The Old Urbanism: It's A Wonderful Block
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 10. 6.08
We often write in TreeHugger about the importance of cities and of neighborhoods, about new urbanist designs that work like cities used to; Mark Oppenheimer writes in the New York Times' real estate magazine a wonderful article entitled "It's a wonderful block"- His own West Rock Avenue in New Haven, Connecticut.
Unlike the Seaside of the Truman Show, West Rock is the Real Thing
He walks down the street with a Professor of Architecture. "‘‘Look at these sidewalks’’ was the first thing she said, as we embarked from my house heading north toward West Elm. ‘‘First of all, you have them. Second, they’re wide enough for people to walk down two or three across, or with a stroller or a dog.’’ In other words, she was saying, it’s not enough to have a sidewalk — if it’s narrow, then when people approach, their urge is to squeeze past. On our street, I told her, I had seen children and dogs plop down and sit for half an hour on the sidewalk while the grown-ups talked. ‘‘Exactly,’’ she said. ‘‘And you have a planting strip too, and people can plant things on it.’’
Like the New Urbanist communities, there are front porches, close enough to the street that one can talk to passers-by. But mostly what makes it work is what makes our street in Toronto work: a mix of people, ages, races, politics. It is not homogeneous. One resident says:
‘‘I never have to worry,’’ Jack said, leaning forward in his easy chair, ‘‘that when my son is a teenager, I’ll get a call from a principal that my son yelled an ethnic slur at an Orthodox Jew. Or that he was upset that someone has two mommies. And the chance of me ending up next door to someone who doesn’t share these values about diversity — the chance of me living next door to a bigot — is pretty slim.’’ It really is a Wonderful Block in the ::New York Times
More Urban Design in TreeHugger:
The New School Tackles Green Urban Design Through Environmental Education in NYC
Buffalo: Where the Urban Dream is Going Cheap
Escape to New York
I never understood the whole "new urbanism" thing. To me, it's just a rehashing of what urbanism used to be. It's just a trendy new thing, kind of silly if you ask me. Cities have always been good for the environment, not just new urbanist areas, but all urban areas.
I plan on staying in the city so that I can have people around me all the time. I grew up on a cul-de-sac in suburban New Haven with 5 houses, all elderly except for mine. Sure, it was a good neighborhood, but there weren't a whole lot of people around. I always wanted to have had those nights just hanging out on the porch chatting with the neighbors. It doesn't happen in the 'burbs. If I ever have kids, they'll get to have that when they grow up.
I'm from Europe, and the values that this "New Urbanism" invokes occur naturally across the thousands of old cores of cities throughout the continent.
Americans (judging by the turists) tend to appreciate, value and be overwhelmed by these environments much more than people here and it will be a interesting challenge for planners to answer the growing search for walkable, dense and contemporary communities.
Sounds just like Salt Lake City. Love it here. We spend all summer on our porches chatting away about everything. In the winter no one comes out, but we always seem to catch up on garbage day.
wasn't the 60's and 70's era towns and suburbs all like this?? whats 'new' in it?? it's resurrected urbanism... the old ways were the best ways. holds true to date.
similar to all the health and fitness regimes catching on. Tai-Chi, Yoga etc... these were around WAAAYYY before electronic technology, consumerism and the rat race corporate life came about and screwed my happiness. It got lost in all this.. now everybody wants to do yoga, aerobics, Tai chi, martial arts... etc. look to the past for a better future I say.