Just when I thought...

...that ACD had (wisely, prudently, shrewdly, sagely) given up blogging on buildings, architecture, cities, etc etc. I see that he is at it again. Oh my.

And what's unfortunate is that he seconds a most unfortunate post on the new urbanism by Nancy Levinson in which she offers this money quote:

But New Urbanism hasn't become a phenomenal success because it promotes mixed-use zoning and multi-family housing and metropolitan light rail; it's become a phenomenal success because it is closely linked with a comfortably quaint aesthetic...

There are several things which ought be noted.

1. While New Urbanism has been successful, the vast majority of new American housing is not now built according to new urbanist principles so maybe the term "phenomenal" is be a bit overboard;

2. New Urbanism is only peripherally about "mixed-use zoning and multi-family housing and metropolitan light rail." It is primarily about creating walkable neighborhoods (and it was in fact Levinson's conflation of metropolitan light rail with walkable neighborhoods which got me to link to her first post to begin with);

3. Consumers have in fact responded in the marketplace to mixed-use zoning but that is not because of New Urbanism but because of even larger dynamics in the American landscape; new urbanism and mixed-use are separate though mutually-reinforcing movements;

4. The comfortably quaint aesthetic of new urbanism --- which Levinson scorns while living at its epicenter, Cambridge, Massachusetts, which place can only be exceeded in being comfortably quaint by a Ralph Lauren advertisement -- indeed includes provision for such quaint behavior as walking and is not, assertions to the contrary, successful because of its visual appearance.

Or let me put the whole thing another way, if Ms. Levinson can attack new urbanism for not doing what it does not aim to do, then I can chide Ms. Levinson for not writing more in her blog about skiing and horses.

Comments

[Laurence Aurbach]

I review many project plans that have a "comfortably quaint aesthetic" but no walking proximity to mixed uses, nor diversity of housing types and sizes, nor a functionally connected street layout, nor small, walkable, adaptable blocks.

Such projects are not new urbanism; they do not meet the principles set out in the Charter of the New Urbanism. There are a number of initiatives in progress that will systematically identify such projects as hybrids, regrettably lacking in the benefits of good urban design. The LEED-ND standard is one example and my own TND Design Rating System is another.

[Larry Felton Johnson]

I can only breathe a sigh of relief that neither of them used the phrase "white picket fence".