Onward from Chicago: an open letter to the members of CNU

The following letter from CNU Board Chair Hank Dittmar is adapted from his opening address at CNU XII in Chicago. It was especially gratifying to be part of CNU XXII in Chicago. I spent many formative years here, and can truly credit Chicago for teaching me about architecture and urban design, about the vitality and diversity of cities, and about the importance of all kinds of activism, from the business engagement that produced the Burnham Plan and the new Metropolis 2020 vision to the civic activism of Jane Addams, Saul Alinsky, and our own Jacky Grimshaw. CNU XII comes at a time of change and growth for the Congress for the New Urbanism. We bid goodbye and thanks to San Francisco and the excellent staff there, and welcome a new staff led by our first-ever President & CEO, John Norquist. We leave a landmark building in San Francisco and move into an 1895 landmark in Chicago called the Marquette Building. These are very real and physical changes for the organization: new staff, new offices, and a new leader, but there are changes in direction and focus as well. And I’d like to introduce those by defining what I see as the core strengths of the Congress for the New Urbanism that will allow us to grow and advance our practice, our art and our penetration of the market over the next several years. These strengths are the following: • The interdisciplinary nature of the CNU: We are the only group focused on cities and design that is purposefully interdisciplinary, bringing together developers, architects, planners, engineers, elected officials, and residents who care about the quality of our regions, our neighborhoods, and our buildings and streets. This allows us to focus on the whole process, not just part of the process. • A core belief that design matters: To paraphrase the Charter, design isn’t everything, but it’s something. And it’s a pretty important something, as we learned from our engagement with Hope VI. We offer the “what” and the “how-to” that smart growthers, affordable housers, and environmentalists need to accompany their policy ideas. • Implementation: This New Urbanism is hard. We’re fighting to reform sixty-plus years of practice, and have to work on many levels simultaneously: fighting misconceptions about density, overcoming resistance in the academy and in the professions, finding new techniques for citizen engagement, coding and finance, and so on. We offer the table around which practitioners can share experiences, learn from one another, and support each other. • High standards: We are engaged in a process of continuous improvement; we are a learning organization. As such we must hold the organization and each other to standards that constantly move onward and upward, and we have to create venues for critique, assessment, and codification that are on a positive trajectory. • We are messy: The CNU is a place where engagement is valued, where dialogue and debate is essential, and where challenge and revolt are expected. This is an essential strength, but also a potential weakness if people think that we are a place where one member’s opinion reflects the entire movement. We need to see ourselves as a place where difficult issues are put on the table and hashed out, and we need to define our movement to the world in this way. Because of this, insurgencies are not only welcomed, but are essential. You don’t need the Board’s permission to get involved or mix it up, but permission is granted anyway! robust projects To capitalize on these strengths, we have a robust set of projects, initiatives, and insurgencies underway, which are poised to help the movement grow, advance our practice, and give members plenty of ways to get involved: 1. Charter Amendments: We have begun the process of figuring out how to officially reflect the evolution of our principles and practice since 1996 when the Charter was signed in Charleston. We’re debating and hopefully reaching agreement on the incorporation of principles and tools like the Transect, form-based coding, the role of public infrastructure, green infrastructure, and the accommodation of metropolitan growth into a companion document to the Charter of the New Urbanism. 2. Chapters: CNU XII marks the inception of a new era, the era of state and regional chapters. We welcome Florida, the Washington DC region, New Eng-land, and Pennsylvania as chapters, and hope to add many more in the next year. Chapters will allow our members to engage with one another in their own areas, while supporting the continued growth of the organization and the movement. We are also excited about affiliate organizations such as the Council for European Urbanism, the Movement for Israeli Urbanism, and the group committed to forming an Australian congress. 3. LEED for Neighborhoods: This important initiative with the smart growth movement through the Natural Resources Defense Council and the US Green Building Council reflects the need to develop standards for the New Urbanism, and the opportunity to get the green building movement to reflect the principles of the New Urbanism. At the same time it will allow us to incorporate sustainability into the New Urbanism. 4. New Urban Streets: Another key implementation opportunity is the Federal Highway Administration-funded joint project with the Institute of Transportation Engineers to develop context-sensitive principles for major thoroughfares, and then to reform street networks more comprehensively. 5. Task Forces: We are working with the CNU Task Forces to develop new work scopes and identify ways to engage the membership more robustly and directly. 6. Housing Policy for the New Century: This major new initiative, led by John Norquist, is intended to build on our Hope VI success by identifying ways that the New Urbanism can inform a new approach to national housing policy. The Congress for the New Urbanism is poised for a period of intellectual and organizational growth – growth reflected both in the record attendance at this Congress and the quality of its sessions. The Board is excited about John Norquist’s leadership, and about the potential for unleashing the collective energy of our members in capturing the huge latent demand for new urban places worldwide. Onward!