Suburban Nation - Andres Duany [102]
One encouraging development in the attempt to effect change has been the founding of the Congress for the New Urbanism, an international organization dedicated to the replacement of sprawl with a neighborhood-based alternative. First organized in 1994, the CNU was modeled on CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne), the celebrated series of conferences first convened in 1928 which, for better or worse, had a profound effect on the shape of the world’s cities.dw The CNU was founded by a coalition of architects, urban designers, planners, engineers, journalists, attorneys, public servants, and concerned citizens who have all been working independently toward the same goals for many years. Like CIAM, the CNU was first intended to be dissolved at the completion of its Charter—signed in 1996 at the Fourth Congress by 300 attendees, including HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros. But conferences have continued on an annual basis owing to both an ongoing interest in the material and a shared sense that much work remains to be done. Congress VII, in Milwaukee, was attended by over one thousand members.
The stated principles of the Congress for the New Urbanism are straightforward: In order to promote community, the built environment must be diverse in use and population, scaled for the pedestrian, and capable of supporting mass transit as well as the automobile. It must have a well-defined public realm supported by buildings reflecting the architecture and ecology of the region. These principles are further described in the CNU Charter, included below.
The New Urbanism goes by many names, but the Congress chose this one for its political neutrality, and for the accuracy with which it conveys an enthusiasm for urban form. It is also favored among architects and academics, who tend to love the city, warts and all. However, this name is a bit of a hurdle for many others, from developers and homebuilders to journalists and citizens, for whom the word urban carries a stigma of poverty and crime. This is a pity and an embarrassment, but in order to make the concept palatable to home buyers, some planners have also come to identify it as Neotraditionalism. This term leaves much to be desired when it comes to progressiveness and political correctness—and it in turn has alienated a number of architects and academics—but in some ways it is even more accurate in communicating the nature of the work.
The term neotraditional was coined by the Stanford Research Institute to describe the ethos of the baby-boom generation, the generation that is expected to be culturally dominant until the year 2030. Its foremost characteristic is that it is nonideological to its core, which sets it apart from both traditionalism and modernism. Ideologies are easy to spot, as the behaviors that they spawn defy common sense. Traditionalists like to live in old-fashioned houses, but they don’t stop there. The front porch light is fed by gas, and the bathroom contains a claw-footed tub encircled by a flimsy curtain that sticks to your body when you take a shower. Modernists—our parents’ generation—live in houses without attics or basements, and own silverware which is so beautifully streamlined that it hardly picks up food. These are people who are prepared to suffer for their beliefs.
Neotraditionalists, in contrast, happily pick and choose whatever works and looks best. The image that Stanford Research provided as epitomizing neotraditionalism was a black Braun alarm clock sitting on a white Victorian mantelpiece. One obvious neotraditional product is the Mazda Miata, a car that looks, sounds, and handles like a British roadster but