Urban Runoff and the City of Relations - Politics of Urban Runoff: Nature, Technology, and the Sustainable City - page 31

in principles that had much in common with Ebenezer Howard's Garden
City principles, but there was signifi cant disagreement over the layout of
streets. The New Urbanists argued for a topographic layout of streets on a
strict orthogonal grid, and the Corbetts saw a topologic design conforming
to predevelopment site conditions as more effective at addressing both so-
cial and environmental fl ows. 73 The Corbetts pointed to a postoccupancy
study of Village Homes that showed residents having twice as many friends
and three times as many social contacts as conventional neighborhoods,
challenging the New Urbanist argument that ecological design sacrifi ces
social cohesion for environmental protection. 74
Beyond its spatial layout, Village Homes is intriguing due to the poli-
tics involved in the design, construction, and maintenance of the project.
Neither of the Corbetts is licensed as an architect, engineer, or landscape
architect, but together they have effectively trespassed into the design dis-
ciplines to reorient the practice of urban development for their own ends. 75
However, both were dedicated students of landscape architecture, ecology,
and site planning and have also been prominent actors in local politics. 76
The design of the project was heavily orchestrated by the Corbetts, but
subsequent construction and maintenance has been the province of the
homeowners' association with a deliberate emphasis on self-governance
and democratic community politics. As such, Village Homes can be under-
stood as a project that challenges modernist dichotomies of public/private,
constructed/unconstructed, and social/natural by paying close attention
to the intertwined movement of people, water, energy, air, and materials. 77
The design focuses less on the individual elements of the neighborhood and
emphasizes the interrelations between the material and social fl ows of ur-
ban life. This approach is not without its faults and can sometimes result
in unanticipated problems. For instance, with the blurring of public and
private, there have been issues with residents in neighboring communities
helping themselves to fruit grown in the community orchards. 78 However,
these issues do not overshadow the larger connections that exist between
residents and the landscape at Village Homes.
Despite the accolades placed on the project, there has been no replication
of Village Homes either in Davis or other U.S. communities. A number of
reasons are given for this: a lack of dedicated individuals like the Corbetts
to shepherd alternative design strategies through a sea of unsympathetic
municipal regulations; a lack of fi nancing opportunities from risk-averse
lending institutions; and an American public that does not appreciate com-
munity building because of its perceived sacrifi ce of individual privacy and
autonomy. 79 Furthermore, the once-affordable neighborhood of Village