Congress reveals growing interest in New Urbanism

CNU 2000 in Portland, Oregon, draws a record crowd of 1,400. Developers, public officials, representatives from nonprofit community development corporations and municipal planners came to Portland in large numbers and made the eighth annual Congress for the New Urbanism conference the biggest ever. Public and private sector developers especially accounted for much of the 40 percent rise in attendance, according to CNU executive director Shelley Poticha. CNU began eight years ago as an exclusive group of architects and urban planners. As recently as 1996, there were 266 attendees — less than 20 percent of the Portland crowd. Poticha noted in her progress report that professionals and officials are increasingly turning to the CNU for support and technical assistance in local initiatives. Collaborations with the General Services Administration, with developers in the Urban Land Institute, and with neighborhood and environmental activists have greatly expanded CNU’s sphere of influence, Poticha said. With many first-time attendees and around 40 panels and presentations, the limitations of the conference format became apparent. Many newcomers were calling for more hands-on information to take back to their communities, while some conference veterans asked for more rigorous and critical examination of specific projects. “It just doesn’t seem like the congress is going to be able to do it all,” Poticha says. She suggests that the CNU may augment the annual conference with intensive, regional training sessions throughout the year. Such session would give those new to the movement a grounding in the fundamental aspects of the New Urbanism. Portland’s successes and failures The host city’s often controversial accomplishments in urban planning loomed large at the conference. In his welcome remarks to the congress, City of Portland Commissioner Charlie Hales acknowledged that “a cloud of smug” often hovers over the city when the discussion turns to planning. Nevertheless, Portland is proof that we can change our cities “with effort, perseverance, and good policy,” Hales said. In a similar vein, U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., remarked that “the notion that Portland is perfect is hogwash. Yes, congestion is rising. Yes, we have bad suburbs. Yes, housing prices are going up faster, and some people are getting fed up with the public process.” But Blumenauer added that Portland’s planning effort has produced stunning results. It has reversed the sprawl equation, so that Portland is urbanizing less rapidly than the increase in population, he said. While the city may not have capitalized enough on the light rail system, transit usage has increased faster than vehicle miles traveled. Finally, Blumenauer said, agricultural land is being preserved right next to the metropolitan area. In reference to the persistent criticism of Portland from conservative and libertarian think tanks, Blumenauer contended that these critics offer no alternative vision and no comprehensive approach to changing the status quo. Criticism from within the CNU came from Andres Duany who reiterated his previously published views on Portland’s failings. Duany lamented the lack of a neighborhood structure in the city’s suburbs and maintained that an urban growth boundary and transit alone will not curb sprawl in the long run. In a presentation on regional planning, Duany suggested that the “rural boundary” model is the only one that will stand up to the test of time. In this model, a boundary is drawn, not around the sprawling city, but around the rural areas that deserve protection for environmental, aesthetic, or economic reasons. Duany called for all new urbanists to embrace the concept of the Transect, the classification system that arranges the elements of a city on a scale from urban to rural (see page 2). The state of Hope VI Elinor Bacon of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) gave the congress an update on the Hope VI program, under which numerous blighted public housing projects have been demolished and replaced by more diverse neighborhoods connected to the rest of the urban fabric. The CNU and new urbanist designers have played a leading role in setting guidelines for the design of Hope VI redevelopments. Since 1993, HUD has awarded $3.5 billion in Hope VI grants spread over 129 projects in 80 cities, Bacon reported. The grants have also leveraged significant investment in community-wide improvements — in 1993 the ratio of grants to leveraged funds was 1 to 0.31, but in 1999 the ratio was better than 1 to 2. A paint manufacturer in Columbus, Ohio, decided against moving to the suburbs after the transformation of the adjacent Windsor Terrace project, and instead invested $32 million in upgrading its plant. “Hope VI can’t solve the affordable housing crisis,” Bacon said, but the program has had a profound impact on the lives of residents in the new neighborhoods. In Milwaukee Hope VI neighborhoods, the percentage of families with earnings from work rose from 27 percent to 69 percent, and the average income of residents increased 32 percent. Across the country, close to 3,500 residents have left welfare, and 2,500 have completed job training in the construction trades and other skilled jobs. Hope VI communities have seen a dramatic drop in crime rates, in some cases as high as 72 percent, and property values in surrounding areas have risen. In the vicinity of First Ward Place in Charlotte, North Carolina, real estate tax receipts increased by 1000 percent, Bacon said. The larger issue of gentrification ran through a number of sessions that explored strategies for improving the physical character of neighborhoods, while maintaining economic and racial diversity. Angela Glover Blackwell of the group PolicyLink stressed that sprawl has been a driving force in creating inequity in our cities, as schools, jobs, and infrastructure investment moved to the suburbs over the past 50 years. “Achieving equity has to be at the center of the movement to build better neighborhoods,” Blackwell said. Change can only come through community building, she said, and all stakeholders must sit down at the same table from the beginning of the redevelopment process. Mall study release delayed The results of a CNU study of troubled and underperforming shopping malls (see page 20) were to have been released to the press at the conference. However, the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC), which had declined to take an active part in the study, expressed concerns about the accuracy of the numbers and temporarily blocked the release. Will Fleissig, one of the coauthors of the study, said that some of the real estate investment trusts (REITs) who own large numbers of malls are fearful of the study’s impact on their stock holdings. A meeting has been set up between the ICSC, REITs, and the group of CNU members who initiated the study. Though unwilling to provide exact numbers, Fleissig said that troubled malls represent an unprecedented opportunity to increase the volume of mixed-use development in first ring suburbs. “We are talking about close to 435 million square feet of potential,” he said. Next year, CNU XI will convene on June 7-10 in Chelsea in New York City.