Mountain West new urbanists make tracks

In the mountain states, where urban neighborhoods are oases in a landscape of wide-open spaces, “traveling eight hours for a meeting is par for the course,” says Katie Selby, codeveloper of South Main in Buena Vista, CO. So she wasn’t surprised to see a strong turnout of 13 new urbanists from three states convene at Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO, on May 6-7 to take the first steps in organizing a Mountain West chapter of CNU.
The group — two Arizonans, two Nevadans, and the rest from Colorado — came ready to work and made impressive progress. After already expanding its territory from the four-corners states to accommodate Nevada, the group extended invitations to Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana as well. They set a slate of future events, including a volunteer charrette to redesign the Fort Lewis College campus to strengthen its relationship with downtown Durango and a fall workshop in Buena Vista, “Rural Development Patterns: Vibrant Downtowns and Open Space in the Mountain West.” With officers elected and the requisite 20 members on board, the group is now preparing its application to be formally recognized as a chapter organizing committee.
While the mountain states certainly have strong examples of infill and traditional neighborhood development – from the neighborhoods emerging on the former site of Stapleton airport to the Selbys’ South Main, an innovative TND incorporating  a mixed-use village green overlooking a whitewater kayaking course on the Arkansas River – the future chapter is already working to combat the isolation practitioners sometimes feel working on one of New Urbanism’s frontiers. “There was amazing synergy at the meeting,” says Selby, the newly elected chair of the group. “We realize we’re years behind places like Florida and that makes us more motivated to catch up.”