CNU XVI: New Urbanism when it’s needed most

Taking place in Austin, Texas, during the first week in April, the Congress offers the best in planning and development of walkable neighborhoods. As conventional development models falter — their stripped-down, single-use formulas proving insufficient for a challenging time of market disruptions and climate crises — CNU’s annual Congress is one of the top places to come for superior alternatives. New Urbanism has been tackling complex challenges for decades. Through the movement, work spanning finance and development, architecture and transportation comes together to foster real neighborhoods and sustainable larger communities. CNU’s 2008 Congress in Austin will put this experience front and center, showing the many ways that New Urbanism has an edge in today’s difficult development climate. CNU XVI: New Urbanism and the Booming Metropolis runs officially from April 3-6 at the Austin Convention Center, with pre-Congress events getting underway a day or two earlier. The Congress’s Austin backdrop vividly captures today’s development contrasts. The region’s tech-fueled growth has been explosive, but momentum is flagging in the exurbs, allowing the region a chance to catch its breath and build on its much-admired Envision Central Texas regional plan, its expanding transit system, and budding efforts to use infill development to revive city neighborhoods. With its independent spirit and distinct local culture, Austin is a stimulating place to re-imagine what American regions and the cities and towns at their hearts can and must become. Here are some of the many reasons you’ll want to visit cnuxvi.org now to reserve your place: URBAN GREEN After a Green Council last fall that not only strengthened the case for New Urbanism as an indispensable remedy for global climate change but also showed the world of New Urbanism bursting with new green thinking and advances, a number of prominent players in that event, including John Massengale, Galina Tahchieva, and Elizabeth Moule, will reunite for a Saturday morning working session to advance key projects. And in what could be billed as a Saturday afternoon super-breakout session — or a demi-plenary — CNU board chair and Prince’s Foundation chief executive Hank Dittmar, co-author of groundbreaking research earlier this decade on the impact of urban form on driving and carbon emissions, will explain these still underappreciated relationships and present the foundation’s work revealing the powerful sustainability of traditional building and urban design techniques. University of Michigan architecture and planning dean Doug Kelbaugh and Robin Rather, CEO of Collective Strengths, will respond. Green architect and green neighborhoods pioneer Doug Farr, author of the recently released Sustainable Urbanism, will lead a session on the red-hot nexus between sustainable land use and construction practices. Joining and bringing case studies will be Chris Czichos of Nine Sixty Nine Development, Gail Vittori of the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems, and Peter L. Pfeiffer of Barley & Pfeiffer Architects. Learn how to design green streets that overcome pitfalls — the competition for every square foot (whether it’s travel lanes, parking, bikes, pedestrians, trees, or drainage) — to create fabulous urbanism, with expert practitioners Tom Richman, Philip Erickson, T. Frick McNamara, and Janet Attarian of the City of Chicago’s Streetscape & Urban Design. Speaking of streets, listen to Allan Jacobs, trailblazing co-author of The Boulevard Book, talk about what makes great streets and multi-way boulevards. New Urbanism and water resource preservation can and should complement each another; hear about it from Lynn Richards, a senior policy analyst with the US EPA, Judy Corbett of the Local Government Commission, and Pat Murphy of the City of Austin. These discussions will culminate in a Sunday plenary at which CNU President and CEO John Norquist leads a discussion of CNU’s sustainability agenda, James Howard Kunstler previews the coming withdrawal from our hydrocarbon addiction, participants report from the green council working session and members have a chance to share their views and ideas for making good on New Urbanism’s promise as a convenient remedy to today’s inconvenient environmental truths. DEVELOPMENT & MARKETS (THE OTHER GREEN) New Urbanism yields development that is distinctive, livable, and lasting — not an everyday commodity. But in a time of precarious markets, new urbanists need every advantage they can muster. Knowledge and best practices are chief among them, and you’ll find them at CNU XVI’s collection of up-to-the-minute development-oriented sessions. One of the nation’s most influential experts on demographic trends and how they will shape development, Arthur C. Nelson of Virginia Tech, will tell CNU XVI participants about his predictions that the US will see a surplus of as many as 22 million large-lot single-family homes, and a shortage of housing in compact urban neighborhoods. Developer Katharine Kelley will share her perspective from the infill neighborhoods of Atlanta in this Friday afternoon session. Exploring how retiring Boomers and the emerging Generation Y are fueling a multi-generational demand for urbanism will be urban designers Jim Kumon and Andrés Duany and real estate professionals Todd C. LaRue and Monte Anderson. Pioneering new urbanist developer John Anderson will lead an experienced panel — the EPA’s Lee Sobel, Whittaker Homes’ design chief Tim Busse and Arcadia Realty’s Bill Gietema — in a detailed Saturday discussion of the best new urbanist strategies for weathering the current market turmoil and coming back stronger. The big Friday morning developer plenary will tackle ways to capitalize on the “competitive advantage of New Urbanism” with development visionaries Steve Maun, Greg Weaver, and Gietema. And to capitalize on New Urbanism’s promise, don’t forget to prepare for its unique challenges; don’t miss Todd Zimmerman, Bill Tucker, and Ward Davis on “financing the New Urbanism in the real world.” Emily Talen leads a knowledge-packed panel exploring financing options for affordable housing in New Urbanism. Design and Coding are the Difference When New Urbanism succeeds, a big reason is that it gets design right, from the site plan to architectural details. In an ultra-competitive time, the program reflects the fact that design and coding matter more than ever. Reprising and updating an engaging session from last year, Dittmar leads high-profile design talent Marianne Cusato in a discussion on how to avoid “buildings that look like crap.” Legendary architects Stefanos Polyzoides and Sinclair Black look at the mixed legacy of a design trend that’s gaining steam in Austin and other cities, tall towers that bring density but struggle to feel humane at their bases. Are the towers randomly dotting neighborhood skylines “purposeful density or ‘loose tower’ disease?” Meanwhile fellow legend Dan Solomon tracks the troubling re-emergence of slab block buildings on superblocks, this time in green garb. On the codes front, DPZ director Marina Khoury, 180 Degrees Design Studio principal Kevin Klinkenberg, and Polyzoides explore the important role of building types in form-based codes, while innovative coder/designers Geoff Dyer, Karen Parolek, Daniel Parolek, and Victor Dover review cutting-edge applications and calibrations of the rural-to-urban Transect in form-based coding. Attorney Daniel Slone joins Ventura (CA) city manager Rick Cole and Montgomery (AL) planning director Kenneth J. Groves, to review municipal experiences in adopting CNU Charter-based plans to regulate growth through form-based codes. Also making sure codes get a thorough workout are sessions on form-based coding for transit-oriented development and the connection between comprehensive plans and form-based codes. Much, Much More As always, transportation design will get plenty of attention at the Congress, including a session on the ever-advancing boulevards and avenues manual, jointly authored by CNU and the Institute for Transportation Engineers. Breaking down another major barrier to the acceptance of urbanism, CNU, members of the Fire Service, and the US EPA are working to find mutually acceptable solutions to issues of street width. Hear more about this new initiative from Eric Dumbaugh of Texas A&M, Carl Wren, chief engineer of the Austin Fire Department, and Richard Milk, community development coordinator for the City of San Antonio, Texas. From the heart of the Southwest, James Rojas, founder of the Latino Urban Forum, Moises Gonzales, a Harvard Loeb Fellow, and Cecilia Giusti, an assistant professor at Texas A&M University’s College of Architecture, discuss how Latino immigrants and native-born Mexican Americans bring different uses of urban space to the urban built environment. Aseem Inam, a senior project manager at Moule & Polyzoides Architects and Urbanists, examines New Urbanism’s unique ability to offer a visionary and constructive approach to urban design on the US-Mexico border. And don’t forget fantastic New Urbanism 202 in-depth seminars led by an impressive roster of experts. Or exciting plenary speakers such as author, CNU cofounder, and leading regionalist Peter Calthorpe; Pulitzer-Prize winning biographer Robert Caro; and former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros. Register now to be a part of a timely and unforgettable Congress.