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 A view of downtown Market Street, Celebration, Florida, the city
designed and planned by The Walt Disney Company. Photo by Bobak Ha'Eri.
If you've read David Wang's essay "Meditations on a Strip
Mall," you're already aware that, while it may not be
controversial, New Urbanism enjoys less than universal favor
among architects and/or urban planners. So we offer three
sources for information on the subject—one neutral, one that
strongly advocates NU, and one that offers a trenchant criticism
of NU's ability—or lack thereof—to create community.
We don't know how you feel about Wikipedia, the online
encyclopedia, but it's the best place we've found for getting an
overview of the new urbanism—what it is, where it comes from, its
main advocates, and some of the things it's criticized for.
While the Wikipedia article is still under development, more
or less, it contains a lot of information and provides any number
of links for continued exploration, as well as other suggestions
for further reading. Just click here.
According to its homepage, the Website NewUrbanism.org "was
started in 1998, and has since grown to become a leading and well
respected informational website promoting good
urbanism, smart transportation, transit oriented
development, and sustainability. NewUrbanism.org is
independently owned and operated and is not connected to any
organization, corporation, or public entity." We take them at their
word, especially as the the site serves as a gateway to a massive
amount of information. A "featured books" page provides an
extensive listing of book and films on urbanism, transportation,
and sustainability. A good entry point to the Website is its page
on the principles of New Urbanism. Enjoy.
Back in 1997, David Harvey, a professor pf geography at Johns
Hopkins University, published an article in Harvard Design
Magazine titled, "The New Urbanism and the Communitarian Trap."
Anticipating Wang, Harvey was critical of what he saw as the
movement's underlying assumption that "proper design and
architectural qualities will be the saving grace not only of
American cities, but of social, economic, and political life in
general." But Harvey doesn't stop here. He goes on to
question some of our most cherished assumptions about "community"
in our increasingly materialistic and atomized society, and
explores what he calls "the darker side" of
communitarianism—community as a means of exclusion, rather than the
reverse. Scholarly in tone, it's nevertheless a fairly
profound exploration of the subject and well worth reading. A
PDF version is available here.
OK, we said three, but to be fair, we'll add one more reference. In
an article in Comment, an online magazine from Canada, Eric
O. Jacobsen offers a rebuttal to the critiques of Harvey and
others. But he then goes on to consider the charge of elitism
that's often been leveled against New Urbanism. He takes this
charge seriously, and rather than attempting to rebut it, offers
some considered thoughts about the ways NU could avoid the pitfall
of elitism. The success of New Urbanist
developments, he says, "should be evaluated not on market value or
housing starts, but rather on how their existence improves the
quality of our older urban environments. . . . Without the vital
connection to the broader public welfare, the movement could truly
be in danger of utopianism, nostalgia, and elitism. If New Urbanism
is to avoid this fate, it must take seriously the perspectives and
experience of those living in paleo-urban environments." Click
here to read the article.
This is just a smattering of the many online resources available on
New Urbanism. We could have included any number of other articles
for you to read and sites to explore—such as the Online NewsHour's
special report on NU—but you know the drill: just do a Google
search for "New Urbanism," and see what turns up.
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