The Just Right Home
Buying, Renting, Moving — or Just Dreaming — Find Your Perfect Match!, a book by Marianne Cusato, Workman, 2013, 372 pp., $12.95 paperback
Some 20 years ago, Christopher Alexander, when discussing the New Urbanism, explained why he was more interested in Seaside’s code than in the town itself. He said, “We all know what the appliance is. We must now design the plugs that connect to the existing power grids.” (Note the plural.)
The new urbanist “appliance” is not terribly innovative—neither the greenfield work nor the infill (sprawl repair and retrofit being a notable exception). But the new urbanists should receive major credit for are the numerous “plugs” we have devised.
The codes and standards that Alexander admired have evolved to become the paradigms of their type, but they are only part of the achievement. Equally effective have been the dozens of books written by new urbanists, from Geography of Nowhere to The Next American Metropolis. Their number and quality is truly impressive (I have on my bookshelf almost six feet of them). At the core of this protean achievement is the Charter, which maintains the discipline of the discourse, allowing so many to lap their local shores, writing without seeking approval from the CNU.
New urbanists have devised effective “plugs” with developers, engineers, architects, elected officials, environmentalists, and lenders, among others. Generally these plugs have been technical. And there have been books connecting with the interested public—the perennial Suburban Nation and Jeff Speck’s recent Walkable City—but there has never been a “plug” directly connecting people shopping for a home. This procedure, we must not forget, is the heart of the new urbanist success; without the homebuyer and the renter, none of the other “plugs” would matter. Nothing much would have been built.
It is amazing to me that such an important void was unperceived for so long. But now Marianne Cusato has written The Just Right Home. First, analyze the cloying, infantile cover. It is instructive to know that it was expertly designed to attract the attention of the maximum number of people. By contrast, inside, in perfectly clear language, is the most rational step-by-step system ever conceived to connect regular folk to the New Urbanism.
Those of you who know the precision of Cusato’s Get Your House Right will realize that what she first did for architects, she has now done for homebuilders. This book allows people to think for themselves; to bypass the marketing, the Realtors, and the assorted experts that are complicit in the unsustainable junkscape that the American real estate industry has produced.
Plug this book into your sales force—and give it to your mother who has long suspected her kid’s sanity—raving away about New Urbanism.
Andres Duany is an architect and planner with Duany, Plater-Zyberk & Company in Miami, Florida. This article appears in the August 2013 print issue. Subscribe and get all of the articles delivered.
