Bigger crowds, bigger mission at CNU 2000

The ever-growing new urbanist movement brings in new voices for four days of intense discussion. What does it take to keep the momentum? CNU 2000, “The Politics of Place,” drew a record 1,500 architects, planners, activists, government officials, and developers to what may have been the meatiest Congress yet. There was an overriding sense that the movement has matured to the point that it is dealing with the implications of success, such as gentrification, while continuing to challenge the status quo of architecture, planning, regulation, and development. This Congress focused on the politics, policies, and people that go into new urbanist communities. Host city Portland, Oregon, has been the laboratory for many of CNU’s ideas. Hence, much of the Congress was spent discussing the ramifications of such Portland policies as urban growth boundaries (UGBs) and citywide design guidelines that prohibit garage-fronted “snout houses.” Like CNUs VI and VII, this Congress focused on urban issues. Guest speakers Rey Ramsey of the Enterprise Foundation, Angela Glover Blackwell of PolicyLink, and Elinor Bacon of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development addressed challenges and successes in revitalizing poor, inner-city communities of color through investments in mixed-income communities. Philip Angelides, California State Treasurer and original developer of new urbanist project Laguna West, argued that public and private sectors should invest in sustainable growth and rebuilding city neighborhoods. He showed off his Smart Investments policies, which ensure that some $7 billion in public money are invested in smart growth, including affordable housing. The policies include tax credits for developers who build neighborhoods within walking distance of public schools, markets, and transit. The result: More than half the projects under construction statewide fall into Angelides’ definition of smart growth. Angelides has also proposed that the state’s two pension funds invest $5 billion each in California’s struggling neighborhoods. Such investments, he said, “are not only the right thing to do, they are the smart thing to do.” Shelley Poticha, CNU’s executive director, urged members to build new constituencies to meet the challenges of change. She also spoke of “maturing the [CNU] Charter,” as she unveiled four new directions for research and activism: Repair the suburbs; address gentrification and affordable housing; New Urbanism and the environment; and New Urbanism and transportation. Setting out on scheduled tours and on their own, CNU members examined Portland’s walkable city blocks and lively neighborhoods. A tour of Orenco Station, a greenfield development next to a light-rail station about 20 miles west of downtown in the region’s Silicon Forest, provided a suburban counterpoint. Hundreds of new urbanists swarmed Orenco’s California-style bungalows and Back-Bay-style Main Street, with its brick shops, townhouses, and live-work lofts. Some were so impressed they returned later to take measurements and photographs. Urban Growth Blusteries In the grandeur of the Schnitzer Theater, Andres Duany of DPZ and William Morrish of the Design Center for the American Urban Landscape assessed New Urbanism’s promise to build better communities. Morrish described how the Twin Cities metropolitan region has applied Charter principles to preserve neighborhoods, link transporation, map out open space, and share tax resources. Tools such as UGBs, he said, “force a conversation with mayors and counties that helps communites work cooperatively.” Duany argued that UGBs such as Portland’s, which has expanded by thousands of acres over the past 27 years, contribute to suburban-style sprawl. He argued that the way to protect the countryside was to use a rural boundary. He suggested starting with the two extremes — a boundary around the rural and wilderness areas that should absolutely not be sacrificed, and a downtown core. Then, cities should have a continuum of uses, which he terms “the Transect.” He puts the most rural and suburban uses adjacent to the wilderness, and the most urban uses in the core. “Give Americans what they want, which is choice. Every community must have a range of the Transect. ...There’s even a place for the big box.” One session asked, “Does the UGB Raise Housing Prices?” Portland Metro’s Metro Councilor Mike Burton argued that Portland’s rising home prices are the result of a hot regional economy, rather than the region’s UGB. In the 1990s, the Portland region added 187,000 jobs. It had the nation’s fastest-growing economy in 1997. Burton noted that during the region’s economic slump, housing prices remained flat despite the UGB. “In Oregon in the 1980s, you couldn’t give houses away.” David Crowe of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), replied that Portland is among the least affordable of 184 metro areas in NAHB’s Housing Opportunity Index. Although he declined to attack the UGB directly, he contended that “increases in [home] prices may have been higher because of the UGB.” The audience was critical of the NAHB’s position. One participant wondered aloud why, if the NAHB was so concerned about affordability, the group had worked so hard at the state level to prevent inclusionary zoning. Another audience member pointed out that, if the UGB had helped raise housing prices, “That just shows that New Urbanism can perform in the market.” Density and NIMBYs CNU members flocked to hear about the Big D and its “Not in My Back Yard”(NIMBY) opponents. In “Where Do We Go With Growth: Densifying Neighborhoods and NIMBYism,” Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist declared, “Downtown may be the last refuge from NIMBYism.” “Never use the word ‘density’,” advised Seattle City Council Member Richard Conlin. Instead, use images that capture the public’s imagination, such as “livable community” or “housing for the next generation.” He also encouraged new urbanists to disaggregate growth by giving a target number of new households for each neighborhood, rather than for the entire city. Gil Garcia, an architect and city council member in Santa Barbara, California, had advice for people dealing with NIMBYs and BANANAs (those who proclaim Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything). He suggested using congregations of faith to affect people’s attitude toward good development. “NIMBYs have religion and go to church, even the BANANAs” he said. To achieve greater density for affordable housing, Santa Barbara asked religious leaders to speak from the pulpit about the value of diversity. Garcia told listeners, “Take the BANANA out of the bunch and begin to peel away the outer coating of racism and expose a more sensitive inner spirit.” A session entitled “Density by Design: How to Do Density Well” presented three scenarios for making the D-word palatable. Larry Beasley, planning director for Vancouver, BC, described how the city has planned for the 1,000-acre Central Area, which will soon include 120,000 residents and 230,000 workers. Planned in the 1980s, the Central Area extends the city’s traditional street grid, featuring attractive, shady streetscapes and high-rises far apart with townhouses in between. A bikeway and pedestrian network connects 65 acres of new public parkland, including the waterfront. The development has succeeded because of design guidelines for buildings and “amenity standards” such as double rows of trees for public spaces. Moreover, many Vancouver residents are Asian-born and have no aversion to density. “Some will find this shockingly tall, dense, and modern,” added Beasley. “It’s not the mainstream branch of New Urbanism.” Slightly more mainstream is Addison Circle, an 80-acre project that mixes 4,000 apartments with shops, a conference center, theater, and transit within an edge city 20 miles north of downtown Dallas. Project architect Thomas Brink of RTKL explained how area residents had rejected earlier plans for garden apartments but accepted this plan based upon the high quality of streetscapes, open spaces, public art, and building finishes. Anne Torney of Solomon E.T.C. presented the firm’s distinctive courtyard designs for three projects, with 25 to 109 homes per acre. “It’s not the density people object to, but poor design,” she said. Urban acupuncture In “Mixed Income Neighborhoods: Development and Stabilization,”speakers testified to how well-designed neighborhoods can attract and support mixed incomes. Stabilizing low-income neighborhoods is like “urban acupuncture,” declared Ray Gindroz of Urban Design Associates. “You have to find the right way to insert chi [energy] to bring about the maximum amount of change to the whole system” by addressing all aspects of community — not just design. One key element is working with a community-based organization with “roots, credibility, and linkage to the destinies of people.” Such a group can bring professionals, residents, and various agencies and organizations to the table. One of Gindroz’s successful examples was in crime-ridden West Louisville, Kentucky. Decades ago, the city’s Housing Authority installed public-housing megablocks over the 19th-century grid. To rebuild the neighborhood, UDA reconnected the grid and created a new framework of linear parks linking the neighborhood with the rest of the city. The new neighborhood features mixed-income, one-to-six-unit housing throughout, including market-rate and subsidized public housing. The new town center supports 80,000 square feet of retail space — eight times more than predicted. Gindroz said the neighborhood “has become the African-American community of choice for West Louisville.” Von Nkosi described how the Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership, Inc., an intermediary providing loans, grants, and affordable housing funds to community development corporations, helped rehabilitate and build about 6,000 apartments and single-and multi-family homes to achieve mixed-income neighborhoods. They have partnered with both the private sector and community-based groups. "People have no problem living next to people who make less," said Nkosi. "It’s about respect for the neighborhood. That’s what we have to educate bankers and others about." Ada Chan of San Francisco’s Asian Neighborhood Design described a recent development of 26 units of affordable rental housing in one of the city’s worst neighborhoods, where manufacturing buildings are being converted to $700,000 dot-com lofts. The one-bedroom apartments feature flexible layouts so at least three people, often from multiple generations, can share the small space. The design team worked with community organizations, spoke at town hall meetings, held workshops for parents at a local school, and trained construction workers. “You have to have a commitment to building community right from the start,” said Chan. Demand is Everywhere “Is New Urbanism a Niche Market or a New Paradigm?” featured members of a team studying market potential for New Urbanism at five sites in the Philadelphia area. Sites included inner-city infill, inner-ring suburbs, and exurbs. Conventional market studies suggested little demand for dense new urbanist housing in these areas. Laurie Volk of Zimmerman/Volk Associates said that examining “market potential rather than market demand” has helped place new urbanist projects on the boards in two of the sites, with strong prospects for the other three. “Given a choice, every socioeconomic group will live in carefully designed, well-crafted new urban communities,” Volk said. The $85,000 study, sponsored by the nonprofit 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, helped prepare local officials to respond to criticism of density and mixed-use development. “Developers on the New Urbanism: New Growth/Large Parcel Sites” allowed three developers to strut their stuff. Randy Lyon of Lake Nona Property Holdings described successful efforts to create a combination elementary school and YMCA in this 7,000-acre community in Orange County, Florida. Vince Graham of Civitas described efforts to preserve the new urbanist principles of I’On, a new community in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina. Finally, Greg Vilkin of Forest City Development outlined the nation’s largest urban infill project, the redevelopment of Denver’s Stapleton Airport. At 4,700 acres (40 percent of Manhattan’s land area), Stapleton will soon start construction on 2,000 homes and a 170-acre central park, with $700 million in infrastructure. Heady Rhetoric The conference wouldn’t have been complete without a couple of mind-expanding sessions. One was “Civitas and Democracy: Placemaking in Our Current Political Culture.” Moderator Douglas Kelbaugh, Dean of the University of Michigan’s College of Architecture, addressed cyberspace.“Living with a computer screen in your face all day may increase your appetite for physical community,” he said. On the other hand, “There are now several generations of Americans who have no idea of the tolerance needed to live in a dense community.” Kelbaugh also worried about current architectural theory of “post-urbanism, the post-industrial city of Rem Koolhaas and Zaha Hadid, where we’re supposed to just accept these weightless electrons and go with the flow to create a fluid city.”The new urbanist alternative advocates building a physical public realm that dignifies its population.” He concluded that we can’t ignore the automobile or the electron, “but we can manage”them. “Spirit of Place: Beauty, Love, and Mathematics of the Local Piazza”continued a roundtable discussion begun at CNU VI and VII. Hundreds of CNU members listened intently and raised Socratic questions exploring the significance — especially in light of the growing focus on New Urban codes and standards — of setting standards of beauty that appeal on an emotional and spiritual level. “New Urbanism is like Roman architecture — mainstream, widespread, familiar, and becoming abundant,” said Victor Deupi, University of Notre Dame architecture professor. “We now need to look to the Greeks” to elevate New Urbanism standards by seeking higher design criteria. “The Greek notion of eurythmy is almost implicit in the Charter in concepts such as the placement of civic buildings at the end of an important street with a vista.” The laws of harmony, he added, “are on one hand geometric and on the other intuitive.” Finally, the Congress had its more whimsical moments. Last-minute registrants logging on to CNU’s Web site found it had been “hijacked” by a porn site. And CNU was parodied in pop culture, as a local group, the Rarified Institute for Growing Gigantic Anomalies, advertised an avant-garde video concert as “The Congress for Urban Surrealism.”