www.smartcodecentral.org/index.html