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cannot be dismissed, as they can be in an older city. Most developers and their lenders insist on ample parking, anyway. The key to sizing parking lots properly in the suburbs is to recognize that the existing requirements are written for the purest sprawl, in which no alternatives to driving exist, and on-street parking is rarely allowed. Each of the factors that distinguishes traditional towns from sprawl—on-street parking, mixed use, transit (when present), pedestrian viability, etc.—also reduces the number of parking spaces that are needed. For example, mixed use means that a school and a cinema can share a parking lot, since they have complementary schedules; the same is true of an office building and an apartment house. Therefore, it is improper to apply the standard suburban parking requirements—often as high as five off-street parking spaces for every thousand square feet of construction—to a mixed-use neighborhood. A more appropriate requirement is three per thousand, including on-street spaces. This is the number that acknowledges the opportunity for shared parking.

That’s still a lot of parking, enough to undermine most attempts at urbanity. But it is important to remember that where is more significant than how much, and that the quality of the street space comes first. An essential rule of thumb is to provide no more off-street parking than can be concealed behind buildings, and no more buildings than that amount of parking can support.

THE INEVITABLE QUESTION OF STYLE

Traditional neighborhood design has little or nothing to do with the issue of architectural style. This point may seem obvious to lay readers, but the question of style must be addressed for one reason: it is the architectural style of most Traditional Neighborhood Developments that causes them to be dismissed as “nostalgic” by much of the design profession. While the word style is hardly used in architectural circles—“What style is your architecture?” is a question that makes most designers cringe df—the fact is that the current architectural establishment could be accurately described as violently allergic to traditional-style architecture. For many architects, it is impossible to see past the pitched roofs and wooden shutters of Seaside and Kentlands to the progressive town-planning concepts underneath.

Why the negative reaction? Because modernist architects associate it with ideology, style takes on moral overtones. In an age of technology and diversity, they believe that it is morally unacceptable to build with techniques of an earlier era or in styles used by repressive societies.dg Now, there is no denying that the avant-garde has contributed tremendously to the vitality of our culture, from urban skyscrapers to war memorials. It has fared less well, however, in the common vernacular—the suburban building for everyday uses—where, at odds with the human need for communication and personalization, it has been thoroughly debased. Renamed “contemporary,” it is a weak and confused style that even most modernists are unable to stomach. Meanwhile, the haphazard introduction of modernist impulses to traditional building has made a mess of it as well, so that most “traditional” housing looks nothing like its supposed inspiration.

As a result, there now exist essentially three different types of architecture: cutting-edge modernist, authentic traditional, and a gigantic middle ground of compromise that includes lazy historicism, half-hearted modernism, and everything in between, most of which could be called kitsch. While cutting-edge modernism has proved popular for monuments, commercial structures, some apartment buildings, and the spectacular houses of well-to-do patrons, it has not penetrated the middle-class housing market. The vast majority of home buyers are only interested in traditional architecture or, sadly, the middle ground of compromise.

It is on this ravaged battlefield that the campaign for traditional town planning is being waged. Most of our audience—the citizens and public servants who must approve our projects if they