*Sighs* If you follow this blog I think you how I feel about New Urbanism. Again, in Theory New Urbanism sounds great but in practice...ehh. Now there are some great New Urbanist projects across the country and to be fair there are a lot of bad development projects that call themselves "New Urbanist" when they are really not. I suspect they tried but essential principles for New Urabnism got shot down by communities.
The issue I have with most (not all) New Urbanist projects is that they tend to work best when they have to clean the slate of whatever existed prior. Which is fine for a crappy suburban shopping mall but for an inner-city neighborhood it's not so great to wipe out decades of history and culture...even if the neighborhood was blighted. Anyway enough og my rant, check out the video.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Built To Last
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1 comment:
Interesting little film!--a good find!
I immediately wondered what kind of population density would be obtained by shrinking 1 million suburbanites into 40 square miles, as the film proposes.
The figure comes to 25,000/mi2 (9,689/km2)--that's roughly as dense as New York City!--America's most expensive place to rent!
I doubt I could afford to live in the 'ideal community' imagined in the clip.
I agree that the way 'we' have built our environments and lived our lives has to change, but even if its "sustainable, walkable, desirable" new urbanism wont work if its not made affordable.
ps. I like your blog.
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