I recently attended a presentation by John Norquist, of the Congress of New Urbanism, previously mayor of Milwaukee, a real city. The talk was given by and for the Maryland Park and Planning Commission. Most of the examples Norquist used were from old urban areas, Chicago, Milwaukee, San Francisco, Seoul, Berlin, etc.
As for the Garden City movement. 100 or so years ago our cities were in many cases unpleasant, and often very unhealthy. Things like burning coal for energy and horseshit all over the place didn't help. So the desire to live away from the city in a cleaner environment.
And finally, I don't think we can house our entire population in our current cities. The preservationists have multiple cows when we tear down older medium to low density parts of the city to build new higher density neighborhoods. Hence the need for building compact communities, largely self contained on transit lines. Will these little communities be as diverse and vibrant as the world's great cities? No. But they will be many orders of magnitude better than the pod oriented sprawl that have been forced on us by much of the development community.
Some of the earliest proponents of garden city type planning, at least out West, were the Sierra Club and the City Beautiful folks led by Daniel Burnham.
I do think our cities can hold more density, but that's going to have to mean that buildings come down. I have said before that although I do support preservation -- that very often it is a direct corollary to being spoiled with too much land. And ever expanding frontier.
If we'd had preservationists in the 19th century much of New York (and every other city) would never have been built. Which brings up my other point: preservation is about drawing an artificial line in the sand. About nostalgia for some indeterminate time when "things were better" and as such is related to Judeo-Christian mythology of the human race's fall from perfection.
Of course, the garden cities themselves is rooted in this mythology (the garden is more pure, obviously, because of its association with Eden). Urbanity is obviously evil and something to be resisted in the name of morality.
New Urbanism (like suburbanism and the city beautiful movement before it) is about establishing Enlightenment rationalism upon the chaos of the city. Restoring Truth, Beauty and Morality upon the dark forces of our ultimate Corruption. In a word: utopianism.
great comments
Greenfield development has been a fact of life throughout the entire course of human civilization. They had it in Sumer, Athens, Rome, Tikal, and every other city you can name. It is, simply, a fact of life.
Given that it is a fact of life, what form would you prefer greenfield development take? That of essentially urban small towns or that of large-lot subdivisions?
If the latter, by all means attack new urbanism to your heart's content. If the former, grow up and stop attacking allies because their solution is good rather than great.
Of course we should focus more development into the cities, but it is neither possible nor desirable to capture all of it, and in the mean time we would do well not to stick our heads in the sand about whatever development we don't capture for infill.
well spoken BDC...i have nothing really to add, but the notion of not being desirable or possible for "our cities to capture ALL of the people" is worthwhile. So what should the rest look like? Good points to think about it.
I agree with everyone... sorta. Re BeyondDC's point, I am not saying NU is bad, just that its name isn't exactly correct and creates a misimpression.
It truly should be called New Suburbanism. And greenfield development should be the best it can be.
The current issue of Governing Magazine has a story on Forest City, and among the projects they mention is the one at Stapleton Airport. There is an interesting quote from a City of Denver planning official about how the pattern book etc. justifies and makes work a denser urban pattern, and people living in areas, comfortably and without strife, in areas of mixed housing types.
In the cities, at least in the portions built during the times of the Walking and Transit cities, we have a particular urban form that works well and we need to pay fealty to it.
And we can thank people like Andres Duany for helping to bring the recognition forward that the urban design and development principles that characterized this period remained relevant and applicable to today's planning and development regime.
Well as a matter of fact, Andres Duany has acknowledged his admiration for Jesse Clyde Nichols, who in 1923 built the first real suburb in the US in Kansas City named quite aptly - Country Club (its on the Missouri side). Country Club promoted a 2 story height limit on all buildings, encouraged driving as the predominant method of travel, and on a darker note, Nichols refused to sell any of his developments to blacks or Jews - this was later declared illegal in 1948. So, in my opinion New Urbanism (to start with) is not based on a good city planning model at all.
@BDC: If all development since the beginning of history was greenfield development there would be know farmland in Europe or Japan. Obviously these millennially aged places build on top of the old. And build up. And have since their beginnings.
One of the first things I studied as a student of architecture history was the evolution of public spaces, especially Rome. But also Paris. The Paris that the world knows and loves is of course a giant urban renewal program. Large boulevards and grand public buildings cut right through where homes and businesses already existed.
The evolution of places overtime is what gives them character in many ways.
Now obviously our cities have grown. But it's wrong to say that we haven't been building on top of and up from our earliest settlements.
I agree. New Urbanism is probably better described as New Suburbanism, but so what. We've definitely seen some awful disinvestment in cities over the past 50 years or so, but if I had my choice between snapping my fingers and erasing from history the disinvestment of inner-cities or all suburbs built on poor ideas, I don't think I'd hesitate for a moment.
One mistake is far more reversible than the other.
If our only option to reverse the suburban mistakes of the 20th century is New Urbanism, then I don't care what the hell it's called, let's just do it.
(Although how about we call it New Streetcar Suburbanism)
Richard: Oh, well Stapleton is a pretty awful example of New Urbanism. It’s less than half the density of Kentlands and is almost totally single-family detached houses.
What you’re running into is another issue entirely: That not all New Urbanism is created equal. Fairfax Corner is absolutely nothing like Clarendon Market Common, despite the fact that both carry the label New Urbanist lifestyle centers. It’s up to people like us to tell the difference between them and call out the illegitimate for what it is, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water, k?
Inaudible: I didn’t say all development in history was greenfield; I said greenfield has been present throughout history. Those two statements are not anything close to being synonyms. This is not a question of either/or. The presence of infill growth is not mutually exclusive with the presence of greenfield development, nor vice versa. Both go on virtually all the time, simultaneously.
And for the record, appealing to the authority of architecture school isn’t going to work here. I’m willing to bet my credentials top yours.
The term "Lifestyle canters" sounds like an awful yuppie elitist Club Med nightmare.
Who ever called a great city a 'lifestyle center" as if you had/ have a choice of different lifestyles or something bizarre like that.
I agree w/ DC74 that we need to grow on top of the old- but not destroy it for garbage. And while Burnham was into the garden city deal- he was still a fantastic architect- and his son was even more daring. FL Wright's Broadacres City is the real gorilla in the china cabinet- someone needs to do an expose on that terrible formula for our development that was even more of a template than the garden city. They all thought he was nuts with his silly model he took around to show off prior to WW1 - but after WW2 Moses and Bacon and others brought it out of the closet to foist onto a bewildered public.Wright despised all cities and loved cars.He even designed gas stations.
Let me revise my comment: To the extent that New Urbanism looks like the Garden City movement, it ain't a good thing. That said, I'm hardly an expert.
Generally, NU principles are AOK with me. What doesn't make sense are townhouse developments in downtown Takama Park where a tall mixed use something would be just right, or an infill townhouses in DC that are so enormous that they're relative density is as low as the prices are high.
Just a quick comment. The Garden City movement was never associated with Burnham - he was involved with the City Beautiful movement, which is something completely different. City Beautiful was very urban in all senses of the word, perhaps if anything it focused too much on the city center itself rather than outlying city neighborhoods.
The Garden City is a phrase coined by Ebeneezer Howard. He proposed villages of approximately 30,000 people each scattered around the English countryside in order to rid the England of the blight of London and Manchester. If anything, it is he that should be criticized, not Burnham.
Burnham was a genius.
"City Beautiful was very urban in all senses of the word"
Really? I don't think that's true. They advocated for monumental cities, with huge civic buildings set off and away from "messy" dwellings.
Just look at the Federal Triangle; that's like the epitome of the City Beautiful movement. Stunning buildings, sure, but I'd hardly call them urban (well, it's a type urban, I guess, but it's not a very good type. And while I think the Federal Triangle is a beautiful sight, all you have to do is change the style of the buildings to modern and you end up with the anti-urban monstrosity that is L'Enfant Plaza and its surrounds).
That's why JJ didn't like the City Beautiful Movement. There is a need for some of that civic grandeur while focusing on the street level experience. I have never been to Paris, but I am told that in car dealerships on the Champs Elysee that nightclubs operate at night, etc.
But single use zones of whatever origin are going to be problematic at some point during the day or night. Mixed primary uses are where it's at.
I disagree about the city beautiful monement and about the federal trianlge. Every major capitol city- including Paris- has a monumental core [s] area[s] and they have exclusive function over the local or residential. Look at the Acropoli in the ancient Greek cities- they were basically religio/ civic domains- essentially what we have in DC- except the fed tri is not on a hill.The city beautiful also took the awful train tracks off of our Mall and is the reason for the incredible Union Station and the sanity of it's architecture. In some ways city beautiful had an isolating effect for historically dense cities- but it had farther -reaching positive effects.Unfortunately, all of this was forgotten after the sickness and malaise of the post WW2 era of demolition and warehousing for the poor and wholesale abandonment of the cities.We need to re- learn some of these lessons and not just look at the perceived negative side.
All comments so far are true about City Beautiful.
The movement was wonderful for landmarks (which all cities need), but was inherently anti-urban at the neighborhood level.
Since it lasted such a short time I call it a positive. If it had gone on 50 years it probably would have been too much.
I think it's important to separate the fundamental ideas put forth by the City Beautiful from the fact that the architectural styles associated with the movement are (in my opinion) so, well, beautiful. What makes Union Station so grand is the fact it was built in the Beaux Arts style; and is a fine example of that style, to boot. And Federal Triangle appeals to so many people mostly because of its finely executed neoclassical style.
I agree that these styles work well with the monumental patterns of the movement, but monumentalism alone is not desirable. Well, at least, monumentalism expressed through the modern style is not desirable. That's L'Enfant Plaza. That's Boston City Hall.
I just thank god that the City Beautiful movement hit Washington while Beaux Arts and Neo-Classicalism were still dominant.
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