Suburban Nation - Andres Duany [2]
But many people still need convincing, especially on the (suburban) fringes. Let’s face it: most Americans, who don’t think very often about city planning and who haven’t been offered the alternatives, are still settling for sprawl. Turning that ship around is a project for the next decade.
—JEFF SPECK, WASHINGTON, D.C.
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
The ten years since Suburban Nation was published have seen a great change in American attitudes toward the built environment. Suburban Nation has not been the sole agent of this change, of course, but clearly we got something right—right enough for the book to have a shelf life and a future.
A predicated future suggests that the problems described herein remain. Still, one can be encouraged by visible progress. The alternatives to sprawl are clear, and examples abound. In once-decanted downtowns, empty parking lots are being replaced by streets and blocks of high-density housing, offices, and retail development. Mixed-use, transit, and walking are words that no longer elicit smirks. Indeed, in cities where public transportation was shunned, the lack of it is now a public complaint. The relationship between public health and the design of the built environment has been firmly established, with scientific data supporting the benefits of urban walking as part of a daily routine.
Many organizations have sprung up to promote this change. Among them, the Congress for the New Urbanism, by setting out principles for regional, neighborhood, street, and block design, has influenced many town plans, as well as national standards for traffic engineering. The U.S. Green Building Council has moved beyond rating individual buildings to include entire communities in its new LEED for Neighborhood Development program. Smart Growth America has consolidated environmental and urban agendas to promote compact development. Its arguments for the appropriate detailing of streets and buildings to make dense environments walkable have led to the Form-Based Codes Institute’s influential advocacy. The Council for European Urbanism, the Institute for Traditional Building, Architecture and Urbanism, and other sister organizations in Australia, Israel, the Philippines, and India are globalizing shared principles and experiences.
The Lexicon of the New Urbanism—a continuously updated collaborative work—has advanced theory and technique, introducing the rural-to-urban transect as an organizing structure for conservation and development and resulting in the creation of the SmartCode, a model zoning ordinance now being used in many states to shape regional plans and local codes. A growing catalogue of tested techniques and an explosion of scientific studies are extending public awareness and engagement and changing policies around the world.
In the past decade, New Urban News has reported on more than six hundred plans for new and renewed walkable communities in the United States and abroad. Each of these projects represents a victory over entrenched regulatory or market hurdles. The appeal of these places—their functionality and the pleasure they give—have swelled the movement. Some merit greater acknowledgment than they have received. Poundbury, in Dorset, England, is probably the best example of an urban extension. It holistically integrates a full range of components missing from many other ambitious developments, including significant amounts of workplace and affordable housing. Like some of its better-known American counterparts, Poundbury stands irrefutable, promising the ultimate sustainability: the permanence that accrues only to places that are loved.
Given the advances of the past decade, perhaps it is not hubristic to declare that we can see a future of wiser, healthier, more efficient and more beautiful place-making.