The new urban millennium

The previous millennium saw the design and construction of the world’s great cities and cathedrals. New York City, arguably the greatest metropolis at the end of the second millennium A.D., was a wilderness in 1626 when European settlers purchased Manhattan from Native Americans. But after more than nine centuries of great urbanism, how could anyone foresee the rampant worldwide suburban sprawl of the last five or six decades? Or that cities would rapidly grow to be five or six times their previous geographic size, and that all the new growth would be in a form that is tailored and scaled to the automobile? Predicting the next millennium is probably futile, at least beyond the first decade or so. Yet, we have reason for hope as the Earth’s odometer turns from nine-nine-nine to triple zero. Mankind's brief flirtation with suburban form appears to be running its course. Taking the long view, this era of suburban sprawl is a mere aberration in the last thousand – even five thousand – years of civilization. Mankind has stumbled, and only has to take one short step to get back on the historic path. Opposition to sprawl A groundswell of opposition to sprawl is emerging in the US, Canada, and other parts of the world. The US, which invented suburban sprawl, is now pondering what it has wrought with more than a degree of distaste. In the current prosperous times, a coalition of public officials, environmentalists, and developers in North America are looking for solutions. That coalition is called the smart growth movement. A positive vision The opposition to suburban sprawl would do no good without a positive vision of city and town building, and that comes from the New Urbanism. In contrast to modernists, who formed their vision out of unproven theories and wishful thinking, new urbanists research what has worked historically. They have been applying these lessons to modern problems and development needs in the last two decades. At first the New Urbanism began slowly, with just a handful of projects by a few maverick designers and developers. The name wasn’t even coined until 1991, and the trend did not get widespread attention until the middle of the decade. As we enter the third millennium, however, the New Urbanism is gaining momentum and influence. Increasing numbers of projects are under construction both in cities and suburban areas. Every time a new urbanist development is built that is commercially successful and demonstrably superior to suburban sprawl, the trend is winning converts. New urbanists are demonstrating that urban form is not obsolete, and that the successes of history have much to teach us. So, mankind can learn from mistakes in the last half of the Twentieth Century and move on to better urban practices at the start of the new millennium. We wish you all peace and the opportunity to live in a good place.