In the mountainous West, where land is

In the mountainous West, where land is plentiful and people scarce, the New Urbanism has found little application to date. In Idaho, however, the Village at Hidden Springs in Ada County outside Boise is the first attempt at building a walkable town center in a rural setting. Located on 40 acres of level valley land, the Village has an interconnected street grid, neighborhood retail and civic buildings, and about half of the 92 homes are serviced by alleys. The town center stands in contrast to the rest of the 1,700 acre Hidden Springs development, which is more conventionally designed. New urbanist ideas are also taking hold in Boise itself. The city has passed a comprehensive plan that makes experimenting with alternative development patterns easier for developers. New zoning ordinances allow modular lotting, so neighborhoods can be divided into smaller lots. The ordinances also permit buildings with a mix of residential and retail uses, as well as accessory units over garages.