Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 2
New Urbanisms: From Neo-Traditional
Neighbourhoods to New Regionalism
Wayne K﻽D﻽ Davies and Ivan J﻽ Townshend
New urbanists have developed and propagated a formula for
planning the good community, and have gained international
attention in the process. Beauty is arguably a necessary
condition for the good community, but is it sufficient?
(Grant 2006, Introduction)
2﻽1
Introduction
New Urbanism (NU) came from the belief that there was something drastically
wrong with the way in which modern cities have developed in the past century.
Many had evolved as suburban, automobile-dominated residential environments
with few employment opportunities, characterized by urban sprawl, inefficiency,
and placelessness, with a demise of the public realm and a failed realization of true
or authentic neighbourhoods and communities. Instead of just criticizing subur-
banization, and advocating the advantages of inner city life in the manner of Jane
Jacobs's ( 1961 ) trenchant topic, NU became a movement that sought to remedy
the situation. Most accept that its basic ideas stem from the building of the new
community of Seaside in Florida (Brooke 1995 ), and the subsequent populariza-
tion and extension of the ideas used in this town. In 1991 some of the key thinkers
of New Urbanism were brought together at the Ahwahnee hotel in Yosemite Na-
tional Park to identify common features in their approaches, leading to a core set of
principles referred to as the Ahwanee Principles. However, the movement became
more formally established when these ideas crystallized through the establishment
of the Congress for New Urbanism (CNU) in 1993 and the creation of the subse-
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