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  • From: Michael Winslow Czeiszperger <michael AT czeiszperger.org>
  • To: internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] New Urbanism
  • Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 22:07:27 -0500

On Monday, January 6, 2003, at 04:37 PM, K. Jo Garner wrote:

On Mon, 6 Jan 2003, Michael Czeiszperger wrote:
->I was happy to stand on a soapbox regarding the area's growth policies.

So, just out of curiousity, why do you live in Southern Village?
there was nothing but land there when I first started coming to CH.

Thanks for asking! This subject could go on and on so I'll try to be succinct.

I'm a proponent of New Urbanism, and I live in Southern Village because its the best example of this type of development in the Triangle. The neighborhood is within the city limits of Chapel Hill, and only a few minutes drive from Carrboro, where I do most of the shopping outside of Market Street. We would have liked to live in a pre-WWII older neighborhood which New Urbanism seeks to reproduce, but the high demand has driven the prices higher than we can afford, which in itself is a big indication there's a marked unmet demand for this type of living environment.

The best book I've found on New Urbanism so far is:

Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0865475571/103-4363544-2833441

The emphasis of this book is that all of the reasons that people site for wanting a suburban tract home are in fact not met with that growth pattern, but could be met with growth along a New Urbanism model.

I could ramble at this point, but perhaps its better to simply list the basic principles:

THE PRINCIPLES OF NEW URBANISM (Stolen from newurbanism.org)

1. WALKABILITY
-Most things within a 10-minute walk of home and work
-Pedestrian friendly street design (buildings close to street; porches, windows & doors; tree-lined streets; on street parking; hidden parking lots; garages in rear lane; narrow, slow speed streets)
-Pedestrian streets free of cars in special cases

2. CONNECTIVITY
-Interconnected street grid network disperses traffic & eases walking
-High quality pedestrian network and public realm makes walking pleasurable

3. MIXED-USE & DIVERSITY
-A mix of shops, offices, apartments, and homes on site. Mixed-use within neighborhoods, within blocks, and within buildings
-Diversity of people - of ages, classes, cultures, and races

4. MIXED HOUSING
A range of types, sizes and prices in closer proximity

5. QUALITY ARCHITECTURE & URBAN DESIGN
Emphasis on beauty, aesthetics, human comfort, and creating a sense of place; Special placement of civic uses and sites within community. Human scale architecture & beautiful surroundings nourish the human spirit

6. TRADITIONAL NEIGHBORHOOD STRUCTURE
-Discernable center and edge
-Public space at center
-Importance of quality public realm; public open space designed as civic art
-Contains a range of uses and densities within 10-minute walk
-Transect planning: Highest densities at town center; progressively less dense towards the edge. The transect is an analytical system that conceptualizes mutually reinforcing elements, creating a series of specific natural habitats and/or urban lifestyle settings. The Transect integrates environmental methodology for habitat assessment with zoning methodology for community design. The professional boundary between the natural and man-made disappears, enabling environmentalists to asses the design of the human habitat and the urbanists to support the viability of nature. This urban-to-rural transect hierarchy has appropriate building and street types for each area along the continuum.

7. INCREASED DENSITY
-More buildings, residences, shops, and services closer together for ease of walking, to enable a more efficient use of services and resources, and to create a more convenient, enjoyable place to live.
-New Urbanism design principles are applied at the full range of densities from small towns, to large cities

8. SMART TRANSPORTATION
-A network of high-quality trains connecting cities, towns, and neighborhoods together
-Pedestrian-friendly design that encourages a greater use of bicycles, rollerblades, scooters, and walking as daily transportation

9. SUSTAINABILITY
-Minimal environmental impact of development and its operations
-Eco-friendly technologies, respect for ecology and value of natural systems
-Energy efficiency
-Less use of finite fuels
-More local production
-More walking, less driving

10. QUALITY OF LIFE
Taken together these add up to a high quality of life well worth living, and create places that enrich, uplift, and inspire the human spirit.

___________________________________________________________________
No place better demonstrates the worst aspects of both the American
character and public policy than the nation's highways.
-- michael at czeiszperger dot org, Chapel Hill, NC





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