New Urbanism Index

New Urbanism Under Fire

E. Crichton Singleton
of The American Insitute of Architects

"Clearly, replacing cul-de-sacs and malls with traditional urban design, although desirable, is not sufficient, both practically and ideologically. If it were, beautiful main streets would not be dying across the country and traditional urban neighborhoods and many first-ring suburbs would not be in decline.

If good urban design were enough, where development happens and who is wealthy enough to afford it are irrelevant questions. They are not. Two fundamental principles of New Urbanism speak to these critical issues of affordability and location. One is economic diversity, and the other is regionalism.

The principle of diversity flatly calls for a broad range of housing opportunities as well as uses within each neighborhood; affordable and expensive, small and large, rental and ownership, singles and family housing.

This is a very radical proposition. It implies more low income and affordable housing in the rich suburbs at the same time that it advocates middle class homes in some urban neighborhoods. It advocates mixing income groups (and races) in a way that is very frightening to many communities. In the city it is called gentrification, in the suburbs it is called crime (the code for any housing other than large lot single family). It is a principle that is rarely realized in practice and, given the current political climate, almost always compromised. But it is a central tenet of New Urbanism and sets a direction quite different from most sprawl and urban renewal programs.

The principle of diversity has a major regional implication; fairly distributed affordable housing for all communities of the region. It implies no more warehousing the poor in the inner-city, no additional public housing in low income neighborhoods, instead scattered site public housing throughout the region and inclusionary zoning in the suburbs. Diversity is perhaps the most challenging aspect of New Urbanism but it is essential to its philosophy."