Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

["Parker, David X" <dmp31526 AT GlaxoWellcome.com>]

I've always been excited by the idea of New Urbanism and have been following
its progress. It's turned out, at least so far, not to be the wonderful
thing its proponents insist. I've been to Southern Village once and it seems
like a nice place, but most developments created in the name of New Urbanism
are either too expensive for the average person (Seaside, Florida, the
poster child of New Urbanism, comes to mind) or are simply an excuse by
developers to pack more homes into a smaller area.

I have seen plenty of developments in the Triangle that claim to be part of
the New Urbanism movement but are simply high-density housing projects. As
for Seaside, I've been there several times and enjoyed it greatly--walking
around, visiting the shops, playing on the white sand beach; it's a great
place to visit, but there's no way I could afford to live there.

I read a book once that decried suburban development and touted New
Urbanism. (Can't remember who wrote it.) The author claimed that the suburbs
bankrupt people's souls, or words to that effect, but he had no way of
backing up the claim. The suburbs as they now exist do cause environmental
problems because people have to drive everywhere, but the fact is that most
people who live in the suburbs have chosen to live there and are perfectly
happy living there. Experience in my own neighborhood has shown me that
people would prefer not to have their homes so close to the street, would
prefer not to live ten feet from their next door neighbor, and would prefer
to have a nice big back yard for the kids to play in. I don't even see that
many people walking on the one sidewalk that runs through our neighborhood,
so it may be that they're perfectly happy driving everywhere, too.

I live in the suburbs but I don't like everything about it. It really
bothers me that most neighborhoods don't have sidewalks. I especially don't
like the restrictive covenants (though I understand the reasoning behind
them). My wife and I sometimes feel like we're bohemians trapped in
bourgeois-land. There are plenty of things we would like to do with the
house and yard, but the restrictive covenants won't let us. Then again,
Seaside has restrictive covenants, too.

New Urbanism is a great idea, but the movement won't gain strength unless it
can be made affordable, the developers truly adhere to it in more than name
only, and a major change in attitude take place among the general
population, which probably won't happen for a very, very long time.

Thanks for listening.

- Dave P.

> ----------
> From:         Michael Winslow Czeiszperger
> Reply To:     internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Sent:         Monday, January 6, 2003 10:07 PM
> To:   internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject:      Re: [internetworkers] New Urbanism
> 
> 
> 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.