Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
and Plater-Zyberk and construction started in 1989. It was built on a 143 ha site of
the old Kent farm, from which the design takes its historical tradition and reference,
and was designed to incorporate six distinctive neighbourhoods. Each of these com-
bined residential, office, civic, retail, and cultural functions, while a more central-
ized town centre and town commons contained cultural facilities and a larger retail
shopping complex on the periphery. All the distinctive neighbourhoods include a
mix of residential types and sizes in order to appeal to different market segments,
from families to retirees, so as to promote age and income diversity within the area.
Their architectural designs place garages and domestic service functions at the rear
of the property and accessible from back alleys. The community incorporates a lake,
green belts, wetland reserve, and multiple small squares and park spaces of different
scales. The final build-out of the project is approximately 1600 homes and a popula-
tion of 5000, so in real terms the development is not much different to the average
population of a census tract in a metropolitan area in Canada.
As in many other planning movements, there has been a diffusion of the ideas,
and TND developments can be found in many countries, although they may be
modified to reflect different planning and cultural environments (Grant
2006
). In
Canada, one of the first and most influential TND developments was McKenzie
Towne (MT) in Calgary (Fig.
2.2
), in which Duaney participated in the design with
Carma developers. Built on some 365 ha (900 acres) as a new subdivision, MT was
originally planned to have 12 distinctive villages, each surrounding a local square
or commons area. However as development progressed it evolved into a smaller
number of planned 'villages' (what are usually called neighbourhoods), themed af-
ter Scottish settlements, Prestwick, Inverness, Elgin. This was presumably to give it
historical cach￩, although these are towns, not villages, in Scotland. Each area has
(supposedly) a distinctive architectural styles, a local 'commons' (called a public
park elsewhere!), connected to its commercial core through pedestrian pathways
that also link residents to the central lakes within the area and which also func-
tion as storm water ponds. These pathways connect to the central 'High Street'
shopping district. At the entrance to the subdivision are some buildings designed
to evoke a distinctive sense of place that have heritage connections, such as a large
church with a spire, a so-called 'town hall', and a fire service building built in late
nineteenth century style. The community also has a logo, shown in Fig.
2.2
, that
identifies the area, with a deliberate addition of an 'e' to the word 'town' to stress
some connection to the past, although 'the past' is obviously a mythical one. The
development includes many of the principles of TND, such as: narrower streets;
many houses with garages built in back alleys and not in the front of houses; higher
densities than other suburban areas in the city built at the time; as well as a mixture
of diverse types of houses, from various income levels of single-family houses and
townhouses. However there is no social, low income housing. Despite these inno-
vations the development was slower to complete than expected, given competition
from other suburban developments, and many of the original ideals of NU design
became watered down as some of parts were built according to more conventional
approaches. In most cases, it is only the areas surrounding each of the squares that
truly resemble the TND approach, and as one moves away from these areas the
architecture and building materials are often similar to non-TND communities in
