Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Others argue that the NU approach does not and cannot deliver an authentic
community experience because their notions of community are based on com-
modified landscapes and pre-packaged ideas of community in the first place, and
because their designs are inherently artificial and inauthentic. Although NU makes
much of the idea of sense of place, and may design beautiful landscapes that appeal
to a niche market, its development—involving both the cognitive and affective
domains identified and measured by Townshend and Davies (
1999
) and Townshend
(
2002
)—takes time to establish, and is typically spontaneous rather than designed.
So for some critics the NU approach simply designs more beautiful places, with no
heart or soul, and an exclusionary sense of social cohesion and community identity
(Till
1993
; Nasar
2003
). Indeed, even community authenticity is perhaps imaginary,
for as Scully notes, in NU projects, “
..the rich, who can choose, choose community,
or at least its image
” (Scully
1994
, p. 230).
28
New Regionalism
Most of the New Urbanism literature deals with scales below the settlement level,
even though the first section of the Charter (Table
2.1
) focuses on 'region, metro-
politan and city and town' principles, which might be better summarized as city-
region issues. Although this section of the charter describes the advantages of using
these areas as a basis for coherent development, especially in economic, ecological
and fairness terms, the charter provides little guidance as to how such structures
may be created, administered or spatially defined. Curiously, few advocates of New
Urbanism seem to have explored these issues, since even a large collection of es-
says on the topic (Haas 2008) does not deal with the question of the governance of
city-regions and how these principles in the charter are, or could be, implemented.
Nevertheless, there is a flourishing literature in what is now known as New Region-
alism (NR), part of which deals with city-region creation and governance (Wheeler
2002
; Scott
2005
,
2009
; Sancton
2001
) and which can be considered as another
extension of the NU development. These issues need to be reviewed as part of the
more general NU developments of the last two decades. However a caveat has to be
added, since the term is also used to describe the new international regionalization,
in new trade or political connections, and the political devolution within states that
has led to more local governance for regions or nationalities, such as in Catalonia
or Scotland etc. (Soderbaum and Shaw
2003
; Telo
2007
). Such issues are beyond
the scope of this review.
As with so many aspects of New Urbanism, the idea of using regional perspec-
tives to understand and improve urban planning and governance is, of course, not
new. In the early twentieth century Geddes (
1915
) and later Mumford (
1922
,
1939
)
were pioneers in arguing for the creation of regional planning units around large
urban centres to better co-ordinate planning for their hinterlands, especially to pro-
tect the vulnerable natural environments around the city that were essential for its
water supplies and recreation. Even Howard (
1898
) did not view his Garden Cities
