Virtual city proposed to advance the Transect

The website will have New Urbanism resources and portals to other sites. Avirtual city has been proposed to promote New Urbanism (NU) via the Internet. The suggested name is Izbal, after a mythical Mayan city (this name is not final, and there are other proposals), according to town planner and architect Andres Duany, who is promoting the concept. The design will resemble the layout of a city, possibly Savannah. The virtual city is envisioned as an elaborate website with portals to sites and resources of NU. It will promote the Transect, a concept that sorts elements of the human environment on a scale of rural to urban, as the best underlying standard of NU. “The Transect as a standard would organize this work technically and make it usable,” says Duany. The website would be run by a private company and overseen by the National Town Builders Association (NTBA). According to a memo from Duany to Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) executive director Shelley Poticha and handful of CNU members, Izbal may represent a challenge to CNU. “Izbal would be within the CNU by the simple expedient of a 100 percent membership overlap,” he says. “Izbal is either a correction or a supplement to the CNU. It may shift the course of the CNU, be absorbed into it, replace it, or destroy it.” The website’s emphasis on standards will set it apart from CNU, Duany contends. “The problem with the CNU as a mature organization is that it is protecting its own growth curve and its smooth functioning rather than maintaining standards” he says in the memo. Poticha declined to comment, explaining that she had not examined Duany’s proposal in detail. Shares in the virtual city would cost $1,000. Not everyone will be allowed to buy shares, Duany explains: The initial shareholders will be by invitation. After that, new shareholders may be added by sponsorship of three members, specific invitation, and/or passing an exam based on the study of certain new urbanist texts, Duany explains. Duany is proposing that some shareholders would get extra shares based on sweat equity. “The making of the Lexicon of the New Urbanism has cost DPZ $300,000 over four years (cost in wages without profit multipliers). Since The Lexicon will be a mother lode of food for the Transect, i.e. given away to Izbal, it seems logical that DPZ should have 300 shares,” he says. “Also, there is the case of Neil Takemoto who has had a lot to do with this. He has fronted $24,000 to the NTBA. He would get 24 shares. Rick Chellman has written the new ITE standards as a volunteer, donating hundreds of unpaid hours. Others who can make a case to have contributed freely to feed the standard before Izbal would receive shares.” Shareholders will be entitled to “lots” which will serve as portals to personal or business websites. The lots would be organized into related wards. “There would be wards for planners, builders, engineers, architects and landscape architects,” Duany explains. “Generalists and experts in various things could have multiple buildings in the different wards. Each ward can expand outwards independently. At the outer edge of each ward lots are reserved for environmentalists so that their concerns are integrated into the activities of each ward.” An “avenue of institutions” would include the portal for the CNU, NTBA, and other organizations, he says. Something called the “Institute,” will be a place to store and display project plans of new urbanist designers. Two “pavilions” will explain the CNU charter and the Transect. The website will seek to bring together new urbanist work from a variety of sources. “Standards are created through the coordination of databases. For example, the Maryland town squares drawn by Ralph Bennet, the collection of New England greens of Douglas Duany and the 1920s shopping plazas that Jean Francois Lejeune has drawn — each of them has a specific location on the Transect. All this data could be available as weight of evidence to counter the prescriptions of the specialists that bedevil us and destroy the true city.” DPZ will not directly profit from the website, according to Duany. Income that DPZ receives from the business will go to a not-for-profit institution that DPZ is setting up, called the Academy of Town Planning, he explains.