New Urbanism: it’s not just another pretty face Peter Calthorpe

As Mayor Norquist said so eloquently at our recent Board meeting, “New Urbanism ought to be orthodoxy in five years.” While that may be an ambitious goal, I believe that we do have a responsibility, as a movement, to be more than just a fad — that’s the classic trend of groundbreaking movements, to shoot up like rockets and fade away after an initial burst. We need to think about the longevity of these ideas and how to work towards more systemic change. In this spirit, I would like to suggest five “systems” that are fundamentally central to the nature of development in our country. If, as an organization, CNU could identify issues in each of these areas and work toward removing barriers to alternative development practices, we would be making a substantial contribution to the long-term impact of the New Urbanism. Long-term Infrastructure and Technology Investments. Billions of dollars are spent annually on roads, sewers, water systems, fiber optic cables, and other major infrastructure. The placement of these investments is often determined at the regional scale and without significant public comment. They have the power to determine where growth goes and thus, should be an important focus for our energies. We should initiate a dialogue in regions throughout the country about the values of compact, transit-oriented growth patterns and how infrastructure and technology investments help or hinder these goals. Development Financing Practices and Biases. The absence of a secondary mortgage market for high density housing, the common practice of separate financing for the retail, office and residential portions of a mixed-use building, and the lack of any place-based policies in the finance arena are working directly against the new urbanist agenda. Finance reform should educate lenders about the need for these building types and the role they play in shaping markets and growth patterns. Civic Institutions. The strength of our civic institutions also plays a critical role in how and where individuals invest in their communities. For example, most middle class families won’t move into inner city locations where the school system is known to underperform. High crime rates and poorly maintained parks add to the problem. We need to devise ways to make central city living viable for a diverse mix of people. One key is to rethink our civic institutions and finds ways to raise expectations for them. Governance. What is remarkable to me is the disconnect between the scale of decision-making (local, state and federal) and the real increments of governance (region, neighborhood, and block). Archaic approaches to citizen involvement (e.g. the public hearing process) and fragmented taxation policies (e.g. tax competition between local governments) only add to the reasons why so little is being done to solve fundamental problems. Regulations. New urbanists’ concerns about current zoning codes and their inability to provide beautiful, human-scale communities are well known. Less attention is paid to poorly conceived environmental regulations that result in fragmented protection of natural resources — instead of creating valuable open space frameworks. We should be forming alliances with our environmentalist allies to support regulations that protect the most meaningful open spaces and natural features, while improving the quality of the built environment. I urge you all to think about ways that CNU and this movement can maintain momentum into the next century.