The War Over 'Landscape Urbanism'

Planetizen, here:

Andres Duany speaks openly about the threat he sees from the growing influence of Landscape Urbanism, which aims to prioritize the natural ecology of a site over the built environment.

"You claim that LU asks us to "prioritize the natural ecology of a site over the built environment."I'd question that characterization.

"These days no one in any group could rationally call for ignoring natural constraints or even lessening their importance. And I've never heard anyone in NU say anything like that. By now, I think that all rational people recognize that the earth is too big to argue with and that we have to look and listen very carefully before building.

"For what it's worth, I just wrote a review of the Duany/Speck <em>Smart Growth Manual</em> and (while Smart Growth is not New Urbanism, there is enormous nesting of ideas) the <em>Manual</em> puts enormous emphasis on respecting natural systems.

"And would that the issue be so simple. Part of the problem is that LU's claims are extremely unclear, almost impossible to follow and filled with big, fancy words. About the only thing one can be sure is that LUers — at least Prof. Charles Waldheim —  seem to have contempt for walkable urbanism and prefer suburban sprawl."

Comment at Planetizen

Comments

[Daniel]

I agree with your comments. The more I read about LU, the more easy it is for me to dismiss as a passing fad. Academia loves upheavals and new paradigms, and Waldheim et. al. know that picking a fight with NU is the best way to gain attention for the next big thing. In this article, he's actually quoted pulled out the "manhattan-ism" trope as a critique. Really, can anyone who has read anything from any NU perspective believe their goal is to turn everywhere into Manhattan? This is so obviously orchestrated theater.

Setting up the distinction as NU=buildings and LU=nature misrepresents. NU may have been originally popularized by architects, but many of the core principles of concern here (density, transportation options, connectivity, mixing uses, etc) have been adopted by a much wider range people and communicated through many channels. There's public health advocates who want to see more active transportation, environmentalists who promote protecting rural land, economists who value agglomeration of creativity, planners who want to use public resources efficiently, social activists who want more income integration, so on and so forth. The fact that LU critiques are still poking fun at the "nostalgia" of picket fences and so forth proves that they are either unaware or choose to ignore the vast majority of literature in favor of more compact, walkable places.