New Urbanism's main weakness

In a previous post I remarked that

There is some very reasonable criticism of New Urbanism but the critics are so little in touch with it that they don't even know the real weaknesses.

Comments to that post illustrate the weakness. Here, for example, are the thoughts of one attentive commenter:

I admire New Urbanism insofar as it confronts the contemporary problem of pedestrian-friendly street life; but its stylistic and typological prescriptions are misguided.

The weakness of New Urbanism is simple: Many people — both people well-informed or not in matters of the built environment —  believe (some sincerely but all incorrectly) that New Urbanism is about architectural style.

Of course, that's not a weakness of New Urbanism as an intellectual system per se — it's in the perception of New Urbanism. I would bet that if you ask the majority of intelligent but not architecturally-informed people to describe New Urbanism, they'd say something like "Oh! Yes, it's about picket fences and front porches." And since practically speaking, perception is reality, if enough people believe that New Urbanism is about or favors or requires some particular architectural style, then that becomes the reality.

The "real" reality is that New Urbanism makes no stylistic prescriptions. But that makes no difference if New Urbanism's proponents fail to forthrightly and repeatedly explain that. Yes the CNU Charter states that "Individual architectural projects should be seamlessly linked to their surroundings. This issue transcends style." But such a statement, to my mind, especially in the face of the vast majority of New Urbanist projects which are in a traditional style, gets lost.

That so many people think New Urbanism does make such stylistic choices can ultimately only be the responsibility of New Urbanism's proponents. Its detractors will certainly — and I am still mystified about why anyone could be against New Urbanism; and I say that sincerely — continue to mis-interpret it to serve their own purpose. So it is up to New Urbanism's voices to say again and again that the New Urbanism is not about any one particular style of facade.

New Urbanism's official voices have not effectively separated — in the public mind — site plan from architectural style. That anyone can still associate New Urbanism with "traditional" facades is New Urbanism's major weakness. And it is a weakness remedied only by New Urbanists.

As a start, I would like to see the next CNU Congress confront the issue and thoroughly and clearly state that New Urbanism is not about architectural style and start to put this issue to bed.

Comments

[Laurence Aurbach]

New urbanists have been flogging modernism in new urbanist developments for years now. It hasn't made much difference to the critics -- once they get an idea fixated in their brains, they
cling to it. If they didn't have style to complain about, some of them wouldn't have anything at all to say about new urbanism.

A partial selection of modernist NU developments:

Karow-Nord, Berlin-Weißensee
Prospect, Colorado
Järla Sjö, Stockholm
Java Eiland, Amsterdam
Baden Nord, Switzerland
UniverCity, Burnaby, BC
Wacouta Commons, St. Paul
Addison Circle, Texas
Mockingbird Station, Dallas
Downtown Dadeland, Kendall, Florida
Kirchsteigfeld, Potsdam
Round at Beaverton, Oregon
101 San Fernando, San Jose (and nearly all other projects by Daniel Solomon, one of CNU's founders)
Metlox Block, Manhattan Beach, Ca.
Englewood City Center, Colo.
Upper Rock District, Md.

NU except they are gated:
Aqua, Miami
Melrose Arch, Johannesburg

CNU Congresses have been addressing the issue quite thoroughly and clearly. Every year, the CNU Charter Awards honor the best in urban design, and there are many examples of good modernism among the winners. Every congress of the past 5 years has had sessions on modernist design and planning, including a plenary address on "The Modernist City" by Donna Robertson, dean of IIT.

New urbanists will continue these awards and discussions because many appreciate and even favor modernist architecture. But don't expect that to change any critcs' entrenched opinions. Many of them want a hegemony of modernism.

[David Sucher]

Laurence,
I won't argue the facts with you about various NU projects — but only the general perception of New Urbanism andthe perception not only among critics who should know better (and probably do) but among the general lay public.

I am a reasonably-alert observer of New Urbanism and while the message which you believe is broadcast loud-and-clear is, I suggest, not even whispered. The message is simply not coming through. Why? I am not sure. Obviously the earlier (and now abolished) term "Neo-traditionalism" (for New Urbanism) didn't help. And the "Katrina" pattern books reinforce the perception that New Urbanism is not only about traditional city design -- which it surely is -- but about traditional architectural style. (See Whitney Gould's article of December 11 -- After Hurricane Katrina, vision for rebuilding runs into a storm -- and see the extract from a pattern book.) And of course the really famous NU projects such as Seaside and Kentlands are "traditional" in style. And I suspect that the vast majority of the architects who consider themselves New Urbanists also favor "traditional" styles. And there is of course the natural tendency for people to conflate traditional city lay-out with traditional architectural style. Other than that, I have no idea where the perception comes from. But it is there.

Contra, can you point me to any articles etc etc which discuss this issue and which put forth, boldly and clearly, the idea that New Urbanism is not about architectural style? I would like to give them the publicity which they deserve. Has any one of the NU luminaries wriiten on this subject? In a professional journal or better yet something which the general public might read? I hope so. I would like to amplify their words by linking to them.

As to the CNU Urban Design Awards...well you know how I feel about its award to Gehry. I hope the other awards have had more basis.

[corbusier]

The New Urbanists are stuck with charismatic leaders in the likes of Duany Plater Zyberk. As soon as Seaside was presented to the public as the ideal New Urbanist community, the historicist label stuck. I think it might require a new re-branding effort, possibly a name-change. The words "Smart Growth' sound hip, and instantly connect with those who consider themselves progressive and 'with it'.

[Tom]

The problem with new urbanism being conflated with an architectural style might come from all the commentary about the evil "modernists" who have created all the evil in the architectural world and should be cast out of the profession or thrown in jail (see nikos saligranos). If the evil scourge of the modern style is responsible for all the problems in the profession, don't you think that the people who really and truely believe in that would be a little defensive?

Also, do a google image search for "new urbanism" and see what pops up. Little or no modern style buildings for hundreds of pages.

I personally understand that new urbanism has little to do with architectural style once you start to look at it at all deeply - actually that was the consensus position throughout the architecture schools I attended and we were all taught how to do charrettes with the public and design nice little TOD's with modernist buildings in detailing and materials, but with urban site plans.

But while I know that and I think most people recently out of school know and were taught that, the old guys who run things probably only see the attacks.

[JRoth]

I don't want to get into an argument with Laurence, but looking at, for instance, Downtown Dadeland (I'll set aside for now the absurdity of the name - Dadeland is a mall across the highway, not a place), I wouldn't call it Modernist. There's nothing there that a Traditionalist - professional or lay - would object to - fenestration patterns, detailing, materials are all well within the norm for buildings that make no pretense of modernity, or even contemporaneity. I, as one who leans Modernist, don't mind them either, but I think that, if this is what CNU thinks is Modernist, then David's point is only reinforced.

I'd also argue that you siomply have to set aside the European examples - expectations over there are so starkly different from what they are here, and Americans are so unaffected by Euro-architecture, that they're irrelevant to David's concern, which is popular perception.

[JRoth]

Unfortunately, corb, if NU is irrationally rejected by some, as David argues, Smart Growth is positively despised by many more. It is a much higher profile political football, due to its association with Democrats in general and Al Gore in particular.

Furthermore, I think that Smart Growth is intended to cover more ground than NU. While CNU certainly eyes the big picture, its focus has always been community-level. Whereas Smart Growth is really intended to look at things on a regional, even supra-regional, basis.

[Matt Edens]

>The words "Smart Growth' sound hip, and instantly connect with those who consider >themselves progressive and 'with it'.

Which may be part of why it is "positively despised" by folks on the other side. Many of them are smart enough to realize that they, by extension, have been called stupid.

[Laurence Aurbach]

Well, I certainly agree about the general perception. Part of that is about new urbanists needing to do a better job of communication. Part of it is that most NU projects are in fact traditional in style (in reponse to market demand, thank you very much). Part of it is the slant that's constantly reinforced by journalists who don't get beyond "picket fence" shallowness.

David - I sent Gould the images for her article, and most of what she requested was modernist. In the article you reference, I see one modernist building and one classical doorway detail.

David and corbusier -- Have you ever been to Seaside? Seaside has more modernist buildings, variety, and innovation than any other settlement within a hundred miles. Everyone points to Seaside as an example of restrictive stylistic guidelines, but the Seaside Code fits on one page and is style-neutral. It does specify things like sloped roofs, but even that is too authoritarian for some critics.

The website for Downtown Dadeland is http://www.downtowndadeland.com. I don't speak for CNU, but it looks pretty modernist to me -- sort of a stripped Art Deco. I have to say, though, I've heard this response before: You point to a development as modernist -- Prospect, Aqua, etc. -- and the modernists say, "Oh no, that's not modernist!" The traditionalists aren't claiming those places either (which is not to say they don't like them), so that leaves the non-experts shrugging their shoulders and chalking it all up to internecine squabbles.

For discussions of new urbanism and style see:
Daniel Solomon, "Global City Blues"
Todd Bressi, The Seaside Debates
New Urban Post V: On Modernism
Council Report III/IV: The Great Style Debate

Some related articles:
A Conversation With Dan Solomon and Andrés Duany
Principles Essential To The Renewal of Architecture
Response to Ada-Louise Huxtable

[Laurence Aurbach]

One other thing -- The award to Gehry was not a CNU Charter Award. It was a recognition given by the local Los Angeles group, and did not go through the Charter Award's jury review process.

[corbusier]

JRoth,

I agree that "Smart Growth" often connotes as high-budget infrastructural overhaul projects, the kind of thing city leaders and politicians can sign on to somehow legitimize their success as administrators. Personally, I find the words "smart growth" as condescending, as it implies that any other plan for growth is "dumb". It seems that everytime a new public transit initiative is on the news, "smart growth" is always uttered.

Tom,

Your observation about what Europeans expect from urban design is quite true. Most Europeans do not yearn to go back in time, and many do not see their history as all that glorious. Sure they are proud of their intellectual luminaries, they tend to recall all the wars, the unequal feudal systems, and the ugliness of the industrial revolution of the 19th century. Rarely do they ever rebuild a historic monument to scratch, and renovation over there is mostly a matter of adaptive reuse. The emergence of Modernism in the 1920s was coherent with the prevailing mood in Europe at the time to escape the past, and the historicist critique of Postmodernism since the 60's has had minimal impact on the architectural and urbanistic scene (witness Ricardo Bofill's "historicist" structures outside Paris). I get the feeling that average Europeans don't view the building of cities as a democratic issue, but rather something best left to a central authority.

Also, I agree that New Urbanist principles have already been absorbed by architecture schools. Most firms who offer urban planning services often practice New Urbanist strategies if they want to make a living, especially with most American municipalities. Retail design has been completely transformed by New Urbanism. Face it, NU has won...the neo-modernist Avant Gard's idea (or lack therefo)of urbanism is flailing.

[Adam Villani]

Two points here:
1. My personal introduction to NU was through reading JH Kunstler, who gets *extremely* prescriptive about aesthetics, specifying, for example, that windows shall not be wider than they are tall. Essentially, that the only valid development is one that resembles a late-19th-century small town in upstate New York. I know that Kunstler isn't an architect or a planner, but he is one of NU's biggest evangelists. If you want to point fingers on perception, start with JHK.

2. My various personal critiques of NU --- and mind you I think there is a tremendous amount of good that can come from NU --- all deal with design issues, not architecture issues. Essentially, I don't think you can design entire blocks or communities wholesale and pretend that what you're doing is traditional design. The many design elements (pedestrian accessibility, alley access, density, etc.) are by and large good things but they are being developed as large tracts, not as organic towns.

[Tom]

Corbusier,

I wasn't really talking about european reactions to new urbanism, I was refering to the series of essays by Nikos Saligranos on 2blowhards earlier this year where he basically said that if you supported modernism, you are a mentally ill degenerate intent on destroying civilization.

The statement than NU has won is really true actually, and I think that this explains the problems regarding style and NU. If the urban design aspects are triumphant and fairly uncontrovercial, the only thing left to criticize is architecture that typically goes with it.

[David Sucher]

Corb -- "Retail design has been completely transformed by New Urbanism." Huh? I don't think so. I'd agree that there are glimmerings of a better day but much farher I am dubious.

Laurence -- Some interesting papers; but I don't see, as one exampple, how the Duany/Solomon discussion even reaches the same issue which I am examining. In fact I'd suggest that Duany's hostility to modernism, as it is done now, simply reaffirms the perception that NU is hostile to modernism. I don't have the time to look through every document you cite so help me -- I am looking for a headline, not a phrase one can parse, but a vivid soundbite which shouts something to the effect that "New Urbanism is not about any one style" or "New Urbanism can be done in any 'style.'" Am I asking too much?

Adam -- How would develop a tract of land so that it included alleys and sidewalks except by doing a plan for the whole tract? I don't quite get your critique.

[Laurence Aurbach]

"I am looking for a headline, not a phrase one can parse, but a vivid soundbite which shouts something to the effect that "New Urbanism is not about any one style" or "New Urbanism can be done in any 'style.'" Am I asking too much?""

Perhaps so, David, perhaps so. Frankly, the style issue is stale and old hat to a lot of new urbanists. After you've hashed out an issue for 10 or 15 years, and explained your position ad infinitum, you're ready to move on to more productive ones.

Even 5 years ago, this issue was ready to be put to bed. From a 2001 University of Michigan newsletter:

"As increasing numbers of Americans awaken to the long term costs of sprawl, New Urbanism has been transformed from a small and fairly dogmatic group of architects to a broadly applied spectrum of civic policies, planning initiatives, design principles, and development practices. ... With one of the leading voices in this forum, Peter Calthorpe contended that design must become less about artistic form and more about interdisciplinary synthesis. Regions really must be designed now, many participants agreed, and design contributes to regional competitive advantage in a global economy.

"All of this is a long way from the debate over architectural style that has so often divided Modernists and New Urbanists. Sadly, that division reduced some of the previous events in this series to mudslinging; and it still creates controversy within the ranks of TCAUP faculty today. But here the participants rose to a rich and open discussion of the respective roles of invention and convention--or of figurative architecture and its urban ground. To many people present, this suggested that New Urbanism may cease to be misunderstood as a call to traditionalist scenography, and can at last be taken for the challenge to car-centric and diversity-preventing practices that are the norms in construction today."

Also, I hate to dispell the pleasant fantasy that new urbanism has achieved "victory." However, the automobile-oriented, sprawling suburban development pattern is still very much ascendant in America today. New urbanism is still illegal in most jurisdictions. Even in places where new urbanism is permitted, it still faces overwhelming NIMBY and political opposition, and financing, legal and bureaucratic biases that work to eliminate density, mixed use, multifamily housing, street connections, transit, and all the other elements that contribute to truly walkable, accessible urban places. If you think new urbanist planning principles are uncontroversial, you haven't tried to build a walkable, mixed use neighborhood lately.

[David Sucher]

Laurence,
I wonder if you are a bit blase about the issue. As the recent articles we've been discussing indicate, there is some weird antipathy to New Urbanism in certain left-wing and right-wing circles and even amongst centrist bourgeois. You toss it off as having no basis whatsoever. The issue has been asked and answereed. No?

I am not so sure. After all, _I_ am not aware of CNUs stand and if _I_ am not think what really ignorant people must believe?

I think the issue persists because NU's intellectuals have not taken a clear stand, or like Nikos, they have taken a clear stand and it seems to make NU very much a matter of style. And no moderns need apply. The whole Krier business, too -- the reluctance by anyone on any side to do anything but insinuate -- is another example of unwillingness to frontally face issues. My sense so far is that the "style" business is similar and in fact related. Both issues suffer, it seems to me, from verbiage of indirection. No?

Btw, someone made a comment about how NU has "triumphed" in the architecture schools. Maybe so. But my own very limited exposure suggests otherwise, as have comments from others more knowledgeable such as John Massengale.

[Adam Villani]

In answer to David Sucher --- require essential design elements in a city's zoning code, but don't have the same design team come up with all the buildings on a block. Develop rules to development that set limits on how many lots or how large the lots can be that are developed by the same developer within an area. Or, if you can't subdivide smaller than the level of a city block, at least don't develop an entire neighborhood from the ground up and tell me that's traditional development.

The principle from the POV of the zoning code should be to set up a framework that ensures that good design principles will be followed. But a single developer trying to establish an "organic" texture within his own development won't succeed in producing anything less phony than a North Dallas Special rooftop. The buildings need to find their own relationship to each other, not be built simultaneously with a contrived relationship to each other.

[Laurence Aurbach]

Dan Solomon said, "I think that the attempt to repeal the 20th century is so fundamentally doomed that it marginalizes those who subscribe to it."

How can you say that's not taking a clear stand?

He continued: The deficiencies of modernism "can be addressed without renouncing and without alienating ourselves from the culture that produces the new, and the inevitable, unalterable human impulse -- or the impulse of our times -- to gravitate to the new."

Duany said, "The plea that I'm making is to create a modernist architecture, based on the tradition of modernism."

Peter Calthorpe is disinterested in style: "The foundation of freedom is unexpected encounters, and it can happen with picket fences or without, I don't care."

From CNU's Frequently Asked Questions:

Q: Does New Urbanism require front porches and neotraditional architecture?

A:The Charter of the New Urbanism declares that "individual architectural projects should be seamlessly linked to their surroundings. This issue transcends style." (italics added)

While it is true that early New Urbanist developments employed vernacular styles and that many New Urbanist architects prefer to work in classical or vernacular styles, New Urbanists as a group work in many different architectural styles. The winners of our Charter Awards include many buildings with decidedly non-traditional architectural styles: just in the 2002 awards, Millennium Place, Northeastern University West Campus, 101 San Fernando, and Timothy Dwight School all won awards for successfully integrating modern architecture and good urbanism. Even Seaside and Celebration, the best known examples of New Urbanism, include many buildings by modern architects: downtown Celebration includes work by Graham Gund, Philip Johnson, Moore/Andersson, Cesar Pelli, and Aldo Rossi; and Steven Holl's Hybrid Building in downtown Seaside won an AIA Honor Award in 1991.

How does that suffer from indirection?

[David Sucher]

Sorry Laurence, that's simply not persusaive to me. Dan Solomon's statement is very oblique ""I think that the attempt to repeal the 20th century is so fundamentally doomed that it marginalizes those who subscribe to it." I am not really sure what it means as its imagery — "repeal the 20th century" — is subject to many interpretations. Duany's statement —"The plea that I'm making is to create a modernist architecture, based on the tradition of modernism." — is cute but what does it mean as so many starchitects are outside any traditions whatsoever, it seems to me. I hope anyone interested will read the entire context of Calthorpe's quip. As to the Charter's statement, I noted it in the initital post and once again I think we will have to agree to disagree: it's very vague and doesn't speak clearly. What's needed is some much more direct and simple talk.

But what is your take? Why is there so much antipathy to New Urbanism? I can see criticism but such outright hostility (say Reed Krolloff) is weird. Why do you think?

Adam, I agree with you about the need for diversity of designers. I believe that a number of CNU intellectuals have agreed, too. A practical problem is that architects do not control how their developer clients conduct their business.

[Adam Villani]

Right, the approach to development I'm talking about can't be architect-driven, it has to start with the cities.

[Hana Loftus]

I'm opening myself to minor flaming here (reigniting the smoulder from a feisty WorldChanging exchange of a while back!) but I'd like to ask a question of Laurence:

How can you claim that a gated development (Aqua, Melrose Place) is New Urbanist, if (as NUs claim) the movement is about increasing social interaction (a la Jane Jacobs) through more sociable urban design?

And if a gated develoment is claimed by NU, doesn't it say that the movement is more about style (traditional vs 'modern', whatever that is) than a broader social agenda?

I think it is this perceived lack of integrity within the NU movement (or those who claim to be NU) that causes a lot of the antipathy that other posters have referred to. NU isn't simply about density and land use: otherwise it would not set itself apart from European-derived modernism (high-rise, etc). But if NU has a genuine social agenda, and given the power and prominence of its national profile, NU designers shouldn't be designing developments that are gated or otherwise segregated, and should argue the case with their developer clients. Similarly with points about the location of NU developments being often inaccessible by public transport - not very sustainable or socially inclusive.

Sustainability (environmental and social) must be holistic and encompass tenure, social mix, location and so forth. Walkable neighbourhoods for rich people are not good enough, and to point to the few NU developments that are affordable and do encourage genuine social mixing does not excuse the many that aren't. NU people should disassociate themselves and publicly criticise developments that don't take these all-round principles to heart, otherwise NU will continue to be perceived as style over substance. Ultimately a self-proclaimed movement like NU, with its members, congress etc, has to be judged by the built results of its members and can't complain 'oh, well this is what our client wanted, don't shoot the designer'.

If NU wants to really be radical about American urbanism, then taking up the exclusivity point on a political scale should be a major priority.

There is also the issue of NU becoming the new cookie-cutter model - and everywhere ending up looking the same, all over again. I work in the UK and am currently working with the local council in Dorset, where the Krier-designed Poundbury is, and they are very unhappy about the lack of local distinctiveness in the design there, and the way it has been adopted elsewhere as the new paradigm without thought to local context.

Entering the bullring of the 'style' argument, I do think that specifying things like sloped roofs is too authoritarian. If NU isn't about style, then why does a flat roof matter? It's not like there was anything at Seaside to 'blend in with' to start with...and flat roofs use less material than pitched, so are more environmentally sustainable.

[Richard Layman]

I thought you wrote more clearly about this in October. I thought I was oh so smart with a recent post to my blog (http://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2005/12/schism-in-architecture-over-places-vs.html) and then I found your earlier entry.

There are a few issues here that are all mixed up. One, NU is likely "responsible" for the the increased awareness of urban design principles, as well as the principles laid out by Jane Jacobs and to some extent, Kevin Lynch.

Since urban design is all about the primacy of the pedestrian, this is a pretty significant step forward (or backward) from post-war car-centric planning.

It is the return to an emphasis on context rather than architecture as disconnected objects that seems to be generating the most opposition to urban design.

One of those JJ principles is mixed-use. Should NU take all the credit for "advances in retail architecture" as stated in an earlier comment? I don't know, tough question, but it seems a stretch, although it's people committed to NU who tend to do those projects.

Style is another question. And so is greenfield development. Because of the way the market economy works, NU projects are most likely to be greenfield projects far out from the core of a region.

And it's arguable if infill projects are "old urbanism" or "new urbanism," although new projects modeled after Bethesda Row in Bethesda MD can probably fairly be labeled NU.

People get fixated on style and completely miss the point about urban design. For some good short primers I suggest Dan Burden's Principles of a Walkable community and the "Principles of True Urbanism" by Lennert and Lennert, or any of the writings on placemaking on the Project for Public Spaces website.

It's about places and placemaking generally, and programmatically and intellectually new urbanism is a part of the broader movement. Speaking of intellectualism, the effort and depth of people like Andres Duany is impressive. If I had one word to describe AD, it would be "rigor." Would that the critics of NU (and I am, at times, one of the critics) engage in a similar effort with an equal commitment to placemaking.

[Darrin Nordahl]

I have to say, I completely agree with Hana. First, let me clarify that I am speaking in regards to the "neighborhood" scale of new urbanism, and not directly about the large scale of the 'region', to which Calthorpe is engaged, or the small scale of 'building', to which Solomon focuses upon. The prescriptive nature of many new urbanist neighborhood site plans (all buildings must abut the sidewalks, and even the previously mentioned architectural ones as well, like sloped roofs and windows that must be taller than wide) are pieces of a larger design language that seems to breed homogeneity. New Urbanist neighborhoods were attractive to this and the previous generations initially because they stood in stark contrast to the homogeneity of typical suburbia. Now, these NU urbanist developments, though different in form, still seem to lack the authenticity and vibrancy that we all seem to desire. They, too, are beginning to look, as Hana had mentioned, cookie-cutter. Place doesn't seem to be adequately articulated in many NU plans. Buildings that affront the street doesn't guarantee Place. For many of us teaching, practicing and writing about urban design, Place has more to do with authenticity and meaning, and how those values are spoken through the unique culture, history and landscape of the settlement. I don't see how Typological Building Codes and stringent Design Guidelines adequately address culture, history and region of Place. This all takes time, and has to evolve, more or less, organically. I really think Allan Jacobs has the best strategy, when he criticized the New Urbanist movement in the Todd Bressi's book "The Seaside Debates". Jacobs contends: “I don’t think designing good cities is all that difficult. There are probably very few guiding principles that have to do with making good urban places—some of them, for sure, have to do with form, some of them have to do with intensity, some of them have to do with diversity, and some of them have to do with the basic forms of streets, blocks, and parcels. Then let it go.” I think the overly-prescriptive nature of NU is proof that urban designers have a difficult time 'letting go'. Create a framework that can play a role in density, help establish the desired form, and develop an intensity, then let the settlement evolve. I understand the economics of today's real-estate development are different than the 1920's and 30's. But I believe the threat of homogeneity can be mitigated with less prescriptions, and more 'letting go'.

[Hana Loftus]

I appreciate your comment, Richard, that NU is part of a broader movement. But I do feel that NU has become a slightly difficult label because it is a catch-all for all sorts of different people to describe what they 'like' or 'want' in urban design, without really examining whether or not this adds up to what the 'original' New Urbanists espouse.

Perhaps I wish that, in the States, there was a different way to talk about urbanism than NU vs everyone else. Here in the UK, we can still talk about density, mix of use, character, distinctiveness etc without resorting to either being labelled NU by others, or using that term of reference. I would disagree with what you said in your blog entry about modernists being anti "context or connection at all, or permanence, it's about buildings as art, as objects". I would say that almost every European modernist currently practising (and many of the old ones, if people actually managed to look at what the Smithsons et al really said and did) absolutely believes in the value of context and place. The architectural discourse (which here is, as in the US, different from what gets built by developers) is conventionally very 'place-centred' and sees no dichotomy between a modernist approach to materials, technology, etc and dense, mixed-use urban planning. In fact, I would say that here the 'modernists' are seen as the 'anti-sprawl' as opposed to the 'traditionalists' who are commonly perceived to be pro- a sort of low-density villagey typology.

The battle for ownership of this intellectual ground gets more complex with the entry of a few NU-allied developments here (Poundbury, etc) but amongst the architectural community a (sometimes derided by the arch-intelligentsia of the AA et al) soft modernism of dense mixed urban blocks with sensitivity (the intelligentsia might say over-sensitivity) to context. See the work of East, Sergison Bates etc for examples, very much drawing on the Dutch innovations of urbanism from KCAP, West 8 etc.

Which is a long way of saying, they carry through a lot of the principles of NU but in a much less prescriptive way and they would certainly hate to be described as NU. In the US, the NUs have pretty much got a monopoly, through their fantastic self-publicity, on any sort of anti-sprawl thinking but unfortunately (to my mind) have in themselves got it all mixed up with issues of style, with those codes about sloping roofs. Why, for instance, must lower MS be rebuilt exactly as it was (or rather, exactly as it wasn't but was in the romantic myth)? it would be equally possible to rebuild in a contextual way, using local materials and reaching a fantastic level of density and inhabitation, with a variety of styles in evidence. It might even make a much more interesting, vibrant and inclusive place, forward-looking and capable of opening up opportunities for evolution and development rather than closing down all possible futures. It would speak of both the past and the present (we don't all wear full skirts any more, we like our plasma-screen TVs) in a way that, to me, is much more appropriate and authentic.

For examples of a 'code' that is totally unprescriptive of style but speaks about typology and has an intellectual rigour, what better than Borneo Sporenburg, for example? but we don't see the NUs able to let themselves take that kind of approach. Duany et al also have more than a hint of the post-modernist in them in terms of the metaphors of 'domestic' architecture...which I think is a bit of an unexplored issue in NU.

[Adam Villani]

I think it's clear from this discussion that there are plenty of ways to criticize NU from standpoints besides that of a dyed-in-the-wool modernist architect. Also, we can be critics of NU while recognizing that it's still loads better than the cookie-cutter sprawl that's still the standard for new development in much of the US.

I like Darrin's suggestions about those writing design codes needing to "let it go." Jane Jacobs remains the most perceptive commentator on what makes cities work, and she concentrated on the engine of people and economics in cities--- I'd like to see planners work on ways of translating that into direct action.

On a completely different note, those who wish to dictate architectural style need to realize that no style is universal to the whole country, much less the world. Here in California, Mission or Craftsman styles are appropriate and historical while Cape Cod is not. In New Mexico, flat-roofed houses in the Pueblo style are ubiquitous.

Landscaping prescriptivists need to take this into account, too. Desert areas would benefit from good advice on creating liveable, walkable xeriscapes or rock gardens.

[Laurence Aurbach]

"But what is your take? Why is there so much antipathy to New Urbanism?"

One possibility is that maybe the critics are like you, David, and some other posters on this thread. No matter what the new urbanists say, and no matter how many examples they show, some critics refuse to be persuaded. I think you're being closed-minded on this issue, and maybe that's the case for some of the critics too.

I suggested another possibility on this thread.

Hana: Whoa, slow down there and read what I wrote! I said Aqua and Melrose Arch are NU except they are gated. Because they are gated, they are not new urbanist. If and when the gates are removed (hopefully in the near future), those projects will be new urbanist. Even the designers agree to that principle.

As far as public criticism goes, that is what LEED-ND is attempting, with credits for affordability, housing diversity, transit, infill, as well as many of the familiar LEED sustainability measures. Half of the committee that is creating LEED-ND are new urbanists.

Also, I don't agree that flat roofs are more sustainable at Seaside. Seaside is a model hurricane-resistant community. Officials say it's one of the safest places on the Gulf of Mexico. A big part of that safety is due to the building standards, including the sloping, corrugated metal roofs on detached houses (which are derived from vernacular patterns in the region). Seaside weathered Hurricane Dennis with little damage while many neighboring communities had heavy damage. It is not sustainable to have your house wrecked in a storm; the cost in materials and energy is much lower when minor repairs are all that are required.