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

[Edward Wesolowski <ids AT idisplay.com>]

Are there any urban planners, county commissioners among INW?
Interesting in the N&O today:
http://newsobserver.com/editorials/story/2069795p-1986938c.html

Ed Wesolowski

At 09:44 AM 1/7/03 -0500, you wrote:
> 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.
>
> ---
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