Back to the future
Myrna Gale estimates she spends three-and-a-half hours in her car every day. A secretary for a downtown Atlanta law firm, Gale lives in Rex, a suburb 22 miles south of the city. Every morning, she leaves home at 6:45 to make it into the office by 9. Seven years ago, the same commute took 25 minutes.
Gale leaves the office at 5:30 p.m., arriving home around 6:45, before heading out to the grocery store, the mall, the dry cleaners. “I probably make six trips a day in the car,” she says.
In October, Gale traded in her car. “I bought it brand new in 1997,” she says. “When I traded it in, it had 154,000 miles on it.” Gale’s new car already has 5,700 miles on it. “I do it because I like my job,” Gale says. “The commute is hard. You truly have to plan your life around it.”
In the daily nightmare that is her commute, Gale has plenty of company. Researchers say Atlanta has some of the country’s most congested highways, and its commuting times are skyrocketing.
Andrés Duany would like to rescue the Myrna Gales of the world. The godfather of an architectural phenomenon called “New Urbanism,” Duany thinks everyone should live within a quarter-mile of the stuff that comprises their daily lives. He, and hundreds of architects like him, maintain that suburban sprawl and its attendant reliance on the car has made that impossible. He faults the post-World War II home-building binge for creating a disconnect in society. In other words, people who spend three-and-a-half hours a day in their cars do not have time to enjoy life the way Andy Griffith and Beaver Cleaver did.
As an architect, Duany believes he is in a unique position to change that. To that end, his firm, Miami-based Duany Plater-Zyberk (DPZ), has criss-crossed the country, creating pockets of development that function much like the porch-laden towns that your grandparents remember. It is a quest that, while seemingly quixotic in nature, is drawing more and more attention from cities and counties that are trying to put the brakes on random growth.
Seaside beginnings
Although the concept of New Urbanism (Duany coined the term) has been around for some time (called, variously, conservation development and traditional neighborhood development), DPZ’s Seaside, Fla., development generally is considered the first true New Urbanist development. Opened in 1981 on a white sand stretch of beach between Panama City and Destin, Seaside was intended to be a town unto itself, with high-density homes, restaurants, a grocery store, a post office and a few retail establishments. DPZ’s intention was that people would drive to Seaside for their summer vacations and then abandon their cars until the day they had to head home.
To some extent, it works. In 1990, Time magazine called Seaside “the most astounding design achievement of its era,” and the town has won countless design and architectural awards for its developers and architects.
But Seaside violates one of the primary tenets of New Urbanism — that developments should be accessible not just to the wealthy, but to a diverse population with a range of incomes and interests. The smallest house in Seaside goes for upwards of $500,000. And, while the town is wildly popular with its inhabitants and visitors, it is derided as “precious” by the inhabitants of the not-nearly-so-upscale nearby beach towns of Seagrove and Grayton Beach, which bracket the development like bookends.
“Seaside is ‘precious,’” notes Jeff Speck, director of town planning for DPZ and author, with Duany and his partner and wife, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, of “Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream,” often considered the Bible of New Urbanism. “But it’s a resort. It’s an almost-perfect model. It functions like a small town physically, but it was never intended to function that way socially.”
Still, Seaside set New Urbanism in motion. By the end of 2001, there were more than 500 New Urbanist developments either under way or completed in 39 states. According to New Urban News (www.newurbannews.com), 2001 was a banner year for what it calls “neighborhood-scale projects.” According to the publication, the number of New Urbanist projects either completed or under construction rose by 37 percent in 2001, a number it says may “represent a growing confidence in the economic viability of New Urbanism in its diverse incarnations.”
Infill, greyfield, greenfield
Those incarnations can primarily be categorized three ways: infill development, usually in inner cities and city centers; greyfield development, defined as redevelopment of sites like old strip shopping centers and malls; and greenfield development, which involves undeveloped land. Within those categories, proponents of New Urbanism say the possibilities are virtually endless.
For cities and counties, infill and greyfield development create the greatest impact. “Infill redevelopment is the most ideal utilization of land,” says Clifford Schulman, an attorney and land use planning specialist with Greenberg Traurig, a Miami law firm. Infill projects, like those in West Palm Beach, Fla., and Baton Rouge, La., are helping cities revitalize dormant downtowns. (Brownfield projects do exist, but they are much less common.)
CityPlace, a $550 million mixed-use project designed by Miami-based Wolfberg Alvarez, anchors a downtown redevelopment process in West Palm Beach that has bumped the area’s tax base up 14 percent over the last 10 years. To entice developers, the city leased 72 acres to CityPlace and guaranteed $55 million in tax-exempt bonds to finance infrastructure and parking improvements. The development has become a regional hot spot, with visitors outstripping the most optimistic projections. “We knew [it] would help all merchants downtown,” says Downtown Development Authority Executive Director Bill Fountain. “We didn’t expect the impact to be this significant this quick.”
In Baton Rouge, residents and city leaders are hoping to use New Urbanist principles to revamp their entire downtown. It all started in 1997, when the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, a non-profit civic association, brought in Los Angeles architect and planner Stefanos Polyzoides to offer his views on redevelopment possibilities. “He came in to deliver a public lecture and turned this community on its head,” says Boo Thomas, the director of Plan Baton Rouge, which is charged with implementing the city’s downtown redevelopment plan. “He said, ‘You’ve got a nice city, but there is no connection. You need a good plan.’”
After some research, Baton Rouge sent a number of its residents to West Palm Beach to check out that city’s revitalized downtown. They came back convinced that mixed-use development was the right path, Thomas says.
To jumpstart the project, Baton Rouge, the state and the private sector ponied up $150,000 each and hired DPZ. By June 1998, barely a year later, the city had put together a charette and produced a plan. “In the final charette session, more than 700 people came and stayed for three hours,” Thomas says. “It was the most incredible public experience any of us had ever had.”
The Baton Rouge project, 80 percent of which is completed or under way, is centered around the city’s arts community. Totalling 104 individual projects, it involves construction of a community cultural arts center, a 300-seat performing arts theater, restaurants, retail establishments and up-scale housing. Louisiana State University plans to build an art museum in the district.
While CityPlace and Baton Rouge represent models for New Urbanist infill development, one of the current stars in the New Urbanist greyfield development universe is Villa Italia Mall in Lakewood, Colo. The centrally located site was in a steep decline when Steve Burkhold ran for mayor in 1999, and he was elected largely because of his promise to redevelop it. When completed, the project, which is expected to cost some $600 million, will include offices, entertainment establishments, housing and shopping, as well as an ice skating rink.
A study by the San Francisco-based Congress for the New Urbanism and New York-based accounting firm Price-Waterhouse-Coopers estimated that nearly 150 regional malls across the country currently qualify as greyfield sites, with another 250 headed in that direction. The study, entitled “Greyfields to Goldfields: From Failing Shopping Centers to Great Neighborhoods,” encourages cities and counties to look at their decrepit malls as redevelopment opportunities.
Celebration
Infill and greyfield developments, New Urbanist or not, generally are applauded both by anti-sprawl and pro-sprawl forces, largely because they represent creative re-use of already developed space.
However, greenspace development, even when it results in the creation of nouveau small towns, is regarded by New Urbanism’s critics as just another manifestation of sprawl.
Most New Urbanists would like to eliminate sprawl. However, they recognize that elimination may be unachievable and that minimizing sprawl might be their best alternative. They often point to Celebration, Disney’s vaunted Osceola County, Fla., development, as a case in point.
Thirty minutes from downtown Orlando, Celebration is perhaps the most famous of all the New Urbanist developments. Built on 4,900 acres, the town currently has about 5,000 residents. (When it is fully built out, its developers expect it to have another 10,000.) They live in single-family homes, townhouses and one- or two-bedroom rental units and have access to a post office, a theater, grocery stores, restaurants, office buildings, schools and parks, all within walking distance. Opened in 1996, Celebration is surrounded by 4,700 acres of permanently protected greenspace. (Cooper, Robertson & Partners and Robert A.M. Stern Architects, both of New York, handled the master plan.)
Celebration operates much like any small town. It is governed by its residents via two Community Development Districts, and they set taxes and fees. Celebration is, however, dependent on the county for public safety and emergency services, and its school, which accommodates grades K-12, is operated by the county school board.
The relationship has been mutually agreeable, according to Paul Owen, the Osceola County commissioner who represents the district that includes Celebration. “We have always worked well together,” Owen says of the county commission and Celebration’s residents. “From time to time, we have residents come to us to complain about maintenance fee hikes. We tell them there is nothing we can do. Mostly, though, they never come to us with demands. If something needs to be done, they do it themselves.”
Osceola County’s flexibility on concerns like housing density has made it easy for Celebration to prosper. In return, the county gets a higher proportion of its property taxes from Celebration than it gets from any other development.
Celebration also benefits from the county’s emphasis on sustainable development. “We’re not looking for development for development’s sake,” Owen says. “Celebration is the kind of development we want.” (Harmony, a community similar to Celebration but with an emphasis on environmental friendliness, is about to break ground in east Osceola County.)
It is a tribute to Celebration that Owen, who lives on farmland in rural Osceola County, says he would not mind living there. “The safety factor has a lot to do with why people want to live there,” he says. “It’s a city, but you can walk around at night. There’s not another place in the county that is comparable. It has the small-town atmosphere that [existed] when I grew up. It’s very appealing.”
Still, critics of Celebration and similar greenspace developments say that New Urbanist designers are doing little more than creating pockets of mini-sprawl, since most of the residents still must commute to the nearest city for work. DPZ’s Speck counters that New Urbanists recognize the problem. “We have to admit that new growth will continue,” he says. “Infill development won’t satisfy a growing population. The challenge is to accommodate that growth in a way that enhances quality of life.”
Zoning code problems
With Celebration, Osceola County bought into the idea of New Urbanist development. In general, however, city or county favor is not a prerequisite for a greenfield development to proceed, although local governments do control matters like permitting. Local government buy-in is much more important with infill/greyfield development than it is with greenfield development.
“Political leadership is incredibly important in getting these projects off the ground,” says DPZ Architect and Director of Town Planning Galina Tahchieva. In West Palm Beach, former Mayor Nancy Graham, now an urban planning consultant, risked community resentment with her championing of CityPlace.
In Baton Rouge, former Mayor Tom Ed McHugh did the heavy lifting. “He convinced the metro council to put up the money,” Thomas says. “He was asking for $150,000. You’d have thought he was asking for $150 million.” Current Mayor Bobby Simpson now is looking at creating a Tax Increment Financing district to help entice development.
Many local leaders are not so accommodating because New Urbanism, with its emphasis on high-density, pedestrian-friendly design, wreaks havoc with local zoning codes, and rewriting those codes is an undertaking many cities and counties are unwilling to pursue. “Outdated zoning codes are, by far, the biggest problem New Urbanist developers face,” says Andy Kunz, director of New Urbanism.org, a Web-based organization that promotes New Urbanism. “You’re dealing with the one-house-per-two-acres mentality. Communities have it all backwards. They see traffic, and they think the answer is to create developments that are more spread out. They encourage 50-foot setbacks. They have huge parking requirements. It’s archaic zoning that separates everything. That backfires. What communities need to be doing is creating dense pods of development that are walkable.”
Here again, DPZ is riding to the rescue. The firm is working with the Tallahassee, Fla.-based Municipal Code Corp., which collects and publishes municipal ordinances, on a complete re-working of what DPZ believes are outdated zoning codes. The new code, called SmartCode, is designed to encourage “Smart Growth.”
Under the principles outlined in the SmartCode, the ideal New Urbanist development would have small streets, wide sidewalks, alleyways (cul-de-sacs are a major no-no), homes with porches, a neighborhood square or central gathering place, an elementary school, permanent open space and easy access to public transportation.
The critics
It is that last element that presents architects who pooh-pooh the notion of New Urbanism with one of their most valid arguments. “So much of the so-called New Urbanism and the compact city movement rests on wishful thinking and the arrogance of social engineers who override individual preferences,” wrote Peter Gordon and Harry Richardson in a Portland Oregonian column entitled “Why Sprawl Is Good.”
Gordon and Richardson, both professors in the School of Policy, Planning and Development and the Department of Economics at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, argue that New Urbanist communities are, by nature, never dense or large enough to justify the extension or development of significant transit service. Even Celebration, where many residents commute to Orlando for work, has not been able to attract transit development.
“The limited scope of retail and other consumer services in New Urbanist communities means that, even within these communities, most services are beyond the average American’s tolerance for service-oriented walking,” Gordon and Richardson noted in a presentation at the November 1998 meeting of the American Collegiate Schools of Planning.
The answer for New Urbanists is what they call “transit-oriented development” (see American City & County, February). In transit-oriented developments, planners seek out decaying or depressed areas already served by public transportation for rehabilitation or revitalization. Those on both sides of the New Urbanism debate agree that such developments, while preferable in many ways, have limited applicability because they necessarily rely on existing nearby transit.
However, transportation is merely a problem. Gordon and Richardson point to New Urbanism’s “social equity” goals as its true hypocrisy. “New Urbanist rhetoric gives substantial attention to promoting equity, fostering residential mixing, providing affordable housing and reducing central city/suburb income differentials,” they say. Yet, according to the professors, New Urbanist communities command a price premium of up to 25 percent, making them elite enclaves that are little different from suburban gated communities.
Andy Kunz agrees that the professors have a point, but he says the answer is more — not fewer — New Urbanist developments. “We need to get enough developments built so that they’re not unique anymore,” he says. “The idea of New Urbanism is valid. It’s been embraced by HUD, which is in the process of re-doing its old public housing projects in a New Urbanist fashion. It’s replacing faceless high-rises with houses — creating places where residents have an address not a unit number.”
Between the traditional developers and the New Urbanists, the debate will continue to rage. “There are people who love traditional suburbs,” Kunz says. “And there are people who don’t. New Urbanism just wants to address the people who don’t. Cities and counties need to realize that their codes, their whole way of looking at development, may not be addressing those people.”
Information on the Web
www.netsense.net/~terry/newurban.htm: New Urbanist projects, people prominent in New Urbanism, and articles and books about New Urbanism.
www.consciouschoice.com/issues/cc1404/newurbanismbooks.html: Reviews of books about New Urbanism.
www.periferia.org/publications/cnubibliography.html: Extensive New Urbanism bibliography.
www.cnu.org: Web site of the Congress for the New Urbanism.
www.newurbannews.com: Newsletter devoted to New Urbanism.
