design first

Design First

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DESIGN FIRSTDesign-based planning forcommunities

David Walters

and

Linda Luise Brown

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Architectural PressAn imprint of ElsevierLinacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford OX2 8DP200 Wheeler Road, Burlington, MA 01803

First published 2004

Copyright © 2004, David Walters and Linda Luise BrownAll rights reserved

The right of David Walters and Linda Luise Brown to be identified as theauthors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright,Design and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in anymaterial form (including photocopying or storing in any medium byelectronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to someother use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyrightholder except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designsand Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by theCopyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London,England W1T 4LP. Applications for the copyright holder’s writtenpermission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed tothe publishers

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British Library Cataloging in Publication DataWalters, DavidDesign first: design-based planning for communities1. City planningI. Title II. Brown, Linda Luise307.1�216

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication DataA catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

ISBN 0 7506 5934 3

Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, IndiaPrinted and bound in Great Britain

For Information on all Architectural Press publications visit our website at www/architecturalpress/com

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Contents

Acknowledgements viiiCredits ix

Introduction: History, Theory and Contemporary Practice 1

Part I History 5

Chapter 1 Paradigms Lost and Found: Dilemmas of the Anglo-American City 7Synopsis 7The Role of History 7Modernism in Operation 10Anti-modernist Reactions 16Real Places and Virtual Communities 22

Chapter 2 Cities, Suburbs and Sprawl 29Synopsis 29The Evolution of the Anglo-American Suburb 29From Suburb to Sprawl: The Devolution of The American Environment 43

Part II Theory 51

Chapter 3 Traditional Urbanism: New Urbanism and Smart Growth 53Synopsis 53The Origins, Concepts and Evolution of New Urbanism 53New Urbanism and Smart Growth 66Myths and Criticisms of Smart Growth and New Urbanism 68

Chapter 4 Devices and Designs: Sources of Good Urbanism 75Synopsis 75The Affirmation of Place 75Urban Design Methodologies 79The Street and Café Society 89

Part III Practice 95

Chapter 5 Growth Management, Development Control and the Role of Urban Design 97Synopsis 97Designing Communities in Different Cultures 97Planning Visions and Development Control 109Design and Development Control 112

Chapter 6 Urban Design in the Real World 121Synopsis 121The Urban Future 121Urban Design Techniques 130Master Plans and Master-planning: the Charrette Process 143

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CONTENTS

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Part IV Preamble to Case Studies 153

Chapter 7 The Region, Case Study 1: CORE, North Carolina 157Project and context description 157Key issues and goals 159The charrette 159The master plan 159Implementation 168Conclusions 170Critical evaluation of case study 171

Chapter 8 The City, Case Study 2: City of Raleigh, NC Arena small area plan 175Project and context description 175Key issues and goals 176The charrette 178The master plan 180Implementation 187Conclusions 187Critical evaluation of case study 187

Chapter 9 The Town, Case Study 3: Mooresville, North Carolina 191Project and context description 191Key issues and goals 192The charrette 193The master plan 193Implementation 198Conclusions 198Critical evaluation of case study 198

Chapter 10 The Neighborhood, Case Study 4: Haynie-Sirrine Neighborhood, Greenville, South Carolina 201Project and context description 201Key issues and goals 205The charrette 205The master plan 207Implementation 213Conclusions 216Critical evaluation of case study 217

Chapter 11 The Block, Case Study 5: Town Center, Cornelius, North Carolina 219Project and context description 219Key issues and objectives 222The master plan 222Implementation 224Critical evaluation of case study 226

Afterword 227

Appendix I The Charter of the Congress of the New Urbanism 231The Region: Metropolis, City, and Town 231The Neighborhood, the District, and the Corridor 232The Block, the Street, and the Building 232

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CONTENTS

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Appendix II Smart Growth Principles 235Appendix III Extracts from a typical Design-based Zoning Ordinance 237Appendix IV Extracts from General Development Guidelines 245Appendix V Extracts from Urban Design Guidelines 251

Bibliography 257Index 269

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Acknowledgements

As with any enterprise of this nature, the authors wish to thank several people, especially colleagues at theLawrence Group in Davidson, North Carolina – Craig Lewis, Brunsom Russum, Dave Malushizky andCatherine Thompson. These are fine professionals and friends as well as work partners.

Substantial thanks go out to colleagues on the faculty at the College of Architecture at the University ofNorth Carolina at Charlotte. Bob Sandkam was incredibly patient in helping the authors improve their com-puter graphic skills in handling the images for the book. Our long-time friend and now Associate Dean at theCollege of Architecture, Dr Lee Gray, also deserves a big thank you for continually chiding the architectauthor to produce the book as an example for younger faculty. Even then, this book might not have happenedwithout the good offices of another university colleague, Professor Chris Grech, an established author with theArchitectural Press, who kindly introduced us to the publishers. At the Architectural Press we would especiallylike to thank Alison Yates and her colleagues for their consistent advice and support throughout the project.

In another context, we want to express our appreciation of Professor Robert Craycroft, a friend and ex-colleague from Mississippi State University, now retired after a long and distinguished career. Bob Craycroftintroduced the architect author to the Neshoba County Fairgrounds featured in Chapter 4 in the mid-1980sand remains one of America’s leading authorities on this little-known urban phenomenon. Professor Craycroftvery kindly shared his expertise and photographs for this publication.

Nearer home, John Rogers, the administrator of the Charlotte Historic District Commission was also veryhelpful in providing local information about our home city, and for sterling service in reading several chaptersof the manuscript. We have benefited from his thoughtful comments and advice. John’s wife Amy also lenttremendous moral support, often expressed as delicious suppers provided on evenings when the authors weretoo exhausted to feed themselves.

Also in terms of moral support, the authors owe debts of gratitude to Johnice Stanislawski, the owner, andCourtney Devores, the manager of our local coffee shop, Queens Beans, next to our studio in Charlotte. Wespent many hours reading over manuscripts while drinking copious amounts of their wonderful, shade grown,organic coffee!

And finally, we gratefully acknowledge that research for this book was supported in part by funds providedby the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Charlotte, NC David Walters and

Linda Luise Brown

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Credits

CENTER OF THE REGION ENTERPRISE(Case Study 1)

Project Team

The Lawrence GroupCraig LewisDavid WaltersBrunsom RussumDave MalushizkyCatherine ThompsonEcem EcevitPaul HubbmanPaul KronAnnHammond

Karnes Research CompanyMichael Williams

Kubilins Transportation GroupMargaret KubilinsStephen StansburyJonathon Guy

Rose and AssociatesKathleen Rose

Triangle J Council of GovernmentsProject Staff

John Hodges-CoppleLanier BlumSeptember Barnes

Community and Regional Partners

Town of CaryCity of DurhamDurham CountyTown of MorrisvilleCity of RaleighWake CountyResearch Triangle FoundationRaleigh-Durham Airport AuthorityTriangle J Council of GovernmentsTriangle Transit Authority

Capital Area Metropolitan Planning OrganizationDurham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro Metropolitan Planning Organization

Project Sponsors

CiscoDuke Realty and ConstructionDuke PowerHighwoods PropertiesRoy E. Mashburn Jr.John D. McConnell Jr.Preston RealtyProgress EnergyPulte Home CorporationResearch Triangle Regional PartnershipSouthport Business ParkTeer AssociatesTillett Development CompanyToll BrothersTri Properties Inc.Urban Retail PropertiesWhite VenturesYork PropertiesAdditional support was provided by the U.S.Department of Transportation under a Transportation and Community Systems Preservation Program grant.

CITY OF RALEIGH ARENA SMALL AREA PLAN (Case Study 2)

Project Team

The Lawrence GroupCraig LewisDavid WaltersBrunsom RussumDave MalushizkyNicole TaylorAndrew Barclay

ColeJenest & StoneBrian JenestGuy Pearlman

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Overstreet StudioPat Newell

Kubilins Transportation GroupStephen StansburyJonathon Guy

Karnes Research CompanyMichael Williams

Local Government Partners

City of RaleighGeorge ChapmanWilliam BreazealeJames BrantleyDouglass HillEd H. Johnson Jr.

Triangle Transit AuthorityJuanita Shearer-Swink

MOUNT MOURNE MASTERPLAN (Case Study 3)

The Lawrence GroupCraig LewisDavid WaltersBrunsom RussumDawn Blobaum

Murray Whisnant ArchitectsMurray Whisnant

Town of MooresvilleErskine Smith

GREENVILLE: HAYNIE-SIRRINENEIGHBORHOOD MASTERPLAN (Case Study 4)

The Lawrence GroupCraig LewisDavid WaltersBrunson RussumDave MalushizkyEarl SwisherCatherine ThompsonEcem EcevitNicole TaylorElizabeth Nash

Overstreet StudioPat Newell

Kubilins Transportation GroupStephen Stansbery

ColeJenest & StoneBrian JenestFred Matrulli

Upstate ForeverDiane Eldridge

Project ManagerJulie Orr Franklin, Economic Development Planner, City of Greenville

Haynie-Sirrine Advisory CommitteeFelsie HarrisAndrea YoungCouncilwoman Lillian Brock FlemingJohn FortDavid StoneNancy WhitworthGinny Stroud

Sirrine-Haynie Neighborhood Charrette GroupDeveloper

Rob DicksonProperty Owners

John Fort and The Caine Company,David StoneC. Dan Joyner

The City of Greenville Department of Community and Economic DevelopmentNancy WhitworthJulie FranklinGinny StroudRegina Wynder

IMIC HotelsDavid Walker,Sam Kelly, General Manager, Ramada Inn

CORNELIUS TOWN CENTER (Case Study 5)

Master plan by Shook Kelly, Michael Dunning, project architect.

Transit-oriented Development by Duany Plater-Zyberk and Co.; amended by Cole Jenest and Stone.

CREDITS

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1

Toward the end of 2002, the authors were guests at adinner party in Fayetteville, Arkansas, a pleasantAmerican college town of 60 000 people in the OzarkMountains. Sharing the table were the town’s mayor,planning officers from town hall, local architects,developers, and spouses. The Fayetteville area is oneof the few urbanized parts of Arkansas, an otherwiserural state in the American South just west of theMississippi River. Combinations of generic commer-cial strip developments and poorly laid out residen-tial suburbs, typical examples of ‘suburban sprawl,’are endangering the special features and qualities ofthat town’s local landscape. The degradation of theenvironment that makes the community a desirableplace to live and work is a story repeated in Americafrom coast to coast.

The subject of the evening’s discussion was how toimprove the way the town could grow, how to moveaway from conventional sprawl and toward a moreattractive, and more environmentally and economi-cally sustainable pattern of development. This kindof development, labeled ‘Smart Growth,’ has gener-ated much discussion in America since the mid-1990s, but despite an abundance of professional,media, and political interest, its principles are farfrom universally accepted at the time of writing in2003. Advocates of progressive development face anuphill struggle against the power, money, and conserva-tism of the American real estate, transportation andconstruction lobbies that exert influence overAmerican politicians and control the developmentpatterns of many towns and cities across the land.

That evening around the Fayetteville dinner tableconfirmed something significant to us. Here in micro-cosm was the most important audience for our book.Our convivial dinner party comprised intelligentmen and women, concerned about the future of theircommunity but unsure how to achieve the desiredimprovement.

Their priority was action, not academic analysis.Time was short as conventional sprawl developmenteroded the quality of life in their town a little bit

more each day. They wanted to know what ideas touse and how to use them. They wanted assurancethat new ideas came with some provenance, and thatother communities had used them successfully. Thepurpose of our visit to Fayetteville was to discussthose precise issues, to give civic leaders and profes-sionals an abbreviated synopsis of the material in thisbook and direct them toward smarter planning andbetter urban design.

Our message to the folks in Fayetteville was thesame as the one contained herein: think in threedimensions as urban designers and not in two dimen-sions like land planners. We call this approachplanning by design, applying principles of three-dimensional urban design to the problems andprocesses of urban and community planning. Mostof these problems revolve around basic issues such asdevelopment versus conservation, or the public goodof the community versus private rights of individualproperty owners. We believe that designing the phys-ical form, infrastructure, and appearance of urbanand suburban areas in detail is more effective inmediating these conflicts than conventional two-dimensional land-use planning. In this book weexplain why that is, and how the process works.

Because one of the authors is English, Americansoften ask us how British towns are able to conservetheir historic fabric and surrounding green landscape,picturesque qualities much admired by transatlanticvisitors. When we explain the process of governmentregulation of private land, our questioners, previouslyeager to find some lessons to follow, often becomeperplexed – even angry – at the thought of coopera-tive planning ideas for the ‘public good’ beingapplied to private property. In the USA, few peopleare quick to accept the values underpinning theBritish system or the extent of government interven-tion in the planning and development process, evenfor benign purposes of conservation and communityenhancement.

In Britain the growth versus development discus-sion is slanted towards conservation of national and

Introduction

History, theory and contemporary practice

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DESIGN FIRST: DESIGN-BASED PLANNING FOR COMMUNITIES

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local heritage. The 1999 report Towards an UrbanRenaissance produced by the government-appointedUrban Task Force, led by the architect peer Lord(Richard) Rogers of Riverside, gave rise to the subse-quent White Paper, Our Towns and Cities: the Future:Delivering an Urban Renaissance, introduced by theLabour government in 2000. The White Paper iden-tifies key points of urban policy at a national level,focusing on redevelopment of existing ‘brownfield’sites and improved public transportation rather than‘greenfield’ urban expansion and the extended use ofthe private automobile. Though British critics havevoiced their displeasure at their government’s per-ceived delay and weakness in acting on the urbanprinciples established in its policy documents, at leastthere is a policy. In America, there is little evidence ofany national agenda for sustainable urban or environ-mental policies. Quite the contrary. Initiatives toimprove the cities and the environment enacted byPresident Clinton between 1992 and 2000 are beingrolled back in the Republican administration ofGeorge W. Bush.

The United States of America is 40 times the sizeof the UK, but has only five times its population.Given this large size and low density, there is rela-tively uncritical enthusiasm for urban growth, despiteenvironmental problems and disturbing social factorssuch as an increasing polarization between the(mainly white) wealthy and highly mobile residentsof the suburbs and the (mainly black and Hispanic)poorer populations isolated in dilapidated sections ofthe inner city. Calls for change can be heard as thenegative aspects of suburban sprawl – environmentalpollution, loss of open space, heavy traffic, and longcommutes – impinge on the public’s consciousness,but the vast majority of communities continue togrow more or less unchecked. In some fast-growingtowns that have undergone disturbing amounts ofchange, citizen-based outcries have risen to halt devel-opment altogether, but rarely in the American politi-cal system is stopping growth a realistic option. Forthe ‘no-growth’ lobby to succeed, so many constraintswould need to be placed on private property thatmany legal experts believe these limits could not easily withstand challenges in the courts relativeto rights guaranteed under the Fifth Article ofAmendment to the United States Constitution,which states that no ‘private property shall be takenfor public use without due compensation.’ While thepurchase of land by the state for public projects suchas road building is generally well accepted, control-ling the development potential of private land for less

immediately tangible community benefits is harderto uphold.

Many citizens regard government action to limitwhat they can do with their land as a ‘taking’ underthe provisions of the Constitution. For example,reducing residential density, or clustering homes toprotect the quality of water in local streams (by mini-mizing the impermeable site area caused by buildingsand driveways) is good public policy, but it may takeaway some sale value of the land compared to whatthe property owner could expect under a conven-tional sprawl scenario. While the American SupremeCourt would not agree that this partial devaluationconstitutes a ‘taking,’ (viz. the Court’s 1978 decisionin Penn Central Transportation Company v. City ofNew York) property rights advocates and developershold the threat of aggressive legal action over manytimid municipalities.

Helping to resolve issues like alternative develop-ment scenarios for land is one of the advantages ofour method of designing in full view of the public,using intensive design ‘charrettes’ or participatoryworkshops. In these venues, concepts like the hous-ing clusters that can potentially benefit the commu-nity through less polluted run-off into streams can beillustrated clearly. A perspective drawing of dwellingscarefully integrated into a protected landscape isworth a dozen abstract planning diagrams of thesame concept. Citizens understand the issues moreeasily and are likely to support the proposed designsolutions, and opponents may even be persuaded thatthe ideas have merit.

This hypothetical example illustrates the theme ofthe book – how communities can radically improveboth their process of town planning and their finishedproduct of town building by using three-dimensionalurban design techniques. When we work in communi-ties large or small, we usually focus on the public spaces– streets, squares, parks, and so forth – and design themin considerable detail, because these spaces are the coreof any community, the real armature of public life. Thisprocess often includes designing the architectural ele-ments of the buildings that define and enclose thesepublic spaces – the façades, entrances, and massing thatcontribute to the general appearance seen from eyelevel. We integrate the specifics of a building’s use intothis design process, but use is not always a determiningfactor because it often changes, sometimes several timeswithin a building’s lifespan. It is more important to getthe relationships between building-to-building andbuilding-to-public space correct. These are – or shouldbe – long-term issues.


INTRODUCTION

3

During community workshops, we also work withtransportation planners to design traffic circulationand parking arrangements, and to integrate trans-portation into public spaces. It’s these public spaces,defined by buildings and landscape, that form theframework of the master plan for the community, andthe development economist on our team ensures oursolutions are economically viable. We then encodeour three-dimensional design solutions in simplifiedand graphically rich regulations for implementationand development control so that over time the com-munity will build itself in accordance with the masterplan. Our case study examples illustrate variations ofthis method used on sites as small as an urban blockand as large as a region of 60 square miles, and in thevery last chapter we draw these threads together in away that links the smallest scale of the block to thelargest frame of the region.

Our case studies focus on American communitiesseeking to implement Smart Growth strategies bymeans of environmentally sensitive suburban expan-sion and infill, and the redevelopment of older urbanareas. This emphasis goes hand-in-hand with theresurgence of traditional concepts of city design inAmerica under the rubric of New Urbanism. We aresympathetic to the ideals and ambitions of NewUrbanism (one of the authors is a signatory of thefounding Charter), and we discuss this movement insome detail in Chapter 3. We are especially keen todispel some of the myths and misconceptions sur-rounding New Urbanist concepts, and to demon-strate their connections to many similar ideas fromthe past 200 years on both sides of the Atlantic.

Although our work is developed from a NewUrbanist agenda, this book is not a review of thegreatest hits of New Urbanism, something achievedwell by Katz (1994) and Dutton (2000). Our casestudies are analysed from inside the urban planningprocess. They are projects in which the authors haveplayed lead roles, usually in association with theNorth Carolina office of The Lawrence Group, a firmof architect-planners based in St. Louis, Missouri. Wehave specifically organized our case studies to illus-trate the full variety of urban scales, from the region,to the city, the town, the neighbourhood, and downto the scale of an individual urban block, and inso doing we exemplify a key theme of the Charter ofthe New Urbanism: the town planning and urbandesign principles inherent in New Urbanism are rele-vant and applicable at all scales and in all situations.It is a comprehensive way of looking at patterns ofhuman settlement.

Our examples are works in progress, for city build-ing is a continuous activity; it is never finished. Somecase studies have achieved very successful results;others have hit snags during implementation. But allof them provide valuable lessons in their content andtheir narrative.

We stated earlier that our audience for the bookwanted plans for action, not academic analysis. Butno proposals for the planning and design of commu-nities should be used out of their historical and theo-retical context. As academics as well as practitioners,we love the histories and theories of design and plan-ning, partly for their own sake as fascinating knowl-edge, but also because they help us design and planwell. Without a grounding in history and theory, alldesign becomes contingent on fleeting circumstances –be they financial, personal, political, or locational. Aspractitioners, we know just how powerful these con-tingent forces can be, sometimes positively, oftennegatively. We therefore use theory and history as thefirm structure and platform for our work, and wehave traced the interconnections between urban ideaswith some care. We explain how contemporary plan-ners and architects like ourselves have arrived at ourpresent set of beliefs, and why we adhere so stronglyto them.

But this isn’t an exhaustive history of the Anglo-American city. That’s not our purpose. Rather, wediscuss key historical and theoretical concepts of con-temporary planning and urban design, often high-lighted by the authors’ personal experiences andanecdotes, to illustrate a practical approach that is con-sciously informed by history. This historical sense, and itsawareness of intellectual and physical precedent, shapesand enriches the ideas we bring to bear on contempo-rary urban planning problems. But while context andprecedent are crucially important, designers need not beslaves to perceived history. Simply wrapping contempo-rary buildings in historical wallpaper diminishes archi-tectural and urban design to the level of pastiche, alwaysa dangerous tendency in postmodern design. It isimportant to distinguish between using precedent cre-atively in community design (good) and retreating intonostalgic formulas (bad). Accordingly we try to clarifythis difference throughout the text as we discuss con-cepts and methods.

Serious scholars of urban history will find little newmaterial here that hasn’t been covered in many otherhistories and polemics (Blake, 1974; Booker, 1980;Hughes, 1980; Ravetz, 1980; Coleman, 1985; Hall,1988; Campbell, 1993; Kunstler, 1993; Lubbock, 1995;Gold, 1997). But we review this story with a reader in


mind for whom this may be unfamiliar territory. Andwe approach the discussion with a particular questionin mind: why do we teach our students the oppositeof what we were taught by our professors thirty-fiveyears ago? We were taught the doctrine of modernismonly to spend our professional lives fighting against itsurban legacy in our towns and cities.

We now embrace the same principles of city designrejected by modernist pioneers. Instead of trying toobliterate traditional public space (the so-called‘death of the street’ so eagerly sought by Le Corbusierand others), we conceive the city once again as adefined, if discontinuous, network of urban spaces –a public realm of streets and squares. In an expandingworld of virtual realities and electronic spaces, webelieve the creation of real places for public life ismore important than ever. But is our advocacy of tra-ditional urban forms merely the swing of the historicalpendulum? Is it a transient phenomenon, a collectionof concepts that flourishes, then withers as we moveback to a revived, neo-modernist position in a fewdecades? Or have we rediscovered something funda-mental about cities and the human need for publiclife in public space? The cliché about not understand-ing where you’re going if you don’t know whereyou’ve been has never been more relevant.

Our perspective on problems and opportunities fac-ing American towns and cities is sharpened by com-parisons to British practice regarding urban expansionand revitalization of older areas. As we noted earlier,

several American dilemmas are similar to British prob-lems, while others are substantially different – bred ofdisparate geographies and cultural priorities. We hopethese themes of comparison and contrast betweenAmerican and British urban experiences render thebook valuable for audiences in both countries. Britishreaders can relate American lessons to their own situa-tions, and American professionals can understandways in which British practice might inform their owndaily battles for better design in cities and suburbs.

We appreciate the privilege of working in commu-nities, designing with citizens in public forums to forgevisions, templates and policies that will guide thefuture growth of the places where the participants liveand work. We also enjoy working within a complexintellectual lineage traceable to previous centuries. Wetake pleasure in knowing that our small efforts are partof a much larger narrative of town building.

We said at the beginning that this book is aimed atarchitects, planners, developers, planning commis-sioners, elected officials, and civic-minded citizens.Students of architecture and planning constituteanother very important audience. These are the youngmen and women whose charge it is to continue thefight to make better, more humane, ecological andbeautiful cities. Whichever group you belong to, andwhether you are reading this book in America, Britain,or elsewhere, we hope you find within its pages someinspiration to serve a community, large or small, andhelp it to grow more smartly. By this, all of us benefit.


4


IHistory

PART

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1Paradigms lost and found dilemmas of the Anglo-American city

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SYNOPSIS

In this first chapter, we examine four aspects ofBritish and American city design, and in so doing weintroduce several concepts that will be elaborated insubsequent chapters. First, we try to answer the ques-tions that are often posed by practicing architects andplanners about the value of history. ‘Why botherwith history?’ they ask. ‘How are the events and ideasof a hundred years ago relevant to my work today?’

To help evaluate these questions, we discuss in thesecond section some of the ideologies and attitudesthat have shaped our cities today – the foundingassumptions of modernist architecture and planningas they were theorized and practiced in the middledecades of the twentieth century. The buildings cre-ated from these ideas spawned a legacy of unforeseenurban problems, and by the late 1960s and 1970s,the lack of success of modernist design generatedanti-modernist reactions. These coalesced aroundreawakened interest in traditional forms of urbanism,such as the street and the square, which had beenexplicitly rejected by modernist theory and practice.

The third section examines aspects of these reac-tionary movements. We discuss some of the reasonsfor this reversal in attitudes, a theme that will be con-sistent throughout the book, and we look at some ofthe work that resulted from this more consciouslyhistorical perspective. In the final section of thisopening chapter we confront one of the ironies of ourperiod. At the very time of the revival and renewedascendancy of traditional urbanism, revolutions ininformation technology and media have created awhole series of virtual worlds, communities andelectronic places that threaten to render the publicspaces of our towns and cities obsolete. Where does

this leave the urban designer today? Is an urbanismbased around a revived representation of traditionalpublic space still relevant?

THE ROLE OF HISTORY

The community design professions have severalchoices today regarding the role of history. From oneperspective, the architect or planner may choose toignore history altogether in pursuit of a vision of anunfettered future. Or, thinking that the search forsolutions to today’s complex urban design problemsleaves no time or place for the ‘esoteric’ study oftimes past, a working professional may choose topigeonhole history in the realm of academia.

Conversely, the professional who views his or herefforts as being part of a larger narrative, one thatacknowledges the past as being relevant to the prob-lems of contemporary practice, will likely addressthe role of history more positively. We hold this lat-ter view regarding the importance of history to urbandesign and planning. Some of the urban conceptsand values we use in our work stretch back (at thevery least) to the beginning of the industrial revolu-tion in the late eighteenth century. We will argue inseveral places throughout the book that some urbanconcepts are ‘timeless,’ and can be found in westerncultures in many periods of history, but for ourpurposes here, the late 1700s usefully define thebeginning of what we might call the modern era incity design. It was then, just to the south of London,that the first modern suburbs started to develop.

As a pair of seasoned teachers and practitioners, westrongly believe we are more effective when weunderstand the sources and the histories of the urban



8

design and planning concepts that we use. They didnot arrive fully formed at our pencil tips and com-puter keyboards! Some continue recent trends, orreclaim discarded or outdated concepts; others aredeliberate reactions against perceived mistakes of thepast. Our ideas come with a history, and we areguided in our practice by the knowledge of how theywere derived and how they have been used (and mis-used) by professionals in previous times and places.

But first we must be careful to define what consti-tutes our ‘history’. Historians and critics are oftentempted to seek some overarching ‘grand narrative’ asa framework for their arguments (we are no differentin this regard except that we are wary of the processand its results!) and for much of the twentiethcentury the history, theory and practice of modernarchitecture was presented as a unified, coherentstory by writers such as Hitchcock and Johnson(1932), Pevsner (1936), Richards (1940), andGiedion (1941). In this tale of the ‘InternationalStyle,’ the heroes were Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius,Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig Hilbersheimer,the artists and architects at the Bauhaus, and otherpioneers of the modern movement. Under the intel-lectual leadership of this new avant-garde, a primarytask of modern architects was to rid society of theenvironmental and social evils of the polluted indus-trial city, where workers lived miserable lives,crowded into unsanitary slums. In place of the old,corrupt Victorian city, modern architects envisioneda bright, new healthy environment, full of sun, freshair, open space, greenery and bold new buildings freeof the trappings of archaic historical styles. It was aterrific vision and a fulfilling professional mission.

The replacement of cities perceived as outdatedand corrupt brought a bright new optimistic face tourban design. In war-ravaged Britain during the1950s, new blocks of flats rose heroically from therubble. Some were sited, like those at Roehampton,in west London, in park-like settings deliberatelyreminiscent of Le Corbusier’s evocative drawings (seeFigure 1.1).

All was not sweetness and light, of course.Implementation of the vision varied, and a tangiblegap was revealed between the promise of the utopianvision and ‘real-life’ achievements on the ground.Within a couple of decades, the planning and designphilosophies of the modernist agenda were beingquestioned by the public. Planners and architects firsttook a defensive position. They suggested that thebleak urban environments people were complainingabout were simply the result of the great visions of

the masters being interpreted by less talented pupils,but increasing popular discontent, particularlyagainst programs of urban reconstruction in Britainand urban renewal in America, gradually made themodernist position untenable.

Within these unpopular urban settings, thearchitecture itself was disliked; the new buildingswere decried as dull and boring boxes. While archi-tects loved to use concrete, either poured-in-place oras precast panels, citing its ‘honesty’ or ‘integrity,’ thepublic perceived this material as unfriendly andhostile. The uniformity and abstraction of the Inter-national Style puzzled and dismayed a public used toa richer and more conventional architectural lan-guage of historical detail and imagery, even in themost modest of buildings. Over time, redevelopedurban areas bred a form of distaste and antagonismamong residents who lived and worked there. In par-ticular, the large tracts of semi-public space that werethe norm in much urban redevelopment from the1950s through the early 1970s, gave rise to unfore-seen and uncomfortable ambiguities about socialbehavior. This ‘free’ space for sunlight and greeneryprescribed by modernist doctrine was achieved onlythrough the destruction of old patterns of streets andurban blocks.

This open space was neither truly public norprivate, and its consequent lack of spatial definitionblurred boundaries and territories, raising issues ofcontrol and management, and ultimately of crimeand personal security. Few people living in the large,modern housing redevelopments of slabs and towersfavored by modernist theory felt safe or comfortable,or felt sufficient ownership of the open spaces aroundthe new buildings to help take care of them. The list

Figure 1.1 Alton West Estate, Roehampton, London,London County Council Architects’ Department,1959. Bold versions of Le Corbusier’s Unitéd’Habitation are set in the soft landscape of southLondon, creating an image of the modernist dream.Compare this image with Figure 1.4.


CHAPTER ONE ● PARADIGMS LOST AND FOUND

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of failings in urban renewal and redevelopmentschemes grew to such length and seriousness thatultimately it was impossible to treat these problems asteething troubles or poor applications of visionaryideas by less-talented designers. As urban historianJohn Gold has pointed out, a movement predicatedon functionalism as a core belief could not withstandcriticism about its dysfunctional consequences(Gold, 1997: pp. 4–5).

The conclusion was unavoidable: the ideas them-selves were seriously flawed. Critic Charles Jencksfamously ascribed the ‘death of modernism’ to theprecise moment of 3.32 p.m. on July 15, 1972, whenhigh-rise slab blocks in the notorious Pruitt-Igoehousing project in St. Louis, Missouri were profes-sionally imploded by the city (Jencks, 1977: p. 9).Completed as recently as 1955, the buildings hadbeen abandoned and vandalized by their erstwhileinhabitants to a degree that made them uninhabitable.Earlier, in 1968, a gas explosion and the consequentpartial collapse of another high-rise block at RonanPoint in east London severely eroded the Britishpublic’s confidence in the safety of modernist high-rise residential construction.

The tensions of urban life burst into the open dur-ing the British urban riots of the 1980s. Like theirAmerican precedents in the 1960s, the riots were theproduct of a clash between mainstream white cultureand a black subculture built on deprivation anddisadvantage, and were mainly focused on olderurban areas of concentrated poverty, such as Toxtethin Liverpool, Moss Side in Manchester, Handsworthin Birmingham and Brixton in south London. Theunrest and violence reached spectacular levels withthe Broadwater Farm conflagration in Tottenham,north London, in 1985, and this was significantlydifferent from the other urban areas of racial tension.Broadwater Farm was a ‘prizewinning urban renewalproject of 1970, (which) had proved a case study ofindefensible space; its medium-rise blocks, risingfrom a pedestrian deck above ground-level parking,provided a laboratory culture for vandalism andcrime’ (Hall, 2002: p. 464).

There were several influential efforts to link thisurban unrest directly to the failures of modern archi-tecture and planning (e.g. Coleman, 1985). Althoughthe social, racial and economic situation in 1980sBritain that bred the riots was far more complex thanthe cause-and-effect argument about the physicalenvironment, the simplistic connection was a com-pelling one in the public mind. It was easier to blamethe architecture than to deal with the deep-seated

problems of social inequity and racial tension. Withthe hacking to death of a British policeman atBroadwater Farm and hundreds of riot police assailedby fire bombs, the tragic modernist blocks came tostand, like Pruitt-Igoe before them, for everythingbad with modernist city planning and architecture.

Thus, what were truths for one generation quicklybecame doubts and finally anathema to the next.Faced with this ideological void, the younger genera-tion of architects and planners sought to construct anew set of beliefs, and several premises of modernisturbanism were radically overhauled, and in manycases overturned. Many aspects of the search for newconcepts focused around the recovery of morehuman-scaled spaces and an architectural vocabularythat connected with public taste. As we discuss morefully in Chapter 3, early postmodern architecture inthe USA during the 1970s and 1980s incorporatedornamental classical details and elements of popculture in an effort to bridge the communication gapbetween architects and the public. In the UK, thistrend to glitzy ornamentation was also present, but amore substantive move was a return to an appreciationof vernacular building types and traditional urbansettings. Just as the inclusion of ornament and kitschinto postmodern architecture was a conscious viola-tion of modernist principles – a definitive rejection ofthe reductive, abstract aesthetics that had ruledprofessional taste for several decades – postmodernurbanism resurrected the traditional street, identifiedin modernist thinking as the villain and cause ofurban squalor.

This renewed appreciation of traditional urbanforms was presaged by Jane Jacobs in her landmarkbook The Death and Life of American Cities ( Jacobs,1962). Her description of the vitality and life on thestreets of her New York neighborhood contrastedpoignantly with the crime and grime of the urbanwastelands produced by urban renewal, and while hercriticism of modernist planning and architecture waslargely dismissed by professionals during the 1960s,by the 1980s her book had become a standard text within this developing counter-narrative. LeCorbusier soon became the arch-villain of the newhistory, with his revolutionary and draconian propo-sals for ‘The City of Tomorrow’ identified as thesource of everything bad about modernist urbanism(see Figure 1.2). Like countless other urban designprofessionals caught in the midst of this great revisionof architectural and planning ideology over the last 30 years, we (the authors) have often promotedour ideas of traditional urban form and space by



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contrasting them with a ‘conveniently adverse pictureof modernism’ and its failings (Gold, p. 8).

In developing the new, improved grand narrativeof postmodern city design during the 1970s and1980s, professionals turned to smaller scale opportu-nities instead of striving for new social and physicalutopias. Architects started taking note of what wasalready in place and sought to enhance the urban fab-ric rather than erase it. The study of history and con-text became important again, and designers focused on ‘human-scaled’ development, with a particularemphasis on the creation of defined public spaces,often taking the form of streets and squares, assettings for a reinvigorated public life.

Our wholesale abandonment of modernistprinciples and their replacement by a radical returnto premodern ideas poses something of a dilemma.Based on the belief that modernist architects andplanners made serious errors about many aspects ofcity planning and design, we tell ourselves we won’trepeat the same mistakes, and consider our ideasmuch more appropriate to the task of city design.Here in America, our working concepts are basedon traditional values of walkable urban placesinstead of the car-dominated asphalt desertsproduced in the search for a drive-in utopia. We pro-mote mixing uses once again, where for five decadesfunctions were rigidly segregated, and we seek to

involve the public directly in the making of plansinstead of drawing them in the splendid isolation ofcity halls or corporate offices. We feel certain thatthese ideas are the right ones for the task of repair-ing the city and advancing the cause of a sustainableurban future.

But how can we be sure? After all, the modernistarchitects and planners we now criticize so harshlyfelt a similar degree of certainty in their mission andideology. Have we merely replaced one professionalparadigm with another that is also destined to fail,despite our good intentions? In the face of thisconundrum, architects and planners must affirmtheir principles and their commitment to action; ourcities and suburbs have a myriad of problems thatdemand urgent solutions. But, being neither funda-mentalist nor unilateral, we must simultaneouslyreserve room for doubt, and be open to question. Wehave to allow the possibility that we are wrong, just asour predecessors were wrong before us! However,unlike our modernist forebears, we embrace thestudy of history and precedent in our work, and weheed George Santayana’s words: ‘Those who cannotremember the past are condemned to repeat it’(Santayana, 1905: p. 284).

Accordingly, we pay particular attention to howmodernist architecture and planning operated on theground, the place where people were affected by itmost directly. By observing the transformations ofthe nineteenth-century industrial city wrought bymodernist pioneers and their disciples in Britain andAmerica, we gain insight into the values and ideasthat shape our post-industrial city today.

MODERNISM IN OPERATION

The story of city design is not straightforward. Evenin our abbreviated history, themes weave and in andout of each other to form a complex tapestry. Fromour postmodern perspective we often mistake mod-ernism for a monolithic construct, but this is far fromthe case. In architecture the early modernisms ofMichel de Klerk, or Hans Scharoun and HugoHaring, were far different from the unified visionthat sprang into three-dimensional reality in 1927 atStuttgart’s influential Weissenhoff Siedlung. Thismodel housing settlement, master-planned byLudwig Mies van der Rohe and heavily influenced byLe Corbusier, included housing prototypes frommost of the important European modern architects.This orchestrated concentration of crisp white stucco

Figure 1.2 Le Corbusier’s vision of TheContemporary City for Three Million Inhabitants,1922. Tower blocks isolated in space and mid-rise slabs disassociated from the streets andset apart in landscape became the standardtypologies for city building after World War II.(Drawing courtesy of the Le CorbusierFoundation)



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boxes established the architectural language that wasto become the International Style, but even withinthis homogeneity, subtle differences remained (seeFigure 1.3).

Architect-inspired modernism also affected muchtheory and practice in planning during the years fol-lowing World War II. The legacy of urban renewalstill dominates thinking about postwar planning tosuch an extent that it is easy to believe that everythingdevolves from Le Corbusier’s erasure of the traditionalcity and its replacement with the City of Towers in thePark. There was much more to it than that.

British planner Sir Peter Hall cites the differentstrands of twentieth-century planning thought atsome length, but for our purposes they can be sum-marized under six headings, beginning with theurban replacement approach advocated by LeCorbusier and Ludwig Hilbersheimer. The secondstrand comprises the Garden City and its legacy; thethird involves attempts to create the Regional City;and the fourth features Beaux Arts monumentalmaster planning. Strand number five encompassestransportation and its impact on urban form; andthe sixth incorporates democratic populism incivic design, providing opportunities for citizens totake charge of planning their own neighborhoods(Hall, 2002).

Hall also makes note of one of history’s bitter jestsof the twentieth century: many of the radical ideas of urban visionaries like Ebenezer Howard, LeCorbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright lay fallow for

years, only to reappear in later periods transformedinto parodies of their former selves. Ironically,America’s endless sprawl finds some of its origins in F. L. Wright’s Broadacre City, for example, while manysoulless suburban developments in British green fieldsare touted as direct descendants of Howard’s GardenCities. In cities across both nations, Le Corbusier’svision of gleaming skyscrapers in a lush and verdantlandscape was constructed as cheap and shoddy towersrising amidst urban rubble (see Figure 1.4).

Today’s urban designer is heir to all six strands ofmodernism, and we will deal with all of them duringour discourse throughout the book. Each is impor-tant, but it is the legacy of urban renewal or ‘com-prehensive development’ that colors communitymemories most vividly. The relative success of GardenCities in postwar Britain pales in comparison withthe memories of bulldozed neighborhoods and col-lapsed tower blocks. American families still recallwith bitterness being forced from their homes in the1960s to make way for grandiose civic plazas andmonumental buildings.

The evidence of urban renewal’s physical and socialdestruction in the name of community progress isundeniable. Many slums that needed to be torn downwere justly demolished, but what replaced them wasoften a concrete dystopia that bred only despera-tion, despair and a new generation of social malaise.And along with the slums, other communities were

Figure 1.3 Kiefhoek Housing Estate, Rotterdam, J.J.P.Oud, 1925–29. Until Le Corbusier’s doctrines wereembodied in the all-encompassing Athens Charterof 1933, other modernists pioneers such as Oud werereluctant to abandon the street.

Figure 1.4 Tower block in Benwell, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK, 1970. All too often the modernist vision of‘towers in the park’ was reduced to towers in theurban wasteland by bad design and cheapbuilding. Housing was seen merely as a political issueof numbers of units constructed rather than anintegral element of city building.


demolished that deserved to remain and be refur-bished rather than wrecked. Jane Jacob’s passionateindictment of modernist architecture and planningin The Death and Life of Great American Citiesdescribes how professionals were blind to the charac-ter and potential of older, shabby but still functionalurban neighborhoods ( Jacobs, 1962). This criticismresonates across 40 years. In the UK, the remarkattributed to Prince Charles that planners destroyedmore buildings in British cities in the years afterWorld War II, than Hitler’s Luftwaffe managed in allthe years of bombing captures the sense of outrage atsome of the acts of our predecessors.

Yet, these were not the deeds of urban vandals,bent on the destruction of communities. This mayhave been the unintended result, but the plans anddesigns were produced and implemented by well-meaning professionals intent on serving the publicgood. These architects and planners were concernedwith the problems of the vast industrial city, wheremillions of people lived in great hardship with lowrates of life expectancy and high rates of infant mor-tality. When we look at photographs of endless acresof grim, soot-grimed British terrace housing withouta single tree in sight and blanketed by an ever-presentpall of pollution, we must remind ourselves just howbad those conditions were. A new city of bright,modern buildings sited amidst an infinite park-likelandscape with plenty of sun and clean, fresh air pre-sented a compelling vision of urban improvement.No wonder architects and planners wanted to oblit-erate those miserable conditions and the past thatcreated them!

A generation of gifted, younger designers educatedin Britain during the 1950s and 1960s were imbuedwith a passionate desire to serve society, and saw theirrole in remaking the physical environment of cities asa public service akin to the National Health Service.Already by 1950 more than 50 percent of architectswere employed in public service (Gold: p. 191). Earlyin the process of rebuilding war-torn Britain underthe auspices of the 1947 Town and Country PlanningAct, there were less than 1700 planners to staff 1400planning authorities! It was young, recently graduatedarchitects who eagerly filled many of the vacancies,bringing a strong three-dimensional design pers-pective to the new planning regimes (Gold: p. 190).Whatever else we say about them, we must give ourmodernist predecessors full credit for genuinehumanitarian and social concern.

The urban renewal process that dominated Anglo-American cities in the 1950s and 1960s was, broadly

speaking, a marriage of Le Corbusier’s tabula rasaapproach with single-function zoning. For severaldecades following World War II, professional think-ing about urban redevelopment was dominated bymodels of widely spaced towers rising in open spaceand tidy planning diagrams of colored zones that sepa-rated the different parts of city life into distinct spatialareas. Modernist theory was not primarily structuredaround the everyday lives of people and the spacesthey inhabited; instead it sought to change theseinformal patterns to others that were more orderlyand rational in physical and technical circumstances.The planning orthodoxy derived from the urbanvisions of Le Corbusier and Hilbersheimer was com-pelling in its abstract technical clarity, and that verystrength – the abstract spatial syntax and belief intechnical systems – contained the core of its demise.

This theory had to be experienced to understandfully the power and implications of its doctrine.During the 1960s and even later, architectural studentsin Britain were routinely taught to find little value inold patterns of urbanism. Le Corbusier’s famous dis-paragement of the street as an ‘oppressive trench’ and a‘donkey path’ was an oft-quoted dictum in design stu-dio (Le Corbusier, 1925, 1929). To the modernistpioneers in the early decades of the twentieth centurythe industrial city represented the values of old, cor-rupt Europe, and was seen as largely responsible for the poor living conditions of the working classes. Itselimination was considered a high priority. Little valuewas attached to older buildings or to existing urbanconfigurations; they were perceived as part of the prob-lem, not the solution. By the 1960s, the worst physicalconditions in British cities had been substantially erad-icated, but countless acres of old terraced housing stoodas silent witness to the industrial past that was fastdisappearing. To architects and planners alike, theseneighborhoods stood in the way of progress, and theircontinued demolition was a way to cleanse society ofthe residual evils of the industrial city. It didn’t reallymatter if the buildings and streets weren’t technicallyslums. It was sufficient that they were old and decaying.The possibility that they could be refurbished and theneighborhood brought back to life was not one thatstudents were encouraged to pursue.

The overwhelming sense that these old buildingshad no value extended into a general perception thatthe past itself held little merit for design profession-als. Historical thinking and the use of precedent wereintentionally divorced from the design process; intheir place newness and originality of form wereprized above all other attributes. One of the authors


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vividly remembers receiving high marks for a studentproject at architecture school in the mid-1960sproposing the complete physical destruction of anEnglish mining community of streets, houses andshops and its replacement by a series of tall hexagonaltowers in open landscape.

Two examples that illustrate the process of remak-ing the modernist city are found in Birmingham,England, and Charlotte, North Carolina, in the USA.As early as the mid-1950s British urban renewal, or‘comprehensive redevelopment’ programs in the cen-ter of cities like Birmingham demolished much of thehistoric core along with whole sections of the innercity. Though large new buildings gave the effect ofhigh density, these redevelopment schemes dramati-cally reduced the population by about half, fromabout 120 people per acre to 60 (300 persons perhectare down to 150). Birmingham urban designerJoe Holyoak witnessed this process firsthand in the1960s as a young architect:

The dense complexes of working class houses, fac-tories and workshops, corner shops and pubs,unrelieved by green spaces, built on loose grids ofstreets, pierced by canals and railways, were beingcomprehensively swept away. They were beingreplaced by a pattern which had elements both ofLe Corbusier’s geometric, high-rise Ville Radieuseand Parker and Unwin’s curvilinear, low-riseGarden Suburb. (Holyoak, 1993: p. 59)

Despite the abundance of Corbusian rhetoric enthu-siastically imported by city architects, this develop-ment pattern replaced only about half of the numberof dwellings. In Birmingham alone there was anexodus of nearly 50 000 working-class residents tonew suburbs and to expanded and new towns nearby(inelegantly referred to as ‘overspill’). With regard tothe new inner city housing, Holyoak reports thatthere was:

… plenty of evidence that the rehoused residents… were at first very pleased with their new condi-tions. They had modern homes with kitchens,bathrooms and central heating, modern schoolsfor their children to attend, and grass and treesabout them. But the losses were also being docu-mented in books such as Family and Kinship inEast London (Young and Willmott, 1992) and TheForgotten People by the Vicar of Ladywood (Power,1965), who described the changes taking placearound his (Birmingham) church. Of course, therewas simply the sudden, traumatic disappearance of

a familiar landscape. But there was also the break-up of complex kinship structures; the emergenceof single-class areas; the inconvenience caused bythe zoning of land uses, which eliminated suchthings as corner shops; and above all, the fragmen-tation of the community’s collective sense of itsown identity. (Holyoak: p. 60)

Holyoak reminds us that ‘distance lends enchantment,’and the nostalgia we feel when looking at oldphotographs of vanished neighborhoods must bebalanced by the memory of the physical poverty thatthese images also represented. Yet what speaks to usmost directly in old photographs of children playingin the street and housewives gossiping on the doorstepis the ‘quality of immediacy evident in the physicalenvironment’. Holyoak defines this as:

… the close juxtaposition of the private and publicrealms, with the private shaping the public, theconcentration of people together to produce asocial intimacy, and the close relationship of thosevarious places which form aspects of the same life –house, shops, pub, school, church and work.(Holyoak: p. 60)

Immediacy carried to excess can lead to overcrowding,as in the case in the industrial slums, but this feelingof shared togetherness in public space carried animportant component of neighborhood cohesion.The absence of this type of shared space where freshbonds of community could be nurtured in the newhousing areas fostered feelings of alienation amongfamilies only a few years after they moved into theirnew homes.

While Birmingham and other British cities weretearing down their old neighborhoods in the name ofprogress, American cities were pursuing their ownbrand of civic improvement by means of the wreckingball. Issues of racial and societal segregation in bothnations are too intricate to mention with any depthin the context of this book, but the struggle byAmerican blacks for equality and civil rights duringthe 1960s added an unavoidable racial dimension tothe intentions and process of urban demolition andslum clearance in American cities. Charlotte, NorthCarolina, in the American South was typical in thisregard.

Over the 25 years between 1949 and 1974, theAmerican Federal Urban Renewal Administrationprovided large sums of money to cities for ambitiousurban redevelopment. The federal program’s originalintention was to improve housing conditions for the


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urban poor by clearing slums and building newhomes. Cities used federal government money to clearaway decrepit neighborhoods and then sold the landto developers at bargain prices so the private sectorcould build affordable new dwellings. At least, thatwas the theory.

American mayors and their councils loved the pro-gram because it didn’t require them to spend muchlocal money. Developers also liked it, as they wereable to buy prime development land very cheaply. Itwasn’t long before lobbying by municipalities and thedevelopment industry persuaded Congress to expand(or loosen) the objectives of rehousing the poor toinclude other urban uses. During the 1950s, increas-ing amounts of land cleared of human shelter couldbe developed for non-residential (i.e. more profit-able) purposes.

North Carolina-based historian Tom Hanchettchronicled Charlotte’s actions during the urban renewalera in his book Sorting Out the New South City, inwhich he explains how and why Charlotte ‘… usedmore than $40 million in federal money to flatteninner city neighborhoods and replace them with glis-tening new developments’ (Hanchett: p. 249). Onearea in particular was the focus of these efforts,Brooklyn, a densely built black neighborhood inCharlotte’s Second Ward, immediately to the east ofthe central business district (see Figure 1.5). Takingadvantage of still looser federal guidelines thatallowed housing to be demolished for almost any usedeemed ‘better’ by the city, Charlotte’s business andpolitical leadership (they were essentially the samething) sent a fleet of bulldozers into the black neigh-borhood. Between 1960 and 1967, the city razedalmost every structure to the ground.

Local media heartily endorsed this demolition.The head of the Charlotte Redevelopment Authority,an urban administrator who had been hired awayfrom the city of Norfolk, in Virginia, was profiled ina Charlotte newspaper with an enthusiastic headline:‘Heart of Norfolk Blitzed in Urban Renewal.’ Thearticle stated approvingly, that ‘… this 250 year oldseaport has never been bombed by an intercontinen-tal ballistic missile, although it sometimes seems a lit-tle that way’ (Hanchett: p. 249). In Charlotte, asimilar orgy of demolition ‘… made no pretense atcreating better quarters for the residents. Not a singlenew housing unit went up to replace the 1480 struc-tures that fell to the bulldozer. Urban renewal dis-placed 1007 Brooklyn families’ (Hanchett: p. 250). Itwasn’t only homes that were destroyed, it was blackbusinesses, too. ‘The old district’s density and central

location had provided a warm environment for small shops … Urban renewal displaced 216 Brooklynbusinesses. Many never reopened’ (Hanchett: p. 250).Along with homes and businesses, the social fabric ofthe community was comprehensively dismantled.Churches, social clubs, the one black high school inCharlotte, the city’s only black public library were allpounded into rubble. An entirely self-sustainingcommunity was effectively wiped out (Rogers, 1996).

Having cleared the land, the city constructed a pala-tial government district with a high-rise city hall, newlaw courts and jails, and a showpiece park. Other devel-opment included sundry offices and a large church foran all-white congregation. The city widened streetsthroughout the area, providing easier access betweenthe city center and the wealthy white suburbs to theeast. The scale of the destruction differed dramaticallybetween black areas and others where the populationwas white. In white areas not far from the Brooklynneighborhood the city used much more restraint,demolishing only a few blocks here and there.

These blatant racial politics were not uncommonin American cities at that time, and certainly added


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Figure 1.5 The Brooklyn neighborhood, Charlotte,NC, USA, early 1950s. Every building in this African-American community but one or two on the urbanblocks in the fore and middle ground of this aerialview were demolished in the federally funded urbanrenewal programs of the 1960s. The area is nowdominated by extensive complexes of governmentbuildings, parking lots, and a large church with awhite congregation. A new plan has recently beencompleted that will, over time, restore part of theblock structure and promote mixed income housing.(Photo courtesy of the Charlotte Historic DistrictCommission)


extra complexities to the tasks of the architecturaland planning professionals that rarely existed in thework of their British counterparts. But even withoutthe race factor, it took a long while for these profes-sionals to appreciate the disparity between initiallygood intentions and terrible results. One reaction tothese urban injustices was a groundswell of radicalcommunity activism by younger designers. In America,‘advocacy planning’ opened a new revolutionaryparadigm of democratic populism for architects andplanners, with young professionals directly servingsmall community-based organizations from store-front offices. Using their expertise and idealism, theyhelped communities oppose government bureau-cracy, often by direct political confrontation ratherthan by alternative design work. In Britain a verysimilar phenomenon developed under the rubric‘community architecture’.

In graduate school in the late 1960s in England,one of the authors became immersed in communityarchitecture, and attempted to complete his urbandesign studies by means of community activism in anunderprivileged city neighborhood. His professorsinformed him that this kind of work did not consti-tute urban design; if he wanted to graduate, heshould get down to some ‘real design.’ Retiring hisactivism to evenings and weekends, the author dulyproduced a half-hearted urban megastructure thatobligingly obliterated the community to the liking ofhis professors. No questions were posed to him con-cerning the social consequences of the design.

This pedagogical slant was by no means unusual inBritish architectural schools of the period. In thiscontext, books that criticized modernist doctrine,such as Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of AmericanCities (1962) on a social and planning level, andGordon Cullen’s Townscape (1961), from an urbandesign perspective, were routinely dismissed as flawed.Jacobs’ book was belittled as being merely the writ-ings of someone who was not a designer and there-fore simply didn’t understand architecture andplanning. Her gender was also invoked as another rea-son to diminish her arguments. Even Lewis Mumford,a hero of progressive planning in the USA, belittledher ideas as ‘Mother Jacobs’ Home Remedies’ in ascathing review of the book in the New Yorkermagazine (Mumford, 1962).

Cullen’s work, based upon subjective visual experi-ence, was criticized on the grounds that it was too‘romantic’ and lacked scientific rigor. A similarcharge had been lodged by Le Corbusier in 1929against Camillo Sitte and his important book City

Building According to Artistic Principles published in1889. Sitte’s book was a closely researched effort toestablish an empirical basis for the aesthetics of publicspace in older European cities. Sitte focused on the sen-sory experience of being in a place, and documentedthe plans of hundreds of urban squares in an effort todistill some defining principles for a spatial order ofpragmatic irregularity rather than the ubiquitous rec-tangular geometries of nineteenth-century speculativeurban development.

However, for Le Corbusier irregularity was merelyromantic and shallow picturesqueness, something heconsidered a false ambition in urbanism. Writing in The City of Tomorrow, the young Swiss architectextolled the virtues of orthogonal planning in dogmaticopposition to Sitte’s carefully studied variety. In hisopinion, picturesqueness was ‘a pleasure which quicklybecomes boring if too frequently gratified,’ and that,by contrast, ‘the right angle is lawful, it is part of ourdeterminism, it is obligatory’ (Le Corbusier, 1929: pp. 210, 21). Le Corbusier admitted being initially‘subverted’ by Sitte’s ideas as a younger man beforereturning to the true path of reason. In the Forewordto The City of Tomorrow Le Corbusier wrote:

I read Camillo Sitte, the Viennese writer, and wasaffected by his insidious pleas in the direction ofpicturesque town planning. Sitte’s demonstrationswere clever, his theories seemed adequate; theywere based on the past, and in fact WERE thepast, but a sentimental past on a small and prettyscale, like the little wayside flowers. His past was not that of the great periods, it was essentiallyone of compromise. Sitte’s eloquence (turned)architecture away, in the most absurd fashion, fromits proper path … When in 1922 … I made mypanorama of a City of Three Million Inhabitants, I relied only on the paths of pure reason … .(Le Corbusier; 1929: p. xxv)

Despite decades of intellectual antipathy towardsexperiential urbanism, always dubbed picturesqueand romantic by its opponents, as if these were some-how irredeemably negative traits, the more human-istic ideas and the vocabulary of human-scaled spacescontained in that approach gradually began to winconverts among the design and planning professionsduring the early 1970s. In Britain, Garden City styleplanning had continued through the New Town pro-gram after World War II, and the environments inthese new ‘garden cities’ were much more popularwith the public than the architectural heroics ofurban redevelopment. The ‘picturesque’ revival


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reconnected with this venerable tradition to thebenefit of both camps. Architects and planners hadfinally built a bridge to span the chasm between pro-fessional theory and popular taste. This allianceformed a focus for the anti-modernist reaction thathad been building during the 1960s and 1970s.

ANTI-MODERNIST REACTIONS

The radical tactics of street demonstrations and vocalopposition to government plans employed by Britishcommunity architects and American advocacy plan-ners noted above was part of the anti-establishmentideological change in Europe and America during thelate 1960s and early 1970s. The young professionalswere reacting against the recent mistakes and omis-sions of urban policy and design in political ways, butthere were other, more intellectual critiques of mod-ernism emerging at the same time, ones that hadtheir roots in the 1950s. This lineage begins mostclearly with the work of a post-World War II genera-tion of young architects, most particularly those asso-ciated with the group known as Team 10.

This group was entrusted with the preparationsfor the tenth meeting of CIAM (the CongrèsInternationaux d’Architecture Moderne) that tookplace at Dubrovnik in 1956. At the core of this group,which took its name from the number of the CIAMconference, was a smaller circle of professionals whohad come together in Doorn, Holland in 1954 andset out a critique of CIAM doctrine from earlier con-ferences in the ‘Doorn Manifesto’ (Gold: p. 230).This group, comprising architects Aldo van Eyck,Peter Smithson, John Voelcker, Jacob Bakema andDaniel van Ginkel, together with a social economistHans Hovens-Greve, argued specifically that CIAM’soverly technical view of city functions failed to dealwith ‘human associations,’ or the social fabric thatsustained the city and its people.

CIAM’s doctrine about cities had been spelled outclearly in 1933, during the movement’s fourth con-ference, and in the celebrated Athens Charter, writ-ten largely under the auspices of Le Corbusier. TheCongress was only five-years old in 1933, havingbeen founded in 1928 at La Sarraz in Switzerland as ameans of propagating the agenda of modern architec-ture. Specifically, it sought to unite a series of dis-parate architectural experiments into an internationalmovement with common intentions and cohesionaround the building style that had emerged stronglythe previous year at the Weissenhoff exhibition.

As a relief from the political tensions in Europe,CIAM’s famous fourth conference was held aboardthe steamer S.S. Patris II as it sailed across theMediterranean from Athens to Marseilles. On board,elements of the most notable, one might say notoriousmanifesto of modern city design were formulated.The crusading document we know today as theAthens Charter is in fact a substantial and subsequentrewriting of CIAM IV’s original maritime proceedings.The mild-mannered technical language of the origi-nal notes, Les Annales Techniques, was transformed bya series of working groups, influenced heavily byLe Corbusier, into a hard-hitting, dogmatic mani-festo that eventually appeared in 1942 under LeCorbusier’s sole authorship (Gold, 1997).

The Charter narrowly defined the modern cityunder four main categories – Dwelling, Work,Recreation and Transportation – each with its dis-tinct location and urban form. A fifth heading brieflydiscussed historic buildings and suggested it wasappropriate to conserve buildings if they were trueremnants of the past. However, the tone of thedocument implied that no avant-garde architect orplanner associated with the modern movement couldor should allow these irrelevant past cultures to inter-fere with the grand work of making the new city.Absent from the text of the Charter was any mean-ingful discussion of the social, economic or architec-tural character of existing residential or mixed-useneighborhoods.

However, the Charter’s rhetoric was powerful, andits vision compelling in its distilled abstraction ofhuman functions. The urban ideas enshrined in thetext became guiding principles and doctrine formany architects and planners involved in rebuildingBritish and European cities after World War II. Butwhile many professionals in the new postwargeneration were persuaded by the promise of a crisp,clean technical future, others began to question thedoctrine. Radicals like those involved in the DoornManifesto quickly discerned an intellectual vacuumin postwar thinking about urban architectural andsocial issues. For example, all that could be said at CIAM VIII in 1951, structured around the themeof ‘The Urban Core,’ was that the center city itselfshould be designated as a functional zone, andinclude ‘open space’ to which citizens would bespontaneously attracted in some mysterious andunspecified fashion. It was becoming all too clearthat CIAM’s model of the Functional City had been formulated in ignorance of how cities actuallyworked.


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In opposition to these large-scale, technical andabstract generalizations, Team 10, which grew out ofthe Doorn group, proposed an urbanism that valued‘the personal, the particular and the precise’ (Banham,1963). In the words of Aldo van Eyck, one of Team10’s founders, ‘Whatever time and space mean, placeand occasion mean more’ (van Eyck, 1962: p. 27).The tenth conference in Dubrovnik in 1956 signaledthe end of CIAM as an organization and an intellec-tual force. But the power of the modernist view of thecity, with its single-use zones divided by major high-ways, and new large buildings constructed as singu-lar, unrelated objects in the open space laid bare bythe demolition of old neighborhoods, lasted foranother twenty years. It created the city we now fightto reform.

In contrast to the abstraction of city plans inspiredby Le Corbusier, the work of younger architects whocame to prominence in the 1950s through their asso-ciation with Team 10 demonstrated a concern toenrich modernism with a sense of social realism thatit lacked. The urban designs of one such architect,Ralph Erskine, revealed his special sensitivity tohuman behavior and community dynamics.

Erskine’s work in the northern British city ofNewcastle-upon-Tyne is particularly relevant to ourstory, as it provided a dramatic counterpoint to thegeneral set of values, assumptions and proceduresthat pertained to most British urban renewal pro-grams, and to a large degree in America also. Thebulk of city redevelopment in Britain during the1960s continued to follow an impersonal process ofslum clearance with old neighborhoods replaced bylarge-scale residential projects. In this bureaucraticprocess, homes were ‘housing units,’ and residentswere regarded as passive consumers and quantifiedmerely as numbers to be rehoused. There was little orno sense of partnership between city planners and thepublic, and the bureaucratic process often bred bitterconflict. Residents resented being forcibly rehoused,while paternalistic city architects and planners couldn’tunderstand why people weren’t grateful for theirefforts to provide them with newer, better accommo-dation. It wasn’t only young idealistic professionalswho waged a campaign to change the urban renewalprocess. Ralph Erskine, already a well-establishedarchitect, came to prominence in Britain for doingjust that.

Although born in Britain, Erskine had developed asa major architectural figure in his adopted homelandof Sweden, gaining a reputation for well-designedhousing schemes that were sensitively adapted to site,

climate and community. When Erskine was appointedarchitect for the massive Byker redevelopment projectin 1968, the Newcastle city authorities intentionallyembarked on a more progressive policy of urban rede-velopment, but it is doubtful whether they had anyreal inkling of where this appointment would lead.

What the Newcastle city fathers got for their goodintentions was a mini-revolution in urban redevelop-ment. Erskine stood the standard process on its head,involving the residents as partners and forging astrong bond between the community and the design-ers. Erskine’s partner, Vernon Gracie, lived on-site formany years during the rebuilding process in a flatabove the drawing office set up in an old corner store,previously a funeral parlor, which became as much acommunity resource space as a professional drawingoffice. In this program of urban redevelopment thatlasted for 14 years, Erskine and his team showedwhat could be done when urban designers took com-munity values seriously. Suddenly there was a realalternative to the standard urban renewal proceduresthat had devastated so many communities.

Erskine’s design team evolved a new process, andderived an architecture that was contemporary in itsdetails but which grew from an understanding ofthe traditional pedestrian scale of urban space (seeFigure 1.6). The architect author of this book wasprivileged to be associated with Erskine’s office in theearly 1970s, an experience that healed his damagedfaith in the profession of architecture, and invigoratedhis lifelong pursuit of democratic urban design.


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Figure 1.6 Housing at Byker, Newcastle-upon-Tyne,Ralph Erskine, 1968–82. Despite the fame of the BykerWall (seen in the background) most of the housingat Byker is two and three storeys organized aroundintimate urban spaces.


The significance of Byker was manifold but thefacts of its achievements have been eclipsed by itsmythology. The project was such a progressive andoptimistic counterpoint to ‘normal’ urban redevelop-ment at the time that the successes of Erskine’s pro-ject team were touted as panaceas for almost all urbanproblems. Apart from the successful design, the twomain accomplishments publicized by most commen-tators were citizen involvement in the rehousingprocess and in the retention of population in thecommunity. That the facts themselves demonstratesomething different takes little away from the effortsand achievements of the architects.

Apart from one preliminary exercise, residentswere not involved in detailed design decisions.Instead, their participation evolved to a more generallevel of forming strong bonds of trust between archi-tects and residents – to an extent unusual in any suchrelationship. Erskine wanted to elevate the residentsto the status of primary clients, but his contractualrelationship with the city, and the city’s complexbureaucracy made the task unfeasible. This led tosome ambiguity regarding Erskine’s ability to fulfillall his promises to the local people.

But there was no such doubt regarding the role thearchitects’ office played in the community. The oldcorner shop became an informal community resourcecenter. It was a focal place in the life of the neighbor-hood, where residents could obtain information andsee the designers of their community at work. Thislevel of mutual respect allowed the architects a rela-tively high level of freedom to interpret the commu-nity’s needs into three-dimensional forms and spaces.As shown in Figure 1.6, they developed an originalarchitectural language for the new buildings, havingmore to do with Erskine’s personal aesthetic thanlocal precedent, and created an intimate ‘jumble’ ofurban spaces instead of the long bleak streets.

Demolition of Byker’s housing stock began in1966, two years before Erskine’s appointment, andby 1969 the population had dropped from nearly 18 000 to 12 000. Normally, areas like Byker, covering81 hectares (202 acres) were demolished in one fellswoop. Residents were rehoused permanently inother parts of the city, and the web of communityconnections and relationships was destroyed, alongwith all physical traces of old buildings. Instead of thissoulless process, Erskine persuaded the Newcastle cityauthorities to clear away the old rows of ‘Tynesideflats’ on a much smaller scale, only a few streets at atime. This more selective schedule was intended tomesh with the phasing of rebuilding, so that residents

could be quickly rehoused in new dwellings. Erskineplanned to accommodate 9000 of the resident popu-lation in new homes at a density of 247 persons perhectare (100 per acre) – in American terms, about38 dwellings per acre. This was considerably lowerthan the original housing densities, but allowed alsofor 1.25 car parking spaces per dwelling. The cityauthorities expected the remaining few thousand res-idents to relocate elsewhere by their own choice.

Despite these good intentions, substantial construc-tion delays dislocated this intermeshing program ofdemolition and rebuilding, and toward the end of theproject the number of original residents rehousedwithin their community numbered nearer 5000(Malpass, 1979). Even though the architects did notachieve all their intended social goals, they did save andrefurbish several important community buildings,including schools, pubs and clubs. One of these, theShipley Street baths, was incorporated into the now-famous Byker Wall that bounds the northern edge ofthe community for a distance of one-and-a-half miles,dramatically following the topography (see Figure 1.7).

Erskine’s Byker redevelopment provided a viablealternative to standard planning procedures and thearchitectural vocabularies of British urban redevelop-ment. But other changes were in the works inBritain in the early 1970s. A book with the poignantlypolemic title Architecture versus Housing comprehen-sively cataloged the failings of modernist housinginitiatives, and provided a biting critique of bureau-cratic policies and insensitive designs (Pawley, 1971).Two years later, in 1973, the RIBA Journal published ashort article by Richard MacCormac entitled ‘Housingform and land use: new research,’ which demonstratedthat the desired densities of 250 persons per hectare(approximately 38 dwellings per acre in Americanterms) could be achieved by interlocking courts of ter-raced houses. All the homes had private gardens, andthe density targets were achieved without recourse tothe publicly despised high-rise flats. Built projectsusing MacCormac’s approach, such as Pollards Hill, inMerton, South London (1977), by the Borough ofMerton Architects’ Department, bear a strong resem-blance to the influential American plan of RadburnNew Town in New Jersey of 50 years earlier byClarence Stein and Henry Wright. In both cases, cul-de-sac vehicle courts bring cars to one side of thehouses which open up to parkland and pedestriangreenways on the other, all organized within a large‘superblock’ of major roads.

The extensive influence the design of Radburn hadupon subsequent developments is discussed further


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in Chapter 2, but for our narrative here it is impor-tant to observe its effect in other British public hous-ing schemes of the early to mid-1970s. Typical of thisdesign ethos, for example, are large residential areas inthe new town of Runcorn, outside Liverpool in north-west England. Here we can see clear Radburnesqueprinciples in the layouts of vehicle cul-de-sacs andpedestrian paths along greenways leading to localschools, bus stops, a day care nursery, an elderly per-sons’ home, community centers, and shopping areas.In contrast to the crisp white modern terraces ofPollards Hill, the neighborhoods of Palace Fields andThe Brow at Runcorn are built in a low-key brickand pitched roof aesthetic, a stripped-down vocabu-lary derived from traditional housing forms.

Vernacular imagery also provided the impetusbehind many other designs in the public and pri-vate sectors in the UK during the early 1970s.Housing schemes were designed once more usingtraditional streets and closes and an architecturethat specifically recalled the regional vernacular.Typical of this kind of development was OaklandsPark in Dawlish, a seaside town in the southwest ofEngland, designed by the now defunct firm ofMervyn Seal and Associates, where the architectauthor worked for part of that decade. Oaklands Parkdrew inspiration from the townscape examples ofGordon Cullen, combined with an appreciation ofthe local vernacular architecture found in the fishingvillages of southwest England. Although many archi-tects regarded this use of vernacular imagery as abetrayal of modernist ideals, ‘neo-vernacular’ housingperformed well in the marketplace, and before longearned professional recognition – in the case ofOaklands Park, by winning a national design awardfrom the British Department of the Environment(see Figures 4.13–4.15).

These pioneering projects of the early 1970s oftenmet official opposition from planners, but it was notlong before these very design principles and imagerybecame ensconced as the prevailing wisdom in localauthority design guides. The most famous of thesewas the pioneering Design Guide for Residential Areas,published by the County Council of Essex in 1973and discussed further in Chapter 3. A very clevervariant of this townscape-based approach – one thathas largely faded from professional memory – wasillustrated by Ivor de Wofle in the pages of theArchitectural Review in 1971, and published later thatyear as Civila: the End of Sub Urban Man.

This project created a vision for a new town onindustrial wasteland in the English midlands, and itstands out for a couple of reasons. First, it wasdesigned entirely in three-dimensional perspectivevignettes, comprising artfully composed photo-graphic collages of existing buildings. Second, Civilaincluded many ‘heroic’ modernist structures, butinstead of standing isolated in space, here they werejuxtaposed closely with their neighbors. As Figure 1.8illustrates, this created a dense urban fabric of almostmedieval complexity, but rendered without recourseto romantic or nostalgic urban imagery. But thispowerful polemic attempt to marry the spatial com-plexity of the townscape approach to urbanism withcontemporary architectural aesthetics – a poem to aninvigorated modernism – failed to affect Britishurban development proposals. At the very time of its


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Figure 1.7 The Byker Wall, Newcastle-upon-Tyne,Ralph Erskine. Designed originally to shield the low-rise housing from the noise of an urban motorwaythat was never built, the Byker Wall has become thedominant symbol and landmark of the Bykerredevelopment. It is mainly lived in by elderlyresidents who enjoy magnificent views across thevalley of the River Tyne.


publication, cities were becoming shaped less bypublic projects and more by privately financeddesigns. Private developers had little interest inpolemical positions, and chose instead to buildhousing of the most conservative and traditionalkind, dwellings that were guaranteed to sell in themarketplace.

This return to smaller scale, and more traditionaldevelopment led to an unexpected consequence inBritish inner cities – the suburbanization of the cen-ter during the 1980s. It was less a matter of density,which had already been substantially reduced by thetowers and slabs of urban renewal, and more a matterof image. The immediate origins of this change canbe found in the 1970s with substantial reductions inpublic home-building programs and the energy crisisof 1974, ‘which made inner urban areas more attrac-tive to the middle class’ (Holyoak: p. 60).

Private developers were quick to sense this oppor-tunity, and bought up land cheaply in the centralareas, either abandoned industrial sites or unlovedareas of the 1960s era housing, already severely dilap-idated. Developers, and the architects who workedfor them, did not share the high-style modernist aspi-rations of their public sector colleagues at City Hall.Instead, they had a range of house designs that soldwell in the suburbs and were economical to build. Itwas therefore easy for private builders to constructlarge numbers of these commercially popular butuninspired and low-density (by English standards)houses that made the suburbanization of inner cityareas complete. Combined with Britain’s growingpolitical conservatism during the 1980s, and

… the emphasis by the Thatcher government onplacing private and family interests above the col-lective, led to inner urban areas coming to lookmore like slightly compressed versions of the sub-urbs; rows of neovernacular two storey houses,each with a small front garden with a car parkingspace, but with little in the way of communalresources – house production rather than citybuilding’ (Holyoak: p. 62). (See Figure 1.9.)

The 1980s found British cities without a coherentstrategy for revitalization, with neither the privatenor the public sectors being able to grapple effectivelywith the problem on their own. One governmentresponse during the Thatcher years was to diminish,or in the case of the Greater London Council, destroythe power local authorities had over development in


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Figure 1.8 The ‘Town Wall’ in Civilia, an imaginarycity on reclaimed land in the English midlands, 1971.Traditional townscape is constructed from modernistbuildings. (Photo-collage courtesy of TheArchitectural Press)

Figure 1.9 Suburban house designs in the inner city;Birmingham, UK, 1980s.


their areas. New fast-track ‘Enterprise Zones’ were setup in decayed central city areas, such as the LondonDocklands, to lure private investment with the guar-antee of minimal interference from local govern-ment. The successes and failures of these initiativesduring the 1980s are discussed in more detail inChapter 5, but one major reaction to their perceivedAmerican-style imbalance of private power over pub-lic interest has been the development of much moreproactive local planning and design initiatives inBritish cities during the 1990s. During the lastdecade of the twentieth century, this reversion of pol-icy has connected with consciously traditional typesof urban forms and patterns in cities, involving mix-tures of uses, pedestrian scale and spatial enclosure(see Figure 1.10).

Similar renewed interest in traditional urban val-ues, patterns and imagery was evident in Americaduring the 1980s. Beginning in that decade, the

urban form of the traditional European city enjoyeda renaissance in American architecture and urbanism,especially in American academia, through the influ-ential writings of people like Christopher Alexanderat Berkeley (Alexander, 1977, 1987), and MichaelDennis and Colin Rowe at Cornell (Rowe andKoetter, 1978; Dennis, 1981). From that timeonward, the work of Aldo Rossi and the Italian Neo-Rationalists became better known to students, andEuropean theorists like Leon Krier began to influencea new generation of younger architects. Among thesewere Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, thetwo people most often credited with initiating themovement that became known in America as NewUrbanism.

The volumes of existing material about Seaside, theDuany and Plater-Zyberk landmark project in theFlorida panhandle, make it unnecessary to add tothat body of literature which has charted the 1982design’s progress from an affordable alternative com-munity to a fantasy playground for the consciouslycute upper-middle class (Krieger and Lennertz, 1991;Mohney and Easterling, 1991; Brooke, 1995;Sexton, 1995). It is a strange and wonderful place,but Seaside has been over-hyped to the point thatit has become the victim of its own success. Thealternative urbanism that Seaside offered has spawneddozens of second- and third-rate imitations as devel-opers and architects copied superficial details withoutunderstanding the deeper philosophy. Its idiosyncrat-ically romantic appearance has been parodied in amyriad of developments to the extent that NewUrbanism itself is often misconstrued in the public’smind as comprising merely picket fences and frontporches (see Figure 1.11).

Seaside is such a particular place that it is now oflittle use as a precedent for everyday design in moretypical American communities, but there is nodoubt that this small development on Florida’s Gulfcoast struck the important first blow in America’sbattle against conventional suburbia. However, amore important contribution to reordering thesuburbs was Duany and Plater-Zyberk’s innovativeexample of using graphic codes as the primary meansof development control. In the context of ever morecumbersome American zoning books of dense anddull verbiage, the crisp and elegant depiction of therules regarding building arrangement, street designand appropriate uses was a revelation. We discussthis important issue further in Chapter 5.

Seaside started a whole reappraisal of what was possibleto build in America’s suburbs, and began the movement


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Figure 1.10 Modern versions of traditional urbanforms; Gloucester Green market square, Oxford, UK,1987–90.


initially known as Neo-Traditional Development orTraditional Neighbourhood Development (TND). Aswe discuss in detail in Chapter 3, the co-mingling ofDuany and Plater-Zyberk’s TND on the east coast withPeter Calthorpe’s experiments with ‘pedestrianpockets,’ or Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) onthe west coast in the late 1980s gave rise to themovement now known as New Urbanism in 1993. Inthe subsequent 10 years, these once radical ideas aboutcity and suburban design have gained considerableacceptance in the development community. However,many battles remain to be fought; it is still much easier in America to produce standard suburbansprawl than to create sustainable mixed-use urbancommunities.

In academia, it was New Urbanism’s historicist lean-ings that engendered a negative reaction in manyAmerican schools of architecture. The return to tradi-tional types of urbanism came under challenge fromacademic architects who saw this reversion to tradi-tionalism as a retreat from the high intellectual groundof modernity, or the convoluted games of postmoder-nity, into the reactionary romance of nostalgia.Moreover, professors at prestigious architectural insti-tutions found it uncomfortable, even demeaning, tobe associated with ideas that were gaining currency inthe ‘soiled’ world of the marketplace. But moreimportant than this American squabble, the rele-vance of traditional urbanism was challenged by rev-olutionary developments in another sphere – ininformation technology. The creation of ‘virtual’

space on the Internet as a competitor to ‘real’ space incommunities poses new challenges and dilemmas forour society, and for the professions of architectureand planning. It is to that conflict of paradigms thatwe must now direct our attention.

REAL PLACES AND VIRTUALCOMMUNITIES

This technological challenge to traditional urbanspace is not the first one in the history of the moderncity. For an earlier example we have to return brieflyto the 1960s, when the dispersed scale of the newautomobile landscape in America threatened to makethe traditional city obsolete. Even in Britain during the1960s, proponents of picturesque urban design, thekind so neatly captured in Gordon Cullen’s bookTownscape, were still in the minority. This approachto the design of pedestrian-friendly urban spacesremained alive in Britain in only a very watered downmanner in the layout of several postwar New Towns.In America, similar design principles that had beencharacteristic of that country’s Romantic GardenSuburbs of the 1890s through the 1920s all but dis-appeared in the decades after World War II.

Designers like Cullen stayed focused on thesekinds of urban spaces because they believed theycould foster a sense of community and belongingthat was demonstrably absent in the voids betweenthe towers and slabs of high-rise housing and in the


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Figure 1.11 Seaside, Florida, Duany and Plater-Zyberk, 1982. This modest development became the posterchild of traditional urbanism, but soon became the victim of its own success with escalating house prices,fostering the (unfair) image of New Urbanism as the exclusive province of an elite middle class.


dull repetition of developer-produced suburbia. Theplacelessness of modernist cities and suburbs wascritiqued more savagely by commentators like IanNairn, who, starting in the 1950s, routinely castigatedexamples of miserable civic design in a regular columnin the Architectural Review entitled ‘Outrage,’ andextended this argument into the books Outrage andCounter-attack against Subtopia (Nairn, 1955, 1957).More often than not these bad examples were in sub-urban situations that Nairn and others felt lacked anysense of cohesion or traditional urbanity. Cullen’sbeautifully illustrated book dealt with the same sub-ject matter, but its message pushed architects moregently towards a re-appreciation of traditional spacesand city textures and this concern blended easily withJane Jacobs’ American praise for the traditionalstreets of her New York urban neighborhood.

But at the very time in the early to mid-1960s,that some architects and urbanists were retracingtheir steps toward the traditional city, progressiveplanners began to challenge these concepts as out-moded and unrealistic in the new culture based onexpanded personal mobility and the automobile. Notsurprisingly this challenge came from America,where, in 1963 and 1964, the academic plannerMelvin Webber from Berkeley, California, wrote twoinfluential articles entitled Order in Diversity:Community without Propinquity and The Urban Placeand the Nonplace Urban Realm, in which he rejectedmodels of the city based on traditional spatial pat-terns. Webber and others argued that it was a mistaketo critique the expanding city as shapeless sprawl, andto long for traditional streets and squares, becausethis missed the point that the car had changed therelationship between space and time in cities. Peoplenow conceptualized distance not in miles, but inminutes, based on the time it took to drive to theirdestinations. Propinquity, being near everything oneneeded, was no longer a necessity for mobile families.Instead of defined physical places in the traditionaltownscape sense of spatial enclosure and walking dis-tances, the new city was based on a pattern of disper-sal, where individuals and families constructed theirsense of the city from a series of physically discontin-uous locations, connected only by driving. The citywas no longer experienced as an integrated hierarchyof places and neighborhoods. Instead it became anon-hierarchical network where locations wereequalized by their accessibility by car.

Webber’s argument that the automobile wouldrelease people from the ties that bound them to partic-ular places, and open up new possibilities of mobility

and connections with a wide variety of locations, coin-cided with the explosive growth of American suburbandevelopment in the 1950s and 1960s. New housingsubdivisions, shopping centers and office parks werebuilt on open land with few spatial constraints, andconnected by the ubiquitous system of what were thenhigh-speed commuter freeways. The real point ofWebber’s thesis, however, was not simply that it waspossible to move around easily to lots of differentplaces, or that a new architecture could evolve fromthe technologies of movement, but that at a deep, fun-damental level, place didn’t matter anymore. Instead ofcommunity being grounded in a particular location, anew pattern of social relationships could be createdfrom weaving together the disparate strands of dailylife from a variety of generic locations. In this context,argued Webber and other academic planners, tradi-tional urban forms were simply irrelevant.

In Britain, the Archigram movement of the 1960sand 1970s extended this thesis with inspiring imagesof ‘walking cities’ that carried everything needed tosustain life and culture in their famously massivetortoise-like forms. A few years later, the same groupproposed a contradictory ‘soft’ architecture that placedmore emphasis on fast-changing technical systems thatcould ‘plug in’ to any existing building situation andprovide environmental and cultural services that couldenrich all locations. The place didn’t matter, and thecharacter of the buildings in any location was immate-rial. Drawing on a unique blend of science fiction andscience fact, Archigram elaborated the theme thattechnology can render geographic location unimpor-tant by supplying all necessary support systems with-out primary recourse to the natural or urban worlds.

This shifting equation between propinquity andaccessibility has remained a central issue for archi-tects, planners, geographers and cultural critics(Sennett, 1971, 1974; Castells, 1989, 1997; Harvey,1989; Soja, 1989; Jameson, 1991; Howell, 1993;Watson and Gibson, 1995; Mitchell, 1995, 1999).Many have expounded at length on this dilemma,offering various interpretations regarding the urbanpolitics of power and place. For Webber and his col-leagues forty years ago, the issue was originally one ofnew equations between physical distance and ease ofpersonal travel, but the information technology revo-lution of the 1990s has radically changed the parame-ters of the discussion.

Webber, Archigram, and many other designers,planners, and critics reordered physical space relativeto new technologies, but real space was still themedium of human discourse. Proponents of our new


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digital society have argued that our computer-richculture, redolent with electronic spaces, has super-seded all such discussions (Mitchell, 1995; Kelly,1998; Gilder 2000 and others). The virtual spaces ofthe Internet, available to everyone with a computer,have brought Marshall McLuhan’s ‘global village’ tofruition. Some even suggest that traditional commu-nity life is obsolete, and that virtual space will replacephysical space as the primary medium of personal,commercial and cultural dialogue. The ‘electronic cot-tage’ in the wilderness is now a reality, and infor-mation technology, these same critics argue, hasrendered traditional urban places obsolete at an evenmore fundamental level than Webber predicted. Oncemore the street is under attack. Michael Dear goes sofar as to say that ‘the phone and the modem have ren-dered the street irrelevant’ (Dear, 1995: p. 31).

As designers of physical, inhabited space, manyarchitects are naturally loath to accept this conjec-ture, preferring to investigate the writings of authorswho offer an alternative conclusion: in a society thatenables us to live and work anywhere we like, theplaces we choose to inhabit become all the moreprecious and important.

The first argument against the dispersal and ‘deathof place’ scenario is that commerce still clusters. Whileroutine office work in the service sector has beenfarmed out to towns all across America, and to citiesin developing countries, companies in key innovativebusiness sectors such as information technology,design, financial services, law and health care operatedifferently. They tend to concentrate their operationsin certain key places – Manhattan, Chicago, the SanFrancisco Bay Area, Austin Texas, Boston or Seattle,to name just a few. This phenomenon has given rise towhat is referred to as the ‘human capital theory’ ofeconomic and urban growth.

Simply stated, the theory of human capital arguesthat traditional reasons for city growth – locationnear natural resources or convenient transportationroutes – no longer apply. Now, the crucial factor forfuture economic development is the human resourceof highly educated and productive people, not the conventional wisdom of reducing the costs ofdoing business by making and transporting things as cheaply as possible. A leading proponent of thehuman capital theory, Joel Kotkin, suggests thatthrough this new lens, wealth will accumulate wher-ever ‘intelligence clusters’ evolve, whether this is a bigcity or a small town (Kotkin, 2001, in Florida, 2002:p. 221). Other notable economists such as RobertLucas and Edward Glaeser show in their research that

human capital – groupings of creative, productive,original innovators and problem solvers – is the mainimpetus of urban development and wealth creation(Florida: p. 222).

Author Richard Florida takes this well-establishedpremise one stage further in his book The Rise of theCreative Class, where he notes that many experts onurban and regional growth have emphasized theimportance of places as incubators of creativity andnew industries (Florida: p. 219). Contrary to expec-tations, the New Economy that was supposed todestroy place and render cities obsolete, increasinglymakes place more relevant by clustering activitiesaround real concentrations of people in real places.The question posed by Florida is not whether com-panies cluster, but why do they cluster in some loca-tions and not others? What role does physical placeplay in this process?

Florida’s research strongly suggests that companieslocate in close proximity to one another to recruitfrom concentrations of talented people who spur inno-vation and create economic growth (Florida: p. 220). Unlike their parents and grandparents, cre-ative people today don’t simply settle where the jobsare. They gather in places they like to live and whichare centers of creativity in themselves. Creative peoplelook for places where they can make friends easily, findacceptance of diverse lifestyles, enjoy a wide variety ofrecreation and entertainment and live productive andstimulating lives.

Florida’s ‘creative class’ comprised 30 percent ofAmerica’s workforce in 2002. They are scientists,computer professionals and programmers, architects,engineers and graphic and product designers,entrepreneurs, educators, artists, musicians and enter-tainers. Around this core clusters a broader group ofother creative professionals in business and finance,law and health care. It is this 30 percent of America’sworkforce, Florida concludes, that will provide theenergy and talent to power the next generation of eco-nomic growth and wealth creation.

In essence, the informal, flexible, and intensivework habits of people like the authors – professors/architect/artist/writers – have moved from what usedto be the fringes of the marketplace into the eco-nomic mainstream. These workplace characteristicscontrast with those of the tightly organized corporateprofessionals of yesterday, and Florida’s thesis issupported by the latest research into workplacetrends. English architect-author Frank Duffy, a worldauthority on office design, predicts that the days ofthe large-scale corporate headquarters are numbered.


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In their stead are new innovative types of office envi-ronment based on more flexible work patterns thatsuit creative professionals (Duffy, 1997).

The members of this new creative class are drawnto places that offer a range of economic opportuni-ties, a stimulating environment, and amenities forpeople with diverse lifestyles. In America, suchplaces as Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts;Seattle; San Francisco; Austin; Boulder, Colorado;Gainesville, Florida and Santa Fe, New Mexico pro-vide the stimulation, diversity and richness of experi-ence desired by these creative people (Florida: p. 11).Generic suburbia, bland at best, alienating at worst,cannot meet these requirements. Creative profession-als prefer communities that have a distinctive charac-ter, diversity, are accepting of difference, and thatoffer lifestyle options. Such attributes are nurtured bythe quality and attractiveness of physical places – alively street scene, an arts district, a thriving musicscene and older neighborhoods with interesting andunique buildings.

The relationship of this theory of the ‘creativeclass’ to urban form is amplified by the research ofRay Oldenburg, whose book A Great Good Placedocuments the role of ‘third places’ in modern soci-ety. Home and work are the first two places, andthe third comprises venues like bookstores, cafésand coffee shops which support a community’ssocial vitality, and where a ‘stranger feels at home’(Oldenburg: p. xxviii). These informal gatheringspots amplify and extend the communal space of thestreet, and provide relief from patterns of focusedwork or a single lifestyle and provide a setting forgroup gatherings.

Such places work best as part of a walkable neigh-borhood, and this book was written in one suchsetting, in a space cleared from canvasses in the frontroom of a two-room painting studio on the secondfloor of an old brick building. Beneath us are a pic-ture framing shop and a beauty salon. Next door is adigital animation studio over an art gallery, and a cof-fee shop. A few yards up the street is a one-person carrepair business. Across the street are the studios of anartists’ cooperative, the offices of Charlotte’s weeklyAfrican-American newspaper, the premises of areplacement window company, a second-hand busi-ness furniture showroom, and a funky restaurant.Beyond the new light rail tracks outside our windowstands a block of recently constructed apartmentsand small offices for architects, financial advisors,and interior decorators opposite some older buildingscontaining an antique store.

More apartments are under construction on thenext block, adjacent to the neighborhood friedchicken take-away restaurant, and at the south end ofthe street a cluster of converted warehouses are hometo several design firms, including UNC-Charlotte’sCommunity Design Studio. One block to the eastand north are more restaurants, bars and offices, twolarge apartment complexes, two more thriving carrepair businesses and a barbed wire compound withsecondhand cars for sale. Our street is slowly evolvinginto the ‘Main Street’ of a new urban village with adiverse population, and we frequently take breaksand drop into the coffee shop just to chat, see ourneighbors, meet our students, chat to strangers or toread over what we’ve just written. At the end of theday, we can stride half-a-mile up the sidewalk by therail line to the gym to work out, or walk a leisurelyseven blocks to home. This predilection for neigh-borhood and community doesn’t mean that we abhorvirtual space. On the contrary, we are connected tothe Internet as we write, and we communicate thedaily trivia of our lives on our mobile phones. Thepoint is, we could do this anywhere, but we choose todo it in an attractive urban place (see Figure 1.12).

This vignette is increasingly typical of developingneighborhoods, and we feel lucky to be part of onesuch special place. Contrary to Melvin Webber’s the-sis of the 1960s that place doesn’t matter any more,and the predictions of techno-futurists that ‘geogra-phy is dead,’ research increasingly demonstrates theopposite: place itself is fast becoming the main organ-izing feature of economic activity. Even while arguingthat electronic space is more important than physical


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Figure 1.12 Camden Road, Charlotte, NC. At theheart of an evolving urban neighborhood, the streetoutside the authors’ studio is occasionally taken overby an arts and crafts market.


place, Kevin Kelly, a leading prophet of the ‘geographyis dead’ theme, qualifies this assertion by admittingthat distinctive places retain their value, and that thisvalue will increase despite the non-spatial dimension ofinformation technology (Kelly: pp. 94–5, in Florida:p. 219).

Given their flexible and unpredictable work sched-ules, creative professionals require access to recre-ational and entertainment opportunities at a moment’snotice (see Figure 1.13). They increasingly act ‘liketourists in their own city’ (Lloyd and Clark, 2001, inFlorida: p. 225) and require amenities close at hand,within walking distance if possible. There is only onekind of urbanism that can meet this need: the tradi-tional public spaces of street and square, park andboulevard.

At an urban design conference in Melbourne,Australia, in 2001, author Joel Garreau, best known

for his seminal book Edge City, noted that cities arechanging faster today than at any time for 150 years,and that computers are reshaping our urban world tofavor places that provide and nourish face-to-face con-tact. Garreau expressed his belief that the urban futurecould ‘look like the eighteenth century, only cooler.’Edge cities and downtowns ‘that are sterile andcharmless will die.’ In common with the observationsof Richard Florida, Garreau believes the primary pur-pose of future cities will be to provide optimum con-ditions for face-to-face contact, an ancient but stillprimary human need (Garreau, 2001). In this con-text, good urban design and traditional public spaceare crucial in providing the appropriate environmentfor these human activities. We would go so far as tosay that New Urbanism in America, derided by oppo-nents in academia as a reactionary, nostalgic move-ment, in fact provides the best opportunity to createthe urbanity necessary for the creative class – and ulti-mately the rest of us – to function fruitfully. Othercritics mock this search for a more walkable urbanfuture as the ‘café society’ and often dub such effortsat community building as ‘latté towns.’ These com-mentators, pontif icating from the sidelines, see suchurban villages only as the commodif ication of urbanexperience, reducing the richness of public life tomere spectacle and entertainment courtesy ofStarbucks, The Gap, Victoria’s Secret and Williams-Sonoma. We’re well aware of these dangers in newlyminted developments of the type we’ll discuss later inmore detail, but even so, we beg to differ. In contrastto our critics, we believe the (re)creation of traditionalurban places offers the best hope of a sustainableurban future for America’s cities and suburbs.

As witness to this belief, a symposium entitled‘Thinking Creatively For Our Economic Future’ fea-turing Richard Florida at the University of NorthCarolina at Charlotte in April 2003, brought togethernearly two hundred people from the Charlotte regionto brainstorm ideas that would increase the economiccompetitiveness for the city and surrounding coun-ties in the global marketplace. There were only ahandful of design professionals in the audience, butof all the dozens of innovative ideas discussed, the toprecommendation of the day by a large margin was thecreation of new urban spaces and public places wherepeople could connect with each other and thus spurthe creation of ideas. This strategy is called ‘designingfor collisions,’ and we think of this by a simple anal-ogy of molecules bumping into each other and cre-ating reactions. The more molecules that bumparound in a space the more creative collisions occur,


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Figure 1.13 Working in a beautiful urban place.An anonymous worker telecommutes with mobile phone and laptop from the quayside in Dartmouth, Devon. When we can work anywhere, we’re likely to choose a beautiful place.


resulting in yet more innovative encounters. Thiscreative energy is precisely the opposite of the passiveconsumer culture portrayed by several critics of tradi-tional urbanism (Kaliski, 1999; McDougall, 1999).The greater the density of occupation, and the moreeclectic the mixture of uses in the neighborhoodsaround the public space, the higher will be the energyquotient and the greater the potential for economicdevelopment.

We dispute the often-made assertion that some-how, the urban life in these places isn’t authentic, andthat the only valid, creative urban activities take placein marginalized neighborhoods amidst nondescriptsurroundings (Chase et al., 1999). While every cityneeds unloved and unlovely places that can be appro-priated cheaply, or at no cost, for unprogrammeduses by individuals and groups outside the main-stream, there is a major inconsistency in academicefforts to glorify these acts as somehow more pro-found or better than actions taken in public space bythe middle classes. Appropriating urban space for

culturally specific activities by individuals and groupsof all complexions is a valid endeavor, and needs tobe facilitated wherever possible – even at the expenseof social discomfort, as in protest rallies and demon-strations. A culturally diverse city needs differentplaces for different activities, but for critics to dispar-age the business meetings, local commerce, sponta-neous conversations, and kids’ homework activitiesin places like our local coffee shop as mere ‘simula-tion’ of urbanism is nonsense. Authentic cultural pro-duction can take place in attractive surroundings aswell as in abandoned parking lots.

We expand on this theme in Chapters 3, 4 and 6,and on the relevance of ‘urban village’ type develop-ment in Britain and America. We believe stronglythat such mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods reallycan become the inclusive crucibles of creativity, sus-tainability and economic development in an increas-ingly uncertain global environment. In our attemptto ‘think globally,’ we design towns and cities locally,street by street and block by block.


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SYNOPSIS

In America, the main battles for a sustainable urbanfuture will be fought in the suburbs, as they pose themost difficult political terrain for design and environ-mental improvement. Accordingly, a large part of thischapter is devoted to untangling the interwovenstrands of suburban history and their influence onpresent-day practice. The nineteenth century wit-nessed a lot of cross-reference between suburbandevelopment in Britain and America, and we reviewthis history in some detail to counter a prevailingAmerican misconception of the suburb as a particu-larly American (and twentieth-century) phenomenon.

Suburbs developed first in eighteenth-centuryEngland and the story of their origin and develop-ment there and in America – first as a companion andlater as a rival to the city – is a complex one. Itincludes many diverse sources of aesthetic inspirationand many influences from the socio-economic condi-tions and cultural values of various periods of Anglo-American history since the beginnings of theIndustrial Revolution. Within this elaborate tale areimportant reminders and examples that can help usunderstand our present condition. Moreover, illumi-nated by our renewed appreciation of the relevance oftraditional forms of urbanism to contemporary citiesand suburbs, this history contains vital precedents forour most advanced urban thinking today.

Since World War II, suburbs in America have devel-oped in a somewhat different pattern from those inGreat Britain, due in part to different cultural attitudesabout the development of private property andrestrictions on suburban growth. Whereas Britainpracticed (more or less) a policy of containment andgreen belt preservation around towns and cities,

America countenanced no such restrictions, and whatbegan in the 1950s as an optimistic search for a conve-nient, affordable, drive-in utopia, turned during the1990s into a conflicted landscape of polarized opinionabout the burdens of growth – sprawl, congestion, pol-lution and loss of open space. The second part of thechapter examines this devolution of the American envi-ronment from the positive connotations of ‘suburb’ tothe negative image of ‘sprawl.’ The problems associatedwith spread-out, low-density development have led inAmerica to the rise of the ‘Smart Growth’ movement,an important factor that we shall examine in Chapter 3.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE ANGLO-AMERICAN SUBURB

We ended the previous chapter by referring, rathergrandly, to New Urbanism, and traditional urbanismin general, as the best hope for a sustainable future.Our conviction that New Urbanism does offer anopportunity to achieve Smart Growth from bothenvironmental and economic perspectives, is deeplycolored by the American experience of uncontrolledsuburban sprawl and the abandonment of traditionalurbanism during the decades from 1950 through the1980s. Areas of many British cities suffered similarfates at the hands of well-intentioned architects andplanners during the period of urban renewal in the1950s to early 1970s, but the urban form of Britishcities didn’t disintegrate the way it did in post-WorldWar II America. While traditional urban forms werethreatened in the UK, they were never completelyrejected. In America they all but died on the vine.

The application of modernist doctrine throughthe process of urban demolition and rebuilding

2Cities, suburbs and sprawl



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certainly contributed to the decline of urban form inAmerica, but even more destructive was the emer-gence of a completely car-dominated culture. Theautomobile, a powerful instrument of convenience,demanded easy access to such an extent that develop-ers, planners, and architects allowed its needs tooverride almost every other consideration of urbanspace and building design. Designing for the car con-tributed to the decline of urban form in city centers ascountless buildings were demolished for parking lots,a practice facilitated by American property tax laws.

Land is generally taxed in America according to its‘highest and best use’. If a building sits on a parcel ofland, the property owner pays taxes based on theproductive use of that structure, whether occupied ornot. If the owner demolishes the building, his or hertax bill drops quite dramatically: now the best use forthe land is only a car park, and it’s taxed at a lowerrate. Add to this saving a steady income from parkingfees, and the property owner has a substantial incen-tive for demolition. The loss of older buildings in thismanner has reduced many American city centers tothe ubiquitous but arid formula of a cluster of officetowers surrounded by oceans of asphalt parking lots(see Figure 2.1).

In suburban America the process was, and remains,just as stark. Since the 1950s the placement ofcommercial buildings has been dictated by a simple

formula: buildings were set way back from the streetto make room for large, asphalt car parks in front,and without buildings close to the street to advertisethemselves, large signs were positioned at the curb tocatch the eye of the passing customer. The building atthe back of the site became nothing but a blank boxfor commerce (it didn’t need windows to lure pedes-trian shoppers) and simply draped itself with anotherlarge sign or gaudy fake façade to guide the shoppersto the entrance. It was a singular recipe for con-venience that gave little or no thought to larger issuesof community aesthetics or pedestrian space.

Architects largely ignored this commercial strip as apopulist environment that offered no scope for theirdesign talents, and which, moreover, was beneath theirprofessional dignity. It wasn’t until 1972 that RobertVenturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour star-tled the profession into reconsidering the suburbanenvironment with their book Learning from Las Vegas,(as we shall discuss further in Chapter 3), and eventhen there was little positive response from architectsfor another decade.

Planners were similarly ineffectual. They createdgeneric zoning plans and regulations that dealtwith land purely as a commodity rather than aneco-system, and regulated site layouts purely for theconvenience of automobile traffic. It was as if IanMcHarg’s treatise Design with Nature had never beenwritten, and America’s fine tradition of urbanism hadnever existed. Having painted broad brush categoriesof land use across the map, planners then spent mostof their time administering petty details of entrancedrives and landscape buffers. Neither profession waslooking at the patterns and character of suburbandevelopment from an urban design or environmentalperspective.

In defense of architects and planners, the pace andextent of this suburban growth in America in thedecades after the end of World War II was over-whelming. It was difficult for anybody to get a graspof the extent of the production of new suburbs.Growth was so dramatic and intense that a clearunderstanding of its causes and precedents was hardto come by in the midst of all the activity. Very fewpeople thought that history had much relevance, butthey were wrong.

The urge to live in the suburbs has a long history.Two thousand years ago, when the villa suburbanawas the residence of choice for the Roman elite wholived on large country estates outside the city, sub-urban living already carried a distinguished pedigree.The Latin word, suburbanus, meaning ‘near the city,’

Figure 2.1 Office towers and adjacent surfaceparking lots, Charlotte, NC, 2003. In a new plan forthis part of the city, this area is being reclaimed tobecome a two-block park over four levels ofunderground parking. The park will be framed withmid-rise housing, offices and shops. A new light railline is being constructed immediately adjacent tothis area.


CHAPTER TWO ● CITIES, SUBURBS AND SPRAWL

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provides the etymological definition, but we cantrace the history of suburban retreats for wealthycitizenry even farther back, to sixth century BC

Babylon. However, it was during the Middle Ages inEurope that extensive suburban settlements accruedaround most cities, often in poor areas outside citywalls where inhabitants were unable to avail them-selves of city services and protection. At this time the sense of ‘suburban’ changed; a definition inthe Shorter Oxford English Dictionary shows that as late as 1817, ‘suburban’ meant ‘having inferiormanners, the narrowness of view attributed to residentsin suburbs’. Another dictionary definition deflates thesuburb as ‘a place of inferior, debased, and especiallylicentious habits of life’. In contrast, ‘urbane’ retainsits meaning of being sophisticated, refined andelegant.

The more immediate origins of modern suburbialie in the late eighteenth century at the beginning ofthe Industrial Revolution, in the countryside to thesouth of London. This new development marked areturn to the original, positive connotations of livingoutside the city. Elite merchants in the British capital,echoing the Roman tradition, conceived the notionof a rural preserve where families could escape theincreased congestion and pollution resulting fromthe early stages of London’s transformation to anindustrial metropolis. From these beginnings, thephysical and social form of the suburbs evolved underthe impetus of transportation technologies, and dur-ing the latter half of the nineteenth century tramsand urban railways extended the suburbs into a literaland metaphoric ‘middle landscape’ between city andcountry for the wider middle class.

We shall examine the development of the modernsuburb in Britain and America around three themes.The first traces the development of the suburb as anelement of the changing form and patterns of thecity, due in large part to rapid developments in trans-portation technology and other technical advances ofthe Industrial Revolution. This technical capacity forurban expansion combined with the opportunitiesfor developers to make large profits on the conversionof cheap rural land to urban uses, thus acceleratingthe trend. The second theme focuses on the upsurgeof a new ‘romantic’ aesthetic that gripped the public’simagination; and the third concerns changes in thevalues and structure of family life during the lateeighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Together, theseforces engineered a revolution in the whole metro-politan structure, and in the relationships betweencity and countryside.

In divergence to the unflattering definitions of anearlier time, during the late eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries the term suburbia came to mean ahigh-quality, low-density environment characterizedby a preponderance of single-family middle-classhomes in a park-like setting. It excluded industry,most commerce, and all lower classes except forservants. In contrast to this exclusivity, the core of theeighteenth-century city comprised a dense mixture ofuses and classes. A basic principle of a city likeLondon, and the early American settlements in theBritish colonies along the eastern seaboard, was thatwork and home were naturally combined within eachhouse, and the house was located in a place that wasgood for business. For most urban occupations, thismeant being in the bustling center of town.

The concept of single-use districts, so basic to ourdesign of the twentieth-century city, was unknown inthe premodern city. Most middle-class commercialenterprises were extensions of the family, and so thebusinessman lived above his office or shop, stored hisgoods in the cellar, and often housed apprentices andtrusted employees in the attic (Fishman, 1987: p. 7).Moreover, the dwellings of the wealthy were oftencheek-by-jowl with the tenements of the poor.Wealthy families occupied large town houses thatfronted the principal streets, and the poor crowdedinto the alleyways and courtyards to the rear(Fishman: p. 8). The inhabitants of these inferiordwellings were usually the servants of the upperclasses or the workers in the multitude of small work-shops that clustered around the houses of themerchants who dealt in their products.

To understand this sharing of public space by people of widely disparate character, it is importantto remember that English society of this time, justbefore the onset of the Industrial Revolution in themid-to-late eighteenth century, was still very much acaste system. The ‘social distance’ between upper andlower classes was so clearly understood by allconcerned that the privileged elite felt little need toseparate themselves from the poor by physical dis-tance. The poor occupied the same public spaces asthe rich, but were simply ‘invisible’ to their wealthybetters until they were needed to perform menial orcommercial tasks.

This situation seems strange to our contemporarysocial mores, where urban spaces, particularly inAmerica, tend to be separated by use, race and eco-nomic class. It illustrates how much our modern sub-urb is the product of nothing less than a completetransformation of urban values. At a fundamental



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level, established meanings of the city center as thefashionable focus of wealth and the urban edge as theplace of poverty have been inverted. Only recentlyduring the 1990s have some city centers begun toenjoy a renaissance of urban life and activity.

‘Family values,’ one of the most clichéd phrases ofmodern society, have also been redefined. In the late1700s, all members of a middle-class family playedan important role in business affairs, living, workingand sharing the same spaces. This integrated modelprogressively fragmented to a condition where busi-ness in the city became the exclusive province ofmen, and child rearing became the responsibility ofwomen in the suburbs. This paradigm shift wasspurred by two sets of forces – one economic, theother, religious.

Before the Industrial Revolution, the structure ofthe middle-class family was often an economic one,based on these shared business responsibilitiesbetween fathers, wives, sons, daughters and otherextended family members. However, the developingcapitalist economy increasingly redefined work less asa collaborative effort and more as a set of specializedtasks, and this separation of roles combined withemerging Evangelical religious ideas that defined indi-vidual holiness as a function of a morally virtuousfamily life. Over the course of several decades strad-dling the turn of the eighteenth century into the nine-teenth, these changes gradually led to the replacementof extended family ties based on economic coopera-tion by ones based more on emotional attachmentaround the nucleus of husband, wife and children(Fishman: p. 33–5). As noted above, the husband andwife performed newly defined roles; the man becamethe sole breadwinner and the woman assumed totalresponsibilities for bringing up the children to theextent that it took her out of the urban workforce.This model of middle-class family life became soubiquitous during the nineteenth and twentieth cen-turies that it assumed the status of a fundamentalprinciple of Anglo-American culture. Only during the1980s and 1990s did this spatial gender gap began toclose, with the reintegration of women back into theurban (and suburban) workplace as part of a moregeneral demographic shift away from the nuclearfamily stereotype, and (in America) as a matter ofeconomic necessity due to the increasing cost ofmaintaining a suburban lifestyle.

As these new nuclear families evolved in the early1800s, their members focused less on extendedeconomic familial connections, and more on theirown emotional relationships within the small group.

To this end, families sought to separate themselvesfrom the workplace – and from the intrusions of thatworking environment into the home. The idea of thefamily dwelling came to be conceived as a whollydomestic environment, insulated from other pres-sures, and to meet these new demands the traditionalcity house – what we would now refer to as a ‘live-work unit’ – was no longer suitable. There was littleor no space for the middle-class family to nurture thegrowing bonds of intimacy in a dwelling that wasopen to customers and the commercial activities of city business, storing goods, and even housingemployees. These merchants and bankers however,had in their grasp the financial resources and ambi-tion to reorder the physical patterns of the city tomeet their new needs.

And so they did, building new houses near thevillages that surrounded London. Wealthy bankersand merchants created a new type of living in thesevillages that reflected their changing values. To theeducated minds of the eighteenth century, a renewedappreciation of nature and the man-made landscapebecame a hallmark of sophisticated taste, and insteadof a place of rural poverty, the countryside was seen asa charmingly picturesque setting, ripe for new homeswithin easy commuting distance by private carriage.

But the city bourgeoisie could not emulate thelanded gentry living in their country estates far fromurban centers; middle-class merchants and bankerswere tied to the city’s web of commercial operationswhere they earned their living. The first suburbanhomes were thus regarded as weekend places for thefamily to escape the pressures of intrusive city life,much like the Roman villa suburbana. These classicalantecedents went hand-in-hand with the other majorelement of the new aesthetic taste: the affection for landscape, and in particular, the picturesque landscaped garden. This sensibility had its roots in thelarge-scale reconfiguration of country estates during theeighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by designersand tastemakers such as Capability Brown, HumphreyRepton, Payne Knight, and Uvedale Price.

In contrast to the French tradition of landscapegardening based on clear formal geometries (e.g.Versailles) English taste in the late eighteenth centuryevolved to the ideal of seeking visual pleasure in thelandscape by subtle man-made improvements thatlooked ‘natural.’ The idea was empiricist – to stimu-late emotions in the viewer by appealing to his or hersenses – and to this end a certain irregularity or‘picturesque roughness’ in the composition was to bepreferred over ‘symmetrical beauty.’ Because this new



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fashion in landscape design had little precedent,designers often turned to the paintings of ClaudeLorrain(1600–82) and Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665)for inspiration. Evocative landscapes with scaled-down crags, pastoral scenes ready-made for sheep andshepherds, and romantic ‘follies’ of ruined classicaltemples and gothic fragments became the environ-ments of choice for the British aristocracy.

Following this elite aesthetic, a group of villas was constructed during the decade 1790–1800 atClapham, south of London, around a common openspace that became a picturesque park in miniature,thus creating the first true proto-suburb (Fishman: p. 52). Public space blended seamlessly with privategardens to create surrogate Gardens of Eden as settingsfor new modes of family life.

It wasn’t long before these weekend retreats becamefull-fledged homes, where wives and children stayedwhile husbands commuted each day into the city byprivate horse-drawn carriage. This cultural shift wasaided and abetted by a strong economic incentive.Suburban residential expansion beyond the normalboundaries of the city transformed cheap agriculturalland into profitable building plots. Suburbia was agood investment as well as a good setting for familylife (Fishman: p. 10).

The image of the middle-class suburb as a romanticgarden where the virtues of the city merged with thoseof the countryside became the dominant model onboth sides of the Atlantic for development beyondestablished city boundaries. English precedents such asJohn Nash’s Regents Park, with its surrounding terracesand adjacent Park Village, in London (1811–41) andDecimus Burton’s Calverly Park in Tunbridge Wells,(1827–28), are important in this regard.

American designers traveled to England duringthe first half of the nineteenth century to see theseand other examples that predated any similar devel-opments in the USA (Archer, 1983: pp. 140–1). It isimportant to note that these changes in taste andvalues, and the transatlantic exchanges of informa-tion, both predated the technologies of mechanizedpublic transportation. The cultural template forsuburbia had been created by 1830; the role of therailway was to bring this new style of life withinreach of the whole spectrum of the middle class, andultimately sections of the working classes too.Typical early examples, well known to Americanexperts, were Victoria Park in Manchester andRock Park Estate in Cheshire, across the RiverMersey from Liverpool (Archer: p. 143). Datingfrom 1837, both these designs featured detached

and semi-detached (duplex) houses, landscapedparks, and curving roadways.

The new suburban lifestyle of the first half ofthe nineteenth century soon established a coherentphysical expression of building form and land use. Tocreate an attractive and profitable enterprise, newdevelopments generally applied four planning princi-ples that are still relevant today, and could describemost suburban residential developments built in theUSA since 1950. These were: a uniformly low densityof development enhanced by open landscaped areas;a homogeneous single class population for economicand social stability; the availability of convenient butcarefully screened and segregated commercial areas;and lastly, the creation of a plan in a coordinatedmanner by a single developer (Archer: pp. 141–2).

The scope and location of this type of develop-ment were vastly extended by the growth of masstransportation that was part of the progressive indus-trialization of society during the nineteenth centuryin Britain and America. In the USA in particular, thisgrowth gave rise to what became the dominantmodel of suburbia until the 1920s – the middle-classcommuter suburb organized around a train station orstreetcar stop. The railway station was normallylocated centrally in the plan for obvious reasons ofconvenience, and commuters walked back and forthbetween home and the station every day, thus givingrise to a compact urban plan.

This is the precise concept that drives the design of new Transit-Oriented Developments (TODs) inAmerica today. In both historic and contemporaryexamples, a network of clearly organized and connectedstreets leads to the train station, and development is clustered within the radii of five- and ten-minutewalking distances. In the USA, this arrangement hasbecome a near-binding typology in its own right (seeFigure 3.5). This spatial principle of a short walk totransit was also evident in the design of the Americanrailroad suburbs’ junior sibling, the streetcar suburbof the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.This smaller scale technology provided more fre-quent stops and allowed more flexible layouts varyingbetween a clustered center and a looser and less denseplan form as illustrated in Figure 2.2.

As we have noted, the concept that the suburbcombined the positive values of the country and thecity was one of its founding assumptions from thelate eighteenth century onward, and this sensibilityexpanded quickly during the nineteenth century. In1847, the New York architect William Ranlett pub-lished the first American design for a suburban village


layout that incorporated detached villas in apicturesque landscaped setting after the Englishfashion (Archer: p. 150). Three years later, in 1850,the American architect A. J. Downing described inhis influential essay ‘Country Villages,’ a design foran ideal suburb with a central landscaped park andwide, curving, tree-lined streets. Downing’s concepts,gleaned from travels to many English examples, pre-figure several important American suburbs duringthe next 20 years, including most notably LlewellynPark, New Jersey (developed from 1853 onwards byLlewellyn Haskell, a New York businessman, anddesigners Alexander Jackson Davis and HowardDaniels); and Riverside, just south of Chicago (1869)by Frederick Law Olmsted (see Figure 2.3).

By the time Olmsted was commissioned to designRiverside, the blending of picturesque aesthetics withthe new conceptual synthesis of city and countrysidewas firmly established as a key planning principle forsuburban residential development on both sides ofthe Atlantic. Riverside, designed with direct railaccess to Chicago, promised to provide a better lifethan the middle class found in the city, with homesset amidst attractive landscape. This proved a win-ning combination, and Olmsted’s creation became amodel development and a precedent for innumerablesubsequent suburbs, influencing design not only inthe USA but also exporting this influence back toBritain, the original source of many of its attributes.

This suburban impetus throughout the nineteenthcentury can thus be thought of as a combination of

the ‘pull factor’ of the countryside and the ‘pushfactor’ of the overcrowded industrial cities. The rawenergy of the Industrial Revolution generated largepopulation increases in the major industrial cities inBritain and America, but the concentration ofcommercial operations within the urban cores madethe land values too high and the environmenttoo polluted for superior residential development.The poorer classes, with no resources to relocate or topay for suburban transportation, were trapped in aninner ring of unsanitary and overcrowded slums withinwalking distance of the mills and factories at the urbancore. By contrast, the more affluent bourgeoisie movedas far from the center as their means and transporta-tion options would allow, settling in new suburbancommunities. Here they could enjoy countrysideamenities yet still travel to work in the city with rela-tive ease. One of the very first American examples ofthis new commuter suburb was New Brighton, laidout on Staten Island in New York Harbor in 1836,and bearing a marked resemblance to the resort sub-urb of the same name near Liverpool, England, builtfour years earlier in 1832 (Archer: p. 153).

While due attention is paid to the importance ofEnglish origins and prototypes for the garden suburb,it is important not to underestimate the indigenousAmerican influences of the New England villages,and the Jeffersonian ideals of the individual gentle-man farmer and democratic land development. TheAmerican president’s distaste for the city as the primevenue for American society was well documented, as


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Figure 2.2 Coolidge Corner, Boston, Massachusetts.This mature suburban centre in Boston thrives arounda stop on the city’s elderly Green Line light railsystem. (Photo by Adrian Walters)

Figure 2.3 Riverside, Chicago, Frederick LawOlmsted, 1869. A curving street sweeps alongside a park towards the local ‘town center’ designedaround the commuter railroad station with service tocentral Chicago.


was his deep philosophical preference for the virtuesof country living. Thus the garden suburb, with itsrural aesthetic and low density, seemed to embodykey attributes of American life. The city could bekept at a distance, and the suburb embodied soundreal estate principles – making money by convertingcheap agricultural land to desirable residences. Formillions of Americans in search of the good life itwas, until recently, a near-perfect solution.

This evolution of the garden suburb had one otherimportant attribute: it presaged the creation of theGarden City ideal at the end of the nineteenth centurythat in turn catalyzed much urban and suburban designtheory and practice throughout the twentieth century.However, as we have outlined, the romantic suburb wasa middle-class phenomenon, and there was anotherimportant component of the nineteenth-century visionof a Garden City arcadia: the development of modelindustrial villages for the working classes.

Early industrial villages such as New Lanark,Scotland (1793) Lowell, Massachusetts (1822), andSaltaire in England (1851), illustrated a strain of phil-anthropic concern by industrialists and their archi-tects, and a growing sense of the need for sociallyresponsible planning and urban reform. Other indus-trial villages such as Pullman (1880) outside Chicago,and the English examples of Port Sunlight (1888),Bournville (1895) and New Earswick, (1903) all con-tributed to this ideology.

The social ideals of nineteenth-century reformersJohn Ruskin and William Morris were influential inthis regard. Enlightened British industrialists SirTitus Salt, W.H. Lever, and the chocolate magnates –Rowntrees and Cadburys – adopted these ideals intheir attempts to improve the desperate conditions ofindustrial workers. These philanthropists constructedcompany towns in the clean air and natural beauty ofthe English countryside beyond the ‘corruption’ ofthe city. Salt built Saltaire outside Bradford; Leverconstructed Port Sunlight outside Liverpool. GeorgeCadbury developed Bournville southwest ofBirmingham; and perhaps most importantly, theRowntrees created New Earswick north of York usingdesigns by Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin (seeFigures 2.4 and 2.5).

The planned communities of Port Sunlight and NewEarswick in particular demonstrate a picturesque archi-tectural character in their buildings and an artful layoutof streets and public spaces. These features, togetherwith the reliance upon nearby cities, confirmed theirplaces in the lineage of romantic suburban settlements.American examples like Lowell or Pullman, while

sharing many of the philanthropic intentions, or atleast, the enlightened self-interest of their British coun-terparts, were composed of well planned but rathersevere urban dwellings, owing nothing to the growingpopular taste for romantic imagery. It wasn’t until


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Figure 2.4 Port Sunlight, near Liverpool, UK, begun1888. Soap magnate William Lever employed overthirty architects in the design of this industrial modelvillage. It is characterized by picturesque groupingsof traditional buildings in counterpoint to the long,neo-classical that forms the axis of the plan leadingto the Lady Lever Art Gallery, completed in 1922.

Figure 2.5 New Earswick, near York, UK, Parker andUnwin, 1903. The housing in this model village wascommissioned by Joseph Rowntree, a Yorkindustrialist famous for his chocolate products, toprovide affordable housing for low-income workers. Residency was open to all applicants inneed, and was not limited to employees ofRowntree’s nearby chocolate factory. The housinglayout illustrates the early development of Parkerand Unwin’s picturesque composition and spatialarrangement.


Frederick Law Olmsted’s design in 1890 for theplanned industrial village of Vandergrift, Pennsylvania,that American industrial towns began to follow theirEnglish counterparts by incorporating picturesquesuburban aesthetics (Stern: p. 9). The twin trends ofsocial reform and romantic aesthetics reached theirpinnacle of physical exposition in Barry Parker andRaymond Unwin’s designs for the new town ofLetchworth (1904) 30 miles north of London. Thisself-financed new settlement was the first built exampleof what would become one of the most importantplanning ideas of the twentieth century – EbenezerHoward’s Garden City.

Howard had published his radical proposal forGarden Cities a few years earlier in 1898, under thetitle Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform. Bornin Britain in 1850 and having lived in America,notably Chicago, for several years during the 1870s,Howard understood the implications of the newgarden suburbs in Britain and America very well. Heappreciated that the railway had made rural areasdirectly accessible to existing towns and cities, andthis accessibility was fundamentally changing thelong-standing rationales of urban location and urbanform: large populations could be shifted to and fromremote rural areas if efficient mass transportationcould be provided. As noted earlier, one of the mostpowerful reasons for moving outside cities was theavailability of cheap land in the countryside, and inHoward’s time this land was especially undervalued.In addition to the national urban problems of indus-trial overcrowding and squalor in British cities,poverty in the rural areas was also endemic. Britain’sagricultural industry in the decades before the turn ofthe century was plagued by a recession, and Howard’sintention was not only to relieve urban congestionbut also to alleviate rural poverty by the transforma-tion of depressed rural areas into prosperous newtowns.

Howard’s practical scheme would utilize the rev-enue created by the conversion of cheap farmland tourban use to finance the development of new citiesby reinvesting the profits from the sale of residentialand industrial sites in the public infrastructure of thecommunity. Despite Howard’s unwillingness to com-mit to any specific town plan, his famous planningdiagrams clearly illustrated the importance he placedon this public infrastructure. He located the publicinstitutions at the heart of the community and sur-rounded them by a park. In its turn, this open spacewas bordered by a linear, glass-roofed structureenclosing all the retail functions of the city, very

much the precursor of today’s shopping mall.Radiating from this center, residential areas incorpo-rated sites of all sizes for a mixture of social classes,and beyond these lay the industrial and manufactur-ing zone. This was served by a railway ring and bor-dered by farmland which functioned as a greenbelt todefine the edges of the community and to limitgrowth in accordance with the proposed populationfigure of thirty-two thousand people (see Figure 2.6).

While Howard gave a diagrammatic order to theplan of the Garden City, it was Parker and Unwinwho derived its architectural form in their plan ofLetchworth. The two designers were the consciousinheritors of the same Victorian reformist socialresponsibility that inspired the industrial magnatesLever, Rowntree and Cadbury, and they combinedthis mission with the picturesque aesthetic principlesfrom the English eighteenth- and nineteenth-centurytraditions. There is no evidence that Parker andUnwin were aware of the American garden suburbswhen they were designing Letchworth: their prece-dent was the recent revival of interest in English ver-nacular architecture and its incorporation into whatis commonly called the ‘Queen Anne Style’ (Barnett:p. 71). This aesthetic had been successfully applied torecent housing, particularly in highly picturesqueschemes such as Bedford Park in London by NormanShaw and others dating from the 1870s.

Parker and Unwin first developed their town plan-ning technique and vernacular village composition inthe model settlement of New Earswick outside York,for the Rowntree Chocolate Trust noted previously,where they had been influenced by the work ofC.F.A. Voysey (see Figure 2.5). The architectural duoretained this picturesque approach in their design forLetchworth and added some more formal geometriesto create a partial synthesis of axial and informalplanning ideas. With groups of houses, they createdcarefully contrived architectural compositions, relat-ing them to topography and other natural and cli-matic determinants. For example, the location ofindustry on the east side of town meant that the pol-lution was blown away from residential areas(Barnett: p. 72).

Rather than being on the periphery as in Howard’sdiagram, the railway at Letchworth bisects the town.Nothing in evidence resembles the fully glazed shop-ping mall; instead there is a traditional shopping areawith a main street. Howard, Parker, and Unwin wereno dogmatic visionaries. They were sympathetic withlocal conditions, and they adapted their ideals to therealities of the place. The success of Letchworth lies


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in its ability to represent Howard’s radical ideas in atotally non-threatening way, evoking the pleasantenvironment of traditional English villages (Barnett:p. 73) (see Figure 2.7).

In this sense Letchworth is the direct precursor ofmuch New Urbanist work in America from the 1990s,when radical town planning ideas in America weregiven form by conservative, traditional architecturalaesthetics. The use of traditional neoclassical and ver-nacular aesthetics in the work of firms such as DuanyPlater-Zyberk and Urban Design Associates soothedpublic fears and facilitated commercial acceptance ofNew Urbanist planning practice (while at the sametime infuriating modernists and academics). It’s verylikely that if a more adventurous, contemporary archi-tectural language had been used in American NewUrbanist developments, the movement’s planningconcepts would have been subjected to a much moredifficult process of public acceptance.

This mixing of radical planning with conservativearchitecture is another example of the close inter-weaving of history with present circumstances, andthe advantages and shortcomings of this marriage arediscussed in more detail in Chapter 3. Now thatNew Urbanism is moving into the mainstream, it

remains to be seen whether this gives its practitionersconfidence to attempt more contemporary aesthetics.This theme also resurfaces in the Case Studieswhere our desire to create progressive, forward-looking


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Figure 2.6 EbenezerHoward’s Garden Citydiagram (detail).(Diagram courtesy ofM.I.T Press)

Figure 2.7 Housing at Letchworth Garden City,Parker and Unwin, 1904. Parker and Unwinprogressively refined their techniques of housing design and layout. Note the attention tothree-dimensional composition with a gable form terminating the visual axis while the streetcurves away to the right.


architecture is always in tension with the conser-vatism of public taste and the realities of communitypolitics.

As important as Letchworth was in giving urbanform to ideas of a new social and cultural order,Parker and Unwin’s subsequent commission, Hamp-stead Garden Suburb, designed in association withSir Edwin Lutyens in 1905, has proved moreinfluential in the practice of urban and suburbandesign (Barnett: p. 73). By the early years of thetwentieth century, the area north of Hampstead innorth London remained a pocket of rural landscapethreatened with suburban encroachment on all sides.With the extension of the London Undergroundrailway to nearby Golders Green, the site was ripe for development. The client, Henrietta Barnett, aprominent social reformer, conceived a communitycomprised of people of different incomes, while thearchitects saw the opportunity to develop furtherHoward’s ideas of a managed synthesis of town andcountry. The combination of concepts created a coali-tion of urban and arcadian environments designed toassist in the breaking down of rigid class barriers.Once again, these social ideals prefigure NewUrbanist ambitions to bring order to the suburbs, andto create diverse communities, open to different sec-tors of society, in direct opposition to the segregationby income so prevalent in conventional Americansuburbia.

By the time they began their work on HampsteadGarden Suburb in 1905, Parker and Unwin hadbecome aware of the theories of Camillo Sitte, andUnwin’s own 1909 book, Town Planning in Practice: anIntroduction to the art of designing Cities and Suburbs,contained significant sections on the design of publicspaces and streets that incorporated many of Sitte’sideas. Unwin was probably familiar with the firstFrench edition of Sitte’s writings published in 1902under the title of L’Art de Batir les Villes, because therewas no full translation in English until 1965(although passages were approvingly quoted byHegemann and Peets in their influential TheAmerican Vitruvius: An Architect’s Handbook of CivicArt, published in America in 1922). Indeed Unwinrefers almost exclusively to Sitte’s medieval prece-dents, to the exclusion of classical, Renaissance, andBaroque examples. This purely medieval bias was notone contained in Sitte’s original publication, but onewhich dominated the 1902 and 1918 French editions,and which stemmed from bizarre editorial decisionsby his translator, Camille Martin. A medievalistby training and preference, Martin substituted French

and Belgian examples for the German and Austrianprecedents used by Sitte, and eliminated all referenceto Baroque urbanism. The Frenchman’s motivationshave been discussed by George and ChristianneCollins in their extensive introduction to the 1986critical edition of Sitte’s original text.

As we discussed briefly in Chapter 1, Sitte’sapproach to urban design was not based on the logicof abstract geometries, but rather on what a pedes-trian would see and experience when walking throughthe spaces of a city. This approach was validated byUnwin in his work, and later in the 1960s by GordonCullen, whose concept of ‘Serial Vision’ was formu-lated from similar principles. This emphasis on thepedestrian has caught the attention of contemporaryurban designers, who stress, particularly in America,the reactivation of public space and the creation of‘Walkable Communities’ as an alternative to car-dominated sprawl.

The idea of the city comprehended as a series ofpedestrian views was close to the idea of the Englishlandscape picturesque garden, where follies would belocated to terminate vistas and for other visual effects,and at Hampstead, Parker and Unwin used this sensi-bility to create a plan of greater conceptual claritythan had been evident in their previous work. Despitea disappointingly weak design by Sir Edwin Lutyensfor the central area, which isolated monumentalbuildings in space in a manner at odds with Unwinand Sitte’s precepts of urban enclosure, Parker andUnwin developed a residential layout that was archi-tecturally stronger and urbanistically tighter thanLetchworth. It included a pair of very fine Germanicentrance buildings on the main Finchley Road, incor-porating shops and housing in a dynamic interplay ofsymmetry and asymmetry (see Figure 2.8).

The influence of Letchworth and HampsteadGarden Suburb crossed to America almost immedi-ately with the design of Forest Hills Gardens, a modelstreetcar suburb of New York City, started in1909 using designs by Frederick Law Olmsted Jrand Grosvenor Atterbury (Barnett: p. 76). Aroundthe railway station, Atterbury created an attractiveenclosed urban space as the entrance to thecommunity and the beginning of a sequence ofspaces that were organized as, in the opinion of onecritic, ‘a metaphoric journey from town to country’(Stern: p. 34).

The next most vivid manifestation of garden cityconcepts also took place in America as a direct resultof the nation’s entry into World War I in 1917.This created an immediate demand for housing for


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the dramatically increased population of industrialworkers around manufacturing locations. Federalagencies supported design and construction pro-grams for 25 000 homes, and Charles Whittaker, edi-tor of The Journal of the American Institute ofArchitects lobbied to ensure that these new homeswere not designed as barracks – but as permanentcommunities. Whittaker strenuously publicized thework of Raymond Unwin, who was in charge of theBritish war-housing program, and who had arguedforcefully for the British construction effort to beconsidered a permanent investment in housing provi-sion (Barnett: p. 78). Frederick Law Olmsted Jr wasgiven control of the American planning effort, and inthe endeavor to create permanent communities ofgood quality, he appointed talented designers to layout the new communities. Among them was JohnNolen, a great admirer of Parker and Unwin, and

whose reputation as a rising star in American plan-ning was enhanced by his design of a fine new townat Kingsport, Tennessee.

During the nineteenth century it had been the rail-way that exerted most influence on urban and subur-ban form, but around the time of World War I theprivate automobile began to make its impact felt. Asthe next major technological development in trans-portation, even relatively primitive cars brought abouta dramatic increase in personal mobility. The suburbsno longer had to be located at railway stations oralong streetcar lines. The notion of designing urbanspace as a function of walking distance to and fromtown centers or transit stops began to fall into disuse,to be replaced by new planning concepts scaled to thedimensions and speed of the car.

A pair of early twentieth-century suburbs, BeverlyHills, Los Angeles (commenced 1906) and theCountry Club District in Kansas City, Missouri (commenced 1907 with its famed commercial core,Country Club Plaza dating from 1922), indicated theimpending spatial revolution heralded by the automo-bile. These layouts included facilities such as up-market shopping centers accessible by road rather thanrail, broad boulevards and longer blocks. Larger blocksizes reduced the cost of constructing intersections andcross-streets, but they also eliminated the very featuresthat provided a more intimate scale and choice ofroute to the pedestrian. As one of the few planners ofthe period to recognize some of the impacts the carwould have upon the layout of towns, John Nolenmade a significant contribution to this evolving formof urbanism. In his 1918 design of Mariemont, out-side Cincinnati, Ohio, he dispensed with any railwayconnections to the larger city, attempting instead tointegrate the car into a garden suburb layout.

Despite these precursors, a new form of suburbandevelopment specific to the automobile age did notarise until 1928, with plans for an American new townat Radburn, New Jersey. Conceived as an Americancounterpart to Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City(Britain’s second Garden City, begun in 1921), only afraction of Radburn was completed (one neighbor-hood) due largely to the onset of the Great Depressionin 1929. Nonetheless, the plans of its designers,Clarence Stein and Henry Wright, proved immenselyinfluential. At a stroke, Radburn turned suburbandesign on its head, using multiple dead-end streetswithin a long, curving arterial loop road in place of aconnected network of streets and smaller blocks.

While Parker and Unwin had invented cul-de-sacsand used them to good effect at Hampstead Garden


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Figure 2.8 Hampstead Garden Suburb, Parker andUnwin, 1907. Mixed-use buildings on Finchley Road.Unwin’s admiration for German medievalarchitecture is evident in the design of thesebuildings at the main entrance into the suburb.


Suburb, they were relatively few in number, beingexceptions for specific circumstances rather than thegeneral rule. At Radburn, the opposite was true:cul-de-sacs dominated the street layout. Instead ofnormal sized urban blocks with a connected streetnetwork, Stein and Wright’s basic unit of planningwas the ‘superblock,’ a large area defined by a systemof arterial roads, which were designed for theautomobile rather than pedestrians. The extensivecircumference of these arterial loops contained amultitude of cul-de-sacs, and this system of vehiclecirculation was kept quite separate from pedestrianpaths. No longer did cars and pedestrians share thesame public space. Homes accepted the service of thecar to one side of the dwelling, but opened onanother face to green footpaths that led to large andattractively landscaped open spaces. These communalgreen areas were segregated from vehicles and crossedby pedestrian paths leading to community facilitiesand other neighborhoods via underpasses. In thecompleted scheme, pedestrians would have rarelyneeded to cross a busy street (see Figure 2.9).

As an interesting side note to the continued transat-lantic trading of ideas and precedents, it is worthrecording that Barry Parker visited America in the1920s, where he met with Stein and Wright. He was soimpressed with Radburn that he incorporated severalof its features into his 1930 designs for Wythenshawe,a huge satellite community in Manchester, England,that has some legitimate claim to be called England’sthird Garden City (Hall: p. 111).

In the burgeoning world of private car ownership,safety was an increasing concern, and Stein andWright were intent on creating a secure environmentfor pedestrians and cyclists. This logic of separatingvehicles from pedestrians, so radical in the 1930s,became a planning principle in many types of devel-opment during the 1950s and 1960s when efficientmovement of cars became preeminent in the mindsof planners and engineers. Multi-leveled circulationsystems had been a staple of many futuristic urbanvisions from Leonardo da Vinci onwards, includingin the twentieth century, Antonio Sant’Elia’s La CittaNuova (1912), Le Corbusier’s Plan Voisin (1925),Hugh Ferris’ Metropolis of Tomorrow (1929), and theNew York City Regional Plan, also from 1929.

In Britain, an over-simplistic reading of Sir ColinBuchanan’s 1963 report for the government entitledTraffic in Towns raised this concept of vertical segre-gation of people and cars to an almost universal pre-cept for city design, evident in massive projects likeLondon’s Barbican (see Figure 2.10). Stein and

Wright’s limited instances of vertical separation how-ever, have a more modest precedent, that of Olmstedand Vaux’s plan for Central Park in New York wherepedestrian paths dip below roads that cross the parkon rustic bridges.

At the suburban scale, vertical separation did notmature into a defining principle, but the use of lots ofcul-de-sacs branching from a few collector and arterialstreets did. The collective assumption by highwayengineers and developers was that travel demandwould not increase beyond the expected populationgrowth, and that this new hierarchical system, thatsaved developers money when compared with griddedlayouts, would be able to meet the future demand.This belief held sway for several decades, to the extentthat it became the governing suburban layout typesince the 1950s in America, and to a lesser extent inBritain. What the engineers, planners and developersdidn’t foresee was the demographic shift of the


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Figure 2.9 Radburn, New Jersey, Clarence Stein andHenry Wright, 1928. This innovative separation of carsand pedestrians in the interests of safety was hailedby many as the new model of suburban design.However, it started a trend that has led to the banalsterility of suburban layouts as the quality of thepedestrian environment progressively diminished inAmerica.


population into more, smaller households as itincreased (a factor with many implications that wewill examine in more detail later). By the 1980s andeven more so during the 1990s, the traffic demandsimposed by these unforeseen numbers of householdsfar outpaced the ability of hierarchical road systems tocope with the increased load.

Despite all the evidence of traffic congestion on thefew connector streets, and the access problems of subdi-visions with only one way in and out, the return to thetraditional network of connected streets has been slowand difficult. Cul-de-sac layouts have been enshrined inAmerican highway engineers’ design manuals forseveral decades and only in 1994 did traditional modelsof gridded and connected layouts receive provisionalofficial backing by the Institute of TransportationEngineers’ report on Traffic Engineering for Neo-Traditional Neighborhood Design.

No analysis of suburban precedents is completewithout mentioning Frank Lloyd Wright’s BroadacreCity (1935). In a (successful) attempt to reingratiatehimself with an American society that had marginal-ized him during the 1920s as a talented genius toodifficult to work with, Wright prepared designs for acity based on his perception of truly American princi-ples. In this polemic contrast to the European ideas

of Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and LudwigHilbersheimer, Wright also explicitly rejected theAmerican tradition of the romantic garden suburbwith its curving streets and history of public transit.Instead, Wright established a regular square grid on aflat prairie landscape divided by high-speed roads.Railroads and streetcars were abolished; in Wright’svision, every American adult was entitled to oneautomobile.

Within this grid, most inhabitants lived in single-family houses on an acre of land. If Wright’s low-density design layout was prophetic of post-WorldWar II suburbia in America, so was his Usonianhousing prototype, a private family space focusedaway from the public realm of the street. This rejec-tion of the shared world of the pedestrian street wasprophetic of American suburbia several decades later,where the private automobile that Wright construedas a liberating technology for American families nowcontrols the American domestic environment. Today,houses lurk behind garage doors that dominate thestreetscape to the exclusion of pedestrians.

Some individual pieces of Wright’s vision havebecome generic features of the American landscape,including clusters of service stations, grade separatedhighways, towers rising amidst open space, and ubiq-uitous low-density housing. But the suggestion thatBroadacre City was the precursor to contemporarysuburbia is overstated. Taken as a whole, BroadacreCity differs from suburbia in several fundamentalaspects (Alofsin, 1989). Wright’s plan integrated manydifferent uses: farms, manufacturing and industry, avariety of housing types and open space, together withcommunal markets, schools and places of worshipwere all dovetailed into an inclusive framework. Inthis regard, it established almost the opposite of thesegregation of uses and classes common in Americansuburbia today.

The modernist designs of the city and the suburbsmentioned here and in the previous chapter shareone thing in common: the extensive use of largehighways to structure movement and shape the city.Until the late 1990s, highway engineers exerted themost determining effect on the form of Americancities (and most British cities, too). In America, thepublic realm of streets and sidewalks began to vanishas car-based spatial formulas drove decisions in urbandesign plans, from the scale of regional road networksto individual site plans. Criteria for roadway designhad everything to do with the efficiency of vehiclemovement and almost nothing to do with the needsof pedestrians. If pedestrians were considered at all,


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Figure 2.10 The Barbican, London, Chamberlain,Powell and Bon, 1954–75. This 40 acre (16 hectare)development in the heart of London extended thetheme of separation of vehicles and pedestrians into the vertical plane. While this was a seductiveurban theory, in practice the results were ofteninhuman. Streets were turned into dark servicetunnels or canyons, while the pedestrian upper levels became little more than wind blown concretewastelands. There is a pleasant urban space in themiddle of the development around the BarbicanConcert Hall, but this is small recompense for thebrutal mutilation of the city fabric.


they were regarded as impediments to brisk trafficmovement, and figured as such in the transportationengineers’ calculations.

Pedestrians became a rare sight in most suburbanareas in America. Odd as it seems to British eyes,developers ceased to build sidewalks along residen-tial streets even in the most affluent Americansuburbs, with the consequence that any pedestrianwho did venture out was forced either to walk in thestreet, sharing the road dangerously with passing carsor to stride across other people’s front lawns. In anincreasingly car-based world, walking becameequated with suspicious behavior, practised only bythe poor or the deviant. Not until the late 1990s didwalkability become once again a sought-afterattribute of daily suburban life, and for millions ofAmericans living in the suburbs that sproutedaround cities all across the country between 1960and 1990, pedestrian convenience remains animpossible dream.

American popular mythology tends to credit theprivate sector with the phenomenal growth of thesuburbs after World War II. The design concepts thatunderpin the suburban environment are often mistak-enly believed to be a simple reflection of consumerpreference – the free market in operation. That’s notquite true. While private development and construc-tion companies did indeed produce the vast majorityof home designs for private buyers, the suburbanboom in America was largely promoted by actions bythe federal government. As early as the 1930s theFederal Housing Administration (FHA) began todevelop a national planning code, resulting in theFHA Minimum Planning Standards. With input fromthe social planner Clarence Perry (whose work onneighborhood design we shall discuss in Chapter 3)the code was based largely on the ideas of architect-planners Clarence Stein and Henry Wright, bestknown for their work at Radburn. Given the planningconcepts of Radburn, it’s not surprising that Stein andWright’s influence led to the belief, institutionalizedby the new government code provisions, that the tra-ditional grid-iron form of the American town couldnot accommodate the automobile (Solomon, 1989:p. 24). Instead, the 1930s code imposed a pattern ofseparated curvilinear enclaves that held some mini-mum evocation of the nineteenth-century RomanticGarden Suburb together with a pared-down diagramof Radburn’s cul-de-sac planning.

As we have noted earlier, car-orientated planningbecame the dominant philosophy that guided privatedevelopment from the 1930s onward, characterized

by large enclaves of housing separated from eachother and linked only by arterial roads catering solelyto the movement of vehicular traffic. Radburn’s com-pensating network of connecting green space wasquickly deleted; it used up too much profitable land.The mass-market suburbs of the early 1950s likeLevitttown, simply featured large blocks of curvingstreets with the number of connecting cross-streetsreduced to save cost. This framework of reduced con-nectivity set the pattern for the present day wherebylayouts since the 1980s have been dominated by amyriad of dead-end streets branching off a series ofartlessly meandering ‘collector streets’ that connectedthe housing subdivision to the larger arterial road-ways. Needless to say, these few streets that did con-nect became over-burdened by traffic from all thecul-de-sacs, leading to increased congestion, driverfrustration and longer journey times (Southworthand Ben-Joseph, 1997: p. 107).

The impact of these federal Minimum PlanningStandards was felt across America after World War II,when the great suburban expansion of the 1950s and1960s was fuelled by a surge of home ownership byreturning servicemen and others financed under theprovisions of the Federal GI Bill. Federal MortgageInsurance – a means of changing the lendingpractices of financial institutions to bring home-ownership within the reach of millions of lessaffluent Americans – was available only on homesand subdivisions that complied with the govern-ment’s Minimum Planning Standards. This linkagesoon led to a standardization of housing layout fromcoast to coast.

The production of individual houses had alreadybecome much more uniform. Starting in the 1930s, inan effort to reduce costs so as to compete better in thereduced housing market after the Depression, thehousing industry streamlined itself in terms of mass-produced designs and developer financing. Thisprocess accelerated in the late 1940s and 1950s as thehousing industry, capitalizing on the experience gainedfrom mass-production techniques during wartime,rushed to meet the new demand for inexpensive hous-ing. Developers and builders were able to borrow largesums from savings and loan institutions (akin to build-ing societies in England) to finance large subdivisionsof nearly identical houses. They achieved considerableeconomies of scale by this process, enhancing theirown profit margins, and enabling them to build yetmore subdivisions to the same standardized formula.The American author spent her early years in a housein one such development in the 1950s, and while it’s


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easy to criticize the design of these houses from acontemporary perspective, there’s no doubt they oncerepresented a substantial increase in the quality of thedomestic environment available to first-time home-buying families (see Figure 2.11).

This suburban boom, seen as an unreservedlygood thing by earlier American generations, now, inthe early years of the twenty-first century appearsladen with problems, especially in its land-consumingpatterns of low-density uses and related environmentaland social consequences. Our current epithet of‘sprawl’ signifies our society’s growing distaste for thissuburban phenomenon, and we must now turn ourattention to examining this transformation.

FROM SUBURB TO SPRAWL: THEDEVOLUTION OF THE AMERICANENVIRONMENT

The federally supported suburban house buildingboom in America during the 1950s and 1960s was soenormous that the mass migration of those able toafford a new home in the suburbs sent the centralareas of cities into a decline. This explosion ofsuburban development, and the parallel decline ofAmerican city centers during that period andsubsequent decades is a very well researched anddocumented phenomenon (Jackson, 1985; Fishman,

1987; Rowe, 1991; Kunstler, 1993; Langdon, 1994;Kay, 1997; Duany et al., 2000). An underlying trendof this phenomenon was the shift in racial demograph-ics often referred to as ‘white flight,’ indicating theincreasing polarization of mainly white, wealthy sub-urbs and the poorer, predominantly black inner cities.

This movement of the more affluent sections ofsociety to the periphery, leaving the poor in the centerwas not new in the history of the Anglo-Americancity. We noted in the first section of this chapter how,from the late eighteenth century onward, in Englandand America, it was first the upper classes and laterthe middle classes who moved to the suburbs, leavingthe poor trapped in the inner city. The urban exodusafter World War II simply continued this pattern, butwith one important difference: the city center jobsthat the poorer classes relied on, together with thedowntown stores and other activities, graduallymoved out to the suburbs, too, leaving the centrallylocated, low-paid workers with reduced access toemployment, shopping and recreation.

Demographically the new suburbanites of the1950s and 1960s were almost all middle-incomefamilies, the vast majority of them white, and thesepredominantly young families who ‘joyously movedinto the new homes’ were pursuing their owndreams, and, understandably, not worrying muchabout the problems they left behind ( Jackson: p. 244). The financial deals and easy payment termsavailable on new houses in the suburbs made movingout to new subdivisions so much more attractive thanstaying in the center and renovating older properties,where financing was much harder to obtain.Accessibility and distance were not problems in thenew periphery because of the big increase in personalcar ownership, and petrol was very cheap. Increasingly,commercial enterprises of all sorts constructed newbuildings next to the new suburban highways forbetter access, and offices and shopping centers relo-cated in the suburbs to be near their white-collarworkforce and consumers.

The evacuated housing areas around the innercity were thus starved of investment, and quicklydeclined in property values. This low cost housingwas thus occupied by poorer individuals and families,often renting from absentee landlords who picked upswathes of formerly decent housing very cheaply.These older housing areas and their lowly paid orunemployed residents thus began their combinedspiral of physical, social and economic decline, andthe central business districts of many American citiesfound themselves surrounded by newly decaying


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Figure 2.11 Post-war American suburbia, early1950s. One of the authors plays with her mother inthe front yard of their new suburban home in Illinois.Although small, and located in what began as bleakenvironments, these new suburban bungalowsrepresented a major improvement in living standards for many working and middle-classAmerican families. (Photo courtesy of the estate ofDee A. Brown)


residential areas, a bleak situation that only increasedthe rate of business relocation to the suburbs. This self-reinforcing cycle of decay and depression remainedlargely unbroken until the 1980s, when many ofthese centrally located housing areas began to bereclaimed by the pioneering members of the middleclass who had grown increasingly dissatisfied withtheir suburban lifestyle.

During the decades of this suburban buildingboom, the attention of most architects was notfocused on the decaying inner cities, or on the single-family houses and the commercial strips of the sub-urbs. Most of the everyday fabric of America’ssuburbs was constructed with very little thought to design except in the most superficial ways. Theprofession generally concerned itself with the moreupscale suburban building types of enclosedshopping malls and office parks. Here buildingsstood alone as objects in (sometimes) landscapedspace, each trying to outdo its competitors in termsof external appearance and visual gimmicks. As in theresidential subdivision, the public realm of sharedpedestrian space disappeared by neglect and omission(see Figure 2.12).

The exception to this decline of the pedestrianenvironment was the much-examined transforma-tion of the American Main Street into the pedestrianspace of the suburban shopping mall. Leading thistransformation was the Austrian-American architect

Victor Gruen, the person generally credited withinventing this new building type in the late 1950sand early 1960s. Gruen’s initial vision was a recre-ation of Main Street without the cars, but with theinclusion of civic facilities such as post offices andcommunity rooms. He was eager to carry forward awider spectrum of social activities than simply shop-ping into the new suburban environment, but by theearly 1970s, Gruen admitted that the market forcesthat drove the allocation of money-making space inmalls made the incorporation of non-retail, civicfunctions all but impossible (Gruen: p. 39: Kaliski: p. 92). Shopping was, by this time, an activity increas-ingly divorced from the other functions of daily life.Only in the late 1990s has this begun to change withthe design and development of a new generation ofmixed-use ‘town centres’ (Bohl, 2002).

American society was slow to recognize the trans-formation of the good life in the suburbs to the perilsand problems of sprawl. Jerry Adler’s article ‘Bye-Bye,Suburban Dream: 15 ways to fix the suburbs’, inNewsweek (May 1995) was followed by James HowardKunstler’s cover story ‘Home from Nowhere’ in theAtlantic Monthly magazine in September 1996. Thesepopulist polemics against the prevailing suburbanlifestyle and its spatial pattern reached a wide audi-ence and opened up a national debate, but severalsocial scientists, geographers, environmentalists andarchitects had been pulling together various critiquesof urban and suburban conditions in America datinginitially from the 1950s and reemerging again in the1980s (Riesman, 1950; Whyte, 1956; Gans, 1967;Clawson, 1971; Krier, 1984; Spirn, 1984; Baldassare,1986; Cervero, 1986; 1989; Whyte, 1988; Kelbaugh,1989; Putnam, 2000).

These and other analyses illustrated the majorchanges on urban form since 1950 as a result ofideological, technological, and economic forces. Aswe have seen, from the 1950s onward, rising carownership, combined with population increases,extended America’s urbanized areas further, faster andat lower densities than previous decades. Riesman,Whyte and other researchers categorized suburbia asbeing boringly homogenous and a place lacking inindividuality and rich human experience, whileGans, in his study of the superficially homogenouscommunity of Levittown, strongly refuted theseassertions. The debate continues to rage on to thisday, informing such 1990s Hollywood movies as TheTruman Show and American Beauty.

This dissolution of the American urban fabricbegun in the 1950s increased during the 1980s and


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Figure 2.12 Medical insurance office building,Chapel Hill, NC, 1970s. Many architects becameseduced in the 1960s and 1970s with abstractformalism and minimalism. So much attention wasfocused on the form of the object that littleconsideration was given to the qualities of publicspace around and between structures.


1990s as the electronic information revolutionchallenged many conventional assumptions abouturban space and urban life, and Americans have cometo regard this expansive phenomenon as a recentproblem. But such physical expansion of cities wasnothing new, nor particular to America. In the yearsbetween World Wars I and II, the land area ofLondon doubled while the population increased byonly 30 percent, from six-and-a-half million to eight-and-a-half million people (Clawson and Hall: p. 33).Much of this phenomenal upsurge took the form ofsuburbs sprawling along the main arterial roadsleading out of the city, and enlarged communitiesdeveloping around new underground train stations.This rapid urban growth gave rise to cries about pro-tecting the countryside from shoddy developmentthat are almost identical to those heard today.

However, recent experiences in many Americancities have elevated this pattern to even higher levels.The extent of this dramatic push towards lower den-sities and larger land acquisitions for urban purposesis illustrated most vividly by the case of Cleveland,Ohio. Here the population decreased by 11 percentbetween the years of 1970 and 1990, but the landarea of the metropolitan area actually increased by 33 percent! (Benfield et al., 1999). Detroit, Michiganprovides similar figures for the same 20-year period.Its population declined by 7 percent yet its land areagrew by 28 percent. Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Daytonall followed this same paradoxical trend. Most othermajor cities in the USA increased their populationduring the same period and continue to do so. Of the100 largest urbanized areas in the country, 71 citiesgrew in both population and land area, some verydramatically, while 11 experienced no populationgrowth (or decreased in numbers) yet increased inarea (www.sprawlcity.com). This growth occurredalmost exclusively at the suburban edge: between1950 and 1970, American suburbs grew in popula-tion more than eight times faster than central cities,by 85 million people compared to 10 million.

The growth followed new market opportunitieswith little thought for the consequences, but by thelate 1980s the effects of this suburban migration ofpeople and wealth was more clearly seen: the centers ofmost American cities, once proud hubs of commerceand culture, became hollow shells. Dallas, Texas,during the 1980s provides a perfect illustration of theconditions in the city center at that time. White,middle-class office workers drove in from the suburbs,parked their cars in parking decks, walked throughair-conditioned pedestrian bridges or skywalks into

their office towers, went for lunch and shopped in theinternal pedestrian malls linked together in the lowerfloors of the office buildings, walked back through theskywalks to their cars at the end of the day and drovehome. Not once did the typical office worker set footon the streets, or engage in any pedestrian activity thatwas part of external public space. On some days,before they skywalked back to their cars after work,they might even catch a Maverick’s basketball game viasubterranean passages. The streets – hot and unpleas-ant in the summer months – were predominantly theterritory of the black and Hispanic lower class workersand the unemployed.

This dystopian downtown scene contrasted withaffluence in the suburbs, where development gobbledup green fields for new residential subdivisions andshopping centers at an astonishing rate. In the sameperiod from 1950–1970, the consumption of landfor residential purposes in greater Chicago grew at anamazing 11 times faster than the region’s population.This suburban expansion has continued almostunchecked despite the radical improvement of manyAmerican city centers during the 1990s.

America lost 4 million acres of prime farmland tourban use during the decade from 1982 to 1992.That equates to 1.6 million hectares, or an areanearly as big as Wales. That may not sound much inthe context of the huge American continent, but itdoesn’t count other, less productive rural areas thatare also converted to housing subdivisions, shoppingmalls and office parks. The speed at which this over-all transformation takes place is hard to contemplate.The city of Charlotte, North Carolina, for example,converts open space to suburbs at the rate of 41 acresper day, or 1.7 acres per hour! (Brookings Institution,2002). Nationally, this process of urbanization isequivalent to gobbling up land a rate of 45.7 acresper hour, every day (Benfield et al., 1999).

It wasn’t residential use alone that expanded thesuburbs. During those same two decades from 1950to 1970 the suburbs provided 75 percent of all newjobs in the retail and commercial sectors. To use adramatic example, between 1970 and 1990 the con-sumption of land for industrial and commercial usesin greater Chicago increased by 74 percent, 18 timesthe rate of that metropolitan area’s population growth.

Meanwhile, the decline of central cities continued,often in dramatic ways, with increasing instances ofstark poverty, rising crime, homelessness and othermajor problems, often associated with drug abuse. By 1990, the flight of the residential middle classfrom the city center was all but complete, and many


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suburbanites, too busy congratulating themselves ontheir realization of the American Dream, had excisedthe problems of the deserted downtowns from theirminds. A single-family, detached house on the family’sown property, even if the land measured less than halfan acre, was an acceptable substitute for the Americanpioneer’s dream of a ‘little house on the prairie.’

The report Measuring Sprawl and its Impact: theCharacter and Consequences of MetropolitanExpansion identified sprawl as the

… process in which the spread of developmentacross the landscape far outpaces populationgrowth. The landscape sprawl creates has fourdimensions: a population that is widely dispersedin low-density development; rigidly separatedhomes, shops, and workplaces; a network of roadsmarked by huge blocks and poor access; and a lackof well-defined, thriving activity centers, such asdowntowns and town centers. Most of theother features usually associated with sprawl – thelack of transportation choices, relative uniformityof housing options or the difficulty of walking –are a result of these conditions. (Ewing et al.,2002: p. 3).

Fiscal impacts of unrestrained suburban expansioncan be added to this list of factors; these land usedecisions generate direct costs for the public purse.They require new infrastructure of roads, watermains and sewer connections to serve undevelopedland on the edges of urban areas. The new popula-tions need fire and police protection – more person-nel, new buildings, extra equipment. Suburbanfamilies setting up home in new areas need newschools for their children to attend. The money forthese new expenses has to come from somewhere, andthe American system of public finance demands thatmost costs for community services be borne locallythrough property taxes and sales taxes. Where thecosts to support growth exceed the tax income munic-ipalities receive from new households, part of theprice to accommodate newcomers falls on existingresidents through general tax increases, often creatingfriction between existing residents and newcomers. A study in Salt Lake City, Utah, demonstrated thatlow-density sprawl would cost as much as $15 billionin infrastructure and public services – approximately$30 000 per household (Calthorpe and Fulton, 2001:p. 2). Despite the protestations of the real estateindustry, growth rarely pays for itself.

This inequity has given rise to several efforts topass these costs of growth onto the newcomers who

have generated the need for extra services in the formof impact fees, that is, extra fees per new dwellingcharged by the municipality to developers. These feesare then put toward the cost of providing newcommunity services, thus reducing the tax burden onexisting residents. These impact fees can vary from afew hundred dollars to several thousand, and devel-opers (who dislike this system intensely) pass thesefees directly onto homebuyers in the form ofincreased house prices. Critics of impact fees point tothe fact that this system makes new housing moreexpensive, thus making it less affordable to people oflow or moderate incomes.

At a larger scale, several studies have shown thatthese new costs for providing community services toexpanding suburban areas can be minimized throughcompact development. A well-known examination ofcomparative development patterns in New Jerseyestimated that the state of New Jersey could saveseveral billion dollars in infrastructure costs if itsurbanized areas developed in compact patternsinstead of extended sprawl (Burchell and Listokin,1995). In addition to reducing the costs of public ser-vices, other studies show that compact developmentcan also reduce actual housing costs by between 6 and 8 percent (Burchell, 1997).

Another quirk in the structure of American publicsector finance that differentiates it from Britishpractice also causes great difficulty in creating andfunding policies of sustainable growth in metropolitanareas. Because public funding is largely locally basedas opposed to centrally administered, there is greatercompetition among municipalities for certain typesof development that generate more tax revenue thanexpenditure. For example, a large new out-of-townshopping center will generate new property taxes andsales tax revenue from all the goods sold, withrelatively little cost to the local authority – possiblynew water and sewer connections and police and fireprotection. This type of commercial developmentdoes not generate any need for new schools, librariesor other expensive community facilities, and thus thelocal authority makes a net profit from this kind ofdevelopment, receiving more tax money from theproject than it expends on services. This contrastswith typical residential development, which usuallycosts the municipality more money to service with allnecessary facilities than it receives in taxes.

Towns and cities therefore compete fiercely witheach other to attract large retail and office develop-ments to their community, usually in suburban loca-tions, and financial considerations often override all


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others. Issues of environmental impacts, loss of openspace and even traffic congestion find it hard to matchthe need for local authorities to raise their own moneyfor community services. In this competitive context,it’s very difficult (some would say impossible) toundertake collaborative regional planning that coordi-nates the design of sustainable transportation andland-use patterns across several different local authori-ties. Currently each municipality takes decisions thatwithin their own limited boundaries might be rational,but which in the larger regional context can be exactlythe opposite.

Most American cities, while homogeneous on theground, are divided into different political jurisdic-tions that compete with one another for new devel-opment to improve their tax base. Atlanta, Georgia,for example, is an agglomeration of 73 different localauthorities, comprising the original city of Atlantaand a multitude of surrounding suburban towns andcounties. As Atlanta’s urban area grew, its municipalboundaries didn’t expand with it. Instead, the newbuilt-up areas were claimed by the formerly ruralcounties around the original city, leaving the city ofAtlanta landlocked within its suburbs, all of whichhave grown into towns in their own right. The com-plete extent of the extended Atlanta metropolitanarea, with its population of 4 112 198 (in 2003),comprises the city of Atlanta, 20 counties and 143independent towns!

For the British reader, a theoretical analogy mightbe if the city of Birmingham were composed of manydifferent towns, each having its own town council,planning staff, police force, fire brigade – and budget.Most taxation would be local, and different councils,say, Edgbaston and Ladywood, for example, wouldhave different rates of property tax on homes andbusinesses, and of sales tax (VAT) on the goodsbought in the stores. ‘Towns’ nearer the center mighthave larger percentages of poorer inhabitants, andwould therefore have trouble raising enough revenueto maintain good levels of public services, while thewealthier municipalities in the suburbs would alwayshave the upper hand in attracting new jobs, shoppingcenters and affluent residents. What in the UK is aunified administrative area capable of coordinatedplanning and allocation of resources would thusbecome a fractured metropolis of increasing disparitybetween rich and poor communities. The nearestBritain has come to experiencing this state of affairswas in London during the 1980s, when PrimeMinister Margaret Thatcher abolished the GreaterLondon Council and left the capital city to be run by

a series of squabbling and unequal borough councils.It wasn’t until the late 1990s that the process ofrestoring unified local government for London wascommenced under Tony Blair’s administration withthe election of a new Mayor for the whole metropol-itan area.

Profligate patterns of suburban expansion alsobring with them problems of air and water pollutionthat cross America’s myriad municipal boundaries.Polluted surface water run-off from a large suburbanshopping center in one town may flow into the riverthat supplies drinking water for the adjacent commu-nity. But if the upstream town desperately needs thetaxes from the shopping center to pay for newschools it may very well pay no heed to the pleas of itsdownstream neighbor. Problems of pollution arewell-documented in American technical literature(Benfield et al., 1999) and we don’t wish to duplicatefacts and figures here to an unnecessary degree, but afew instances will help drive home the need for dra-matic changes to current attitudes and policies.

The expanding nature of America’s suburbsrequires that most people drive everywhere for every-thing they need in their normal daily lives. In a coun-try dominated by large distances and large vehicleswith low gas mileage, it is quite possible to spend agallon of gas to buy a gallon of milk. Using the 20-year period between 1970 and 1990 again as areliable benchmark, vehicle miles travelled (VMT)increased at four times the increase in the driving-agepopulation (Benfield et al., 1999). For many peopletoday, it’s virtually impossible to live without a car.There is no alternative, for the widely spaced suburbscannot be served conveniently or economically by pub-lic transportation. Some wealthier families ‘need’ threeor four vehicles to support their suburban lifestyle.

Twenty-first century Americans drive so muchbecause the goods and services they require each day areseparated into single-use zones, and the roads betweenthem have been designed for vehicle use only. Walkingin this environment often requires walking in the road-way, endangered by traffic, or on some muddy, scruffyunpaved verge. America is increasingly becoming aland of private affluence and public squalor, as the pub-lic realm decays through lack of use, or use by onlythose members of society whose mobility is limited.

All this driving translates directly into unhealthy airquality caused by carbon monoxide exhaust, nitrousoxides, and other carcinogenic and toxic air pollutants.Many American cities regularly have ‘bad air’ days, orsmog-alert days when health authorities advise citizensnot to go outside if they have respiratory problems.


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European cities are by no means immune from thisproblem, but there is one crucial difference: alterna-tive, less polluting types of transportation are oftenavailable. In most American cities, the car is the onlyrealistic means of moving around. Every Americansuburban area has places where office workers eatlunch at restaurants within a quarter-mile from wherethey work, but where it is physically impossible orunsafe to walk. In twenty-first century America, evengoing for lunch with a group of colleagues involves amultitude of car trips.

The haphazard, spread-out development patternsof sprawl dramatically affect air quality; equally dra-matic is their impact on the quality of water inAmerica’s creeks, streams and rivers. It’s now fairlywell understood that natural landscapes are generallypermeable, allowing rainwater and snowmelt to per-colate slowly into the ground and filtering out mostpollutants naturally. In cities and suburbs, by contrast,large areas of ground are paved or built over withimpervious materials, thus forcing stormwater to run-off quickly into waterways without benefit of any nat-ural filtration, and picking up man-made pollutantssuch as car oil and other everyday chemicals as itflows. Even when tallying densities as low as onehouse per acre, the math adds up to approximately 10 percent of the site being covered with buildingsand concrete driveways, paths and patios. Shoppingcenters typically cover between 75 and 95 percent oftheir site’s area with this impervious construction. As aresult, run-off pollution is now America’s main threatto ecologically sound water quality. Forty percent ofthe nation’s rivers are significantly polluted, leading todiminution of fish stocks, public health problems andloss of recreational venues (Benfield et al., 1999).

Added to these serious environmental problemsare the visible attributes of suburban sprawl. Much ofit, especially the commercial areas, is incredibly ugly(see Figure 2.13). The caustic critic James HowardKunstler sums up this American dilemma:

We drive up and down the gruesome, tragic subur-ban boulevards of commerce, and we’re over-whelmed at the fantastic, awesome, stupefyingugliness of absolutely everything in sight – the frypits, the big-box stores, the office units, the lubejoints, the carpet warehouses, the parking lagoons,the jive plastic townhouse clusters, the uproar ofsigns, the highway itself clogged with cars – asthough the whole thing had been designed bysome diabolical force bent on making humanbeings miserable. (Kunstler, 1996a: p. 43).

It is interesting to compare Kunstler’s 1996 critiqueof the suburban environment to that of Britisharchitectural critic and cartoonist Osbert Lancaster,writing in 1959:

If an architect of enormous energy, painstaking inge-nuity and great structural knowledge, had devotedyears of his life to the study of how best to achievethe maximum of inconvenience … and had theassistance of a corps of research workers ransackingarchitectural history for the least attractive materialsand building devices known to the past, it is just pos-sible, though highly unlikely, that he might haveevolved a style as crazy as that with which the specu-lative builder, with no expenditure of mental energyat all, has enriched the landscape on either side ofour great arterial roads … Notice the skill withwhich the (buildings) are disposed, that ensures thatthe largest possible area of countryside is ruined withthe minimum of expense. (Lancaster: p. 152)

Medical and psychological evidence reveals that uglysurroundings are not good for us. University researchin Texas and Delaware indicates that our reactions tovisual clutter ‘may include elevated blood pressure,increased muscle tension, and impacts on mood andwork performance’ (Benfield et al., 1997). Recentstudies have also linked health problems such as obesityand diabetes to a badly-designed, unwalkable environ-ment (Killingsworth et al., 2003; US Dept of Healthand Human Services, 2001; Srikameswaram, 2003).


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Figure 2.13 Generic commercial sprawl in theAmerican city. South Boulevard, Charlotte, NC, 2003.Every piece of this visual and functional mess is theresult of developers following planning regulationsthat focused on the minutiae of individual projectswith no regard for the larger urban whole.


The litany of problems that accompanies suburbansprawl, especially its ugliness, the loss of open space,health issues, environmental pollution and the pres-sure continually to increase tax rates to fund new com-munity services comprise the most evident symptomsof America’s urban tribulations. But many in the devel-opment community who construct conventional stripcenters and residential subdivisions dismiss theseobjections, claiming the continued market success oflow-density spread-out development indicates that it’swhat people want. They reject the criticisms of ugli-ness as the subjective aesthetics of a snooty middle-class elite; they cast environmental objections as therantings of ‘tree-hugging’ extremists. Nothing, in theirview, outweighs a successful financial return within thelimited 10-year time frame of their development cycle.From this perspective, success in the marketplaceequates to success in society at large.

For many years the developers’ financial equationsof suburban development went unchallenged, butmore recently they have been subjected to closerscrutiny. The fiscal impacts of sprawl are now muchbetter understood in terms of their real costs to soci-ety and the taxpayer, issues that the developmentcommunity has gladly overlooked in its analyses.This sharper economic sense is one of the factors thathas led to the upsurge of interest in development thatis more sustainable in terms of its longer term envi-ronmental and fiscal impacts. Generally labelledSmart Growth, this search for a wiser use of land

and resources has prompted a slew of publications,each promoting a similar agenda of environmentalconservation and more compact, space-efficientdevelopment (Benfield et al., 1999; Benfield et al.,2001; Booth et al., 2002; O’Neill, 2002). An increas-ing number of professionals and the public realizeour generation is simply passing on to our childrenand grandchildren the costs to clean up the civic andenvironmental mess our society produces today.

But like many cities in Britain, American urbanareas are plagued by many other dilemmas apart fromsuburban sprawl, the solutions to which must be partof any Smart Growth policy. Both countries sufferfrom increasing separation by race and income inurban areas (and the consequent problems of socialinequity and ghettoization) and on top of this,American cities still struggle with issues of disinvest-ment in central cities, the deterioration of sub-urbs that date from the 1950s and 1960s, and theerosion of the culture’s built heritage by thoughtless


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Figure 2.14 First Ward Place, Charlotte, NC,1997–2001. Under the auspices of the US govern-ments HOPE VI program, and following New Urbanistdesign principles, several cities have transformedblighted urban areas into attractive mixed-incomeneighborhoods like this Charlotte example.

Figure 2.15 Lindberg Center, Atlanta, Cooper Carryarchitects, 1998–2003. The Bell Southtelecommunications company has consolidated itsregional offices as the centerpiece of this largemixed-use development built on top of and arounda MARTA train station in Atlanta, Georgia.


demolition or careless stewardship. For each of thesequandaries, private or public organizations are tryingto reverse the downward trend, sometimes withimpressive local success. In America, several cities cannow point to major downtown improvements duringthe 1990s, with thousands of new city center dwellersbringing with them renewed retail development tosupplement the traditional concentrations of officespace. The intransigent problem of building afford-able housing and integrating it into the community isat least being tackled with some serious intent (seeFigure 2.14).

New transportation infrastructures, usually lightrail or streetcars, are beginning to spur a series ofurban redevelopments in more central locations thatprovide a partial antidote to continued peripheral

expansion (see Figure 2.15). Some new developmentson greenfield sites are taking a more compact, envi-ronmentally friendly form with an urbanized coreand walkable neighborhoods (see Plate 5). Othersubdivision designs around the edges of cities empha-sise the conservation of existing landscapes as anenvironmental resource and a generator of economicvalue (see Figure 2.16). All these types of develop-ment have their place in the lexicon of SmartGrowth, and formed the foundations of NewUrbanist theory and practice some years before SmartGrowth became the rallying cry it is today inAmerica. Accordingly, in the next chapter we turnour attention specifically to the principles of NewUrbanism, the evolution of the movement, and itsintersection with Smart Growth.


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Figure 2.16 Conservationsubdivision design. Ongreenfield sites, newdevelopment canminimize its negativeaspects and engender asense of place byclustering in morecompact layouts topreserve existinglandscape amenities andecologies. (Drawingcourtesy of The LawrenceGroup)


IITheory

PART


53

SYNOPSIS

In the first part of this chapter we analyze NewUrbanism and trace its evolution over the last twodecades of the twentieth century, relating it to similarurban concepts – both historical American precedentand parallel strands of European urban design. Webegin this brief history of traditional urbanism in anunlikely place – Las Vegas, home of the ‘strip’, andthe antithesis of the traditional city. The analysis ofthe American roadside environment and the com-mercial strip by Venturi et al. (1972) in their bookLearning from Las Vegas was an important event inthe demolition of modernist urban theory; it createdroom for the development of new ways of thinkingabout urbanism in America.

We explore the parallel developments of TraditionalNeighborhood Development and Transit-orientedDevelopment and their fusion to create NewUrbanism. In particular, we look at the environmentalagenda of Transit-oriented Development and connectthis urban-based vision with the third main elementof New Urbanist theory and practice, the conserva-tion of rural landscapes and ecologies, staying ‘ruralby design.’ This union of urban and rural perspectivescreates the strongest link between New Urbanism andthe Smart Growth movement in America, to the pointwhere the two terms are almost synonymous.

In the second section we discuss the conceptsembodied in the term Smart Growth, and note theextensive overlap of this environmentally based visionof America with New Urbanism. Lastly, we examinesome of the myths and misconceptions that existconcerning the agendas of Smart Growth advocates,many of them deliberately fostered by opponents ofSmart Growth and New Urbanism. We revisit, and

counter, some other strands of opposition to the useof traditional urban forms that exist within academiaand the architectural profession.

THE ORIGINS, CONCEPTS ANDEVOLUTION OF NEW URBANISM

We’ve never liked the name ‘The New Urbanism.’ Inour work with communities, we stuck to ‘traditionaltown planning’ or ‘neo-traditional development’ aslong as we could, but the momentum of generalusage, and the branding of traditional urban forms asNew Urbanism was eventually irreversible.

We didn’t like the term because it got in the way ofour work in community design. Most American sub-urban communities grappling with suburban growthpressures don’t want to be ‘new.’ Newness, in theform of new development, is seen by many as thesource of the problems growth brings. And manycommunities we work with, except those that com-prise neighborhoods within cities, don’t want to beurban. Citizens moved out of the cities to the sub-urbs precisely to avoid urbanity, or at least what theyperceived as urban. So the name erected two unnec-essary barriers from the outset.

In our practice, we now tend to use the terms‘New Urbanism’ and ‘Smart Growth’ as synonyms.Indeed, because of our discomfort with the title ‘NewUrbanism’ we have come to use Smart Growthalmost universally, liberally sprinkled with referencesto traditional neighborhood design and ‘urbanvillages.’ The English heritage and experience of oneof the authors means he has been designing with theconcepts now classified as New Urbanism since the1970s, long before the term was coined, and some

3Traditional urbanism: New Urbanism and Smart Growth



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time before its precursor, Neo-Traditional Develop-ment was invented in America in the early 1980s.However, the lineage of the design and planningmovement in America that became New Urbanism isimportant to review, as several misconceptions stillattach themselves to the public’s (and the designprofessions’) understanding of the term.

The name ‘The New Urbanism’ was consciouslychosen in the early to mid-1990s to mark the mergingof Traditional Neighborhood Development, developedon the east coast of America by Duany and Plater-Zyberk (2002), with Transit-oriented Developmentwhich evolved synchronously on the west coast largelythrough the work of Peter Calthorpe, Doug Kelbaugh,and Daniel Solomon. The conjoined movement devel-oped a manifesto for urbanism in the postmodern cityspecifically as a counterpoint to the Charter of Athens,the 1942 document that codified the modernist viewof urbanity. The new charter, the Charter of The NewUrbanism, was signed into being at the FourthCongress of The New Urbanism in 1996 at Charleston,South Carolina. This urbanism, based on the return totraditional urban forms and typologies, was defined as‘new’ in contrast to the old and discredited urban lan-guage of modernism. And it was to be ‘urban’ by creat-ing a coherent urban structure to counteract the faultsof a sprawling suburban model of city development.

However, this rebirth of traditional urbanism inthe 1980s did not happen in a vacuum: it was neces-sarily preceded by the final demise of modernisturban theory that came to pass during the 1970s.During those years American architects had beenfaced with two stark facts about their contributionsto the nation’s cities – the failure of modernist designtheories in the inner city programs of urbanrenewal – and the profession’s lack of any success inshaping suburbia into an attractive and efficientform. The year 1972 in particular administered twounsettling shocks to architects: the publication ofLearning from Las Vegas by Robert Venturi, DeniseScott Brown and Steven Izenour marked the end ofmodernism in architecture and planning as effec-tively as the demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe housingblocks in that same year. Venturi, Scott Brown andIzenour made implicit common cause with MelvinWebber’s ‘Nonplace Urban Realm’ of the early 1960sto the extent they considered traditional urban formsno longer relevant, but, most shockingly, theydeclared that modernist concepts of architectural styleand form were similarly obsolete. Instead of mod-ernist doctrine that placed emphasis on the sculpturalform and constructional integrity of buildings,

Venturi and his colleagues proposed an architecturethat was based much more on signs and symboliccommunication. They threw down the gauntlet to aprofession still mesmerized by European modernismby placing the products of American popular cultureon a par with Corbusian aesthetics.

Developed from a 1968 essay, A Significance forA&P Parking Lots, the message of Learning from LasVegas was an exhortation to architects not to rejectthe popular culture of their time, but to elevate it to asubject worthy of serious study, just as pop artists hadchallenged the aesthetic values of high modernism adecade earlier. The subtext of the argument was thatthe space of the commercial strip, or of highway travelin general, was a more valid architectural and culturalexperience for Americans than the traditional,enclosed space of European plazas. For Venturi andhis co-authors, the most relevant works of architec-ture along the highway were the commercial signsrather than buildings. If architecture was about com-munication of meaning to the general public, thenthe symbolism of the large signs was more effectivethan modernist abstract aesthetics.

To further this message, Venturi and Scott Brownorganized an exhibition in Washington DC, in 1976,entitled ‘Signs of Life: symbols in the American City,’which examined popular symbolism in the familyhouse, the American Main Street (almost defunctby that time), and the commercial suburban strip.Architects and planners didn’t have to like Venturiand Scott Brown’s thesis, but one fact was undeniable:for the first time in over thirty years, architectural the-ory was re-embracing the suburbs. Learning from LasVegas validated the process of learning from existingand commonplace landscapes; indeed the authorsconsidered this intellectual reversion a praiseworthyand revolutionary act (Venturi et al., 1972).

For thirty years or so, the study of the symboliciconography of the American strip has continuedto provide fodder for esoteric academic studies atschools and colleges of architecture, but has done littleto improve the physical environment. Reclassifyingsomething that was ugly and inefficient as visuallyrich and significant didn’t alter the fact that suburbiawas developing in a manner that was detrimental tothe city, its citizens, and its environment. However,Venturi’s subversive text breached the intellectual damof modernism in a crucial way, and other possibilitiesfor design began to open up. If it was valid to studythe existing landscape, then was it possible that olderAmerican landscapes, those of the traditional town,might also hold some lessons?


CHAPTER THREE ● TRADITIONAL URBANISM

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There was one other positive urban result fromAmerican architects’ fascination with the brash road-side vernacular of the Strip and its signs and symbolicmeanings. This emphasis on semiotics captured theimagination of a profession keen to reconnect withpublic sentiment, and initially led to several years ofsuperficial façadism in postmodern architecture.Architects slathered classical or populist images onthe façades of their buildings – to little lasting effect –but these designs did at least lay the groundwork fora crucial lesson. The renewed emphasis on the designof building façades independent from the building’splan meant that it was possible once again to regardthe external walls of buildings as urban elements,responsive to conditions in the exterior public realm.

To understand the revolutionary implications ofthis seemingly modest change, we have to rememberthat modernist buildings didn’t have façades. Thiswas a word banned from design studio in the 1950sand 1960s for its decadent, historicist overtones.Instead, the building’s external walls were designed aselevations, raising the plan in three dimensions withthe expectation that the disposition of windows,doors and other elements of the wall would reflectthe needs of the ground plan with functionalprecision. As reasonable as this may have been on onelevel, this focus on a building’s appearance aspredominantly the expression of its internal func-

tions meant that external factors such as adjacentbuildings and the urban context had little or no roleto play in the building’s aesthetics. As an extension ofthis attitude, as we noted in Chapter 1, architects inthe 1950s and 1960s had dismissed the study of con-text itself as having much value, and existing build-ings were often viewed as inconsequential and in theway, as Figure 3.1 indicates.

Architects slowly relearned the lesson of history thatexternal walls need not merely enclose and express thebuilding’s internal functions, but could independentlyshape and modulate external space. This shift allowedarchitects to go further, and study the traditional roleof buildings as definers of public space instead of sim-ply objects in space. From here it was only a short stepto designing new buildings that specifically respondedto their context – a setting that included adjacentbuildings, the public spaces of the city, and the pat-terns of human activity within those spaces.

Within ten years of architectural modernism’s intel-lectual decline, this fledgling interest in contextualismconnected in the USA with a growing interest in thetraditional vernacular architecture and urbanism ofAmerican towns and cities. This nexus received itsearliest expression by the vacation community ofSeaside in the Florida panhandle, designed by AndresDuany and his wife, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk in1981–82 (see Figure 1.11). Seaside featured modern

Figure 3.1 Office buildings, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Ryder and Yates, architects, 1970. Many buildings from the1970s were quite sophisticated structures, The office building on the left, for example, is designed as a giantbeam from which the floors are suspended by cables enclosed in stainless steel cruciform mouldings,creating large open-plan floor areas. Despite such cleverness, buildings often demonstrated a crushinginsensitivity to their context and the urban scale of the city. Other buildings of the late modernist period werefar less clever. The example in the photograph on the right is just terrible. The new slab has no redeemingfeatures whatsoever. It is a testament to the aesthetic power of the adjacent Victorian building that it evenholds its own against this monstrous intrusion into the city fabric. Such design outrages are particularlypoignant in Newcastle, which has a marvellous early Victorian urban structure and architectural legacy.


interpretations of traditional domestic building typesand a pattern of streets and public spaces actively rem-iniscent of traditional American towns and suburbsfrom the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.Beneath its quirky aesthetics, the design provided aradical critique of contemporary suburban planning,with its emphasis on well-defined public spaces and avision based primarily on the visual character of build-ings and spaces rather than their uses. The plan ofSeaside featured a range of traditional urban forms,designed as a series of grids overlaid with diagonal axesfocusing on the town center, and providing key loca-tions for monumental buildings. The streets weredesigned as narrow pedestrian ‘rooms’ along which carscould move at slow speed, and which often terminatedat a public building or public space. Garages wereaccessed from the rear, by means of narrow alleyways.

The effect of Seaside was dramatic; for the first timein several decades, a suburban development was con-structed with some sense by being a unified place, likea traditional neighborhood or town in miniature. Butthe modest development by these two architects was sofar beyond conventional thinking in the early 1980s,that it took another decade, until the mid-1990sbefore American planners tentatively embraced ‘neo-traditional development.’ Almost another decade fol-lowed before the development community, throughtheir ‘think-tank’ the Urban Land Institute (ULI),embraced these same architectural and planning princi-ples. By this time, neo-traditional development hadmorphed into New Urbanism and the ULI began tohold workshops and conferences on the topic in the late1990s. By the time of writing in 2003, the Institute hadproduced several publications explaining how theirmembers could create traditional towns in line withNew Urbanist principles (ULI, 1998; Eppli and Tu,1999; O’Neill, 1999; Booth et al., 2002; Bohl, 2002).

This conscious process of morphing TraditionalNeighborhood Development with Transit-orientedDevelopment to create New Urbanism in the mid-1990s brought together the two most radical strandsof avant-garde urbanism in America. TraditionalNeighborhood Development had its roots in histori-cal examples of American urbanism such as the ‘pre-automobile’ neighborhoods of streetcar suburbs andcommuter rail suburbs that were built around manycities in the late 1800s and the early decades of thetwentieth century. At a reduced scale, American smalltowns of the same period provided similar usefulprecedent. Duany and Plater-Zyberk realized that theplanning concepts and physical attributes of suchplaces, with their human scale and lively mix of uses,

were as appropriate to postmodern America as whenthey were originally developed, sixty to one hundredyears ago. The authors’ neighborhood of Dilworth, inCharlotte, for example, with its network of pedes-trian-friendly streets, restaurants, offices and stores isas lively, attractive and relevant now as it was when itwas first laid out one hundred years ago as Charlotte’sfirst streetcar suburb. In 1903, the level of car owner-ship was miniscule. Now in our neighborhood auto-mobiles number at least two, often three per family.For a system of streets, spaces and buildings to con-tinue to function very well given this major techno-logical change speaks highly of its robust and flexibledesign principles. History presents us with a modelthat suggests neighborhoods like ours will be as validin the future as they were in the past. Thus, the radi-calism of Traditional Neighborhood Developmentwas predominantly a conservative ethos; this con-trasts with the compatible but more environmentallyprogressive spirit of Transit-oriented Development.

Part of this radical conservatism derives from theconsiderable influence of the European urbanist,Leon Krier. Duany and Plater-Zyberk acknowledgethe impact of Krier, and his neo-rationalist ideasderived from the European city, on the planning ofSeaside. Krier was a consultant during the designprocess of that landmark community, and hasremained an important contributor to New Urbanisttheory. Duany described hearing a lecture on tradi-tional urbanism by Krier while he and Plater-Zyberkwere still working in Arquitectonica, the Miamiarchitectural firm best known for its flashy high-rises.As a result, the husband and wife team underwent aprofound change of direction in their work. (http://applied.math.utsa.edu/krier/).

In Europe during the 1970s, Krier was a leadingadvocate of the Movement for the Reconstruction ofthe European City, whose major themes included:the preservation of historic centers; the use of historicurban types and urban patterns such as the street, thesquare and the neighborhood (or quartier in Krier’slexicon) as the basis for new city development; andthe reconstruction of single-use residential ‘bedroomsuburbs’ into articulate mixed-use neighborhoods.While the specific European urban pattern s and typeswere transformed by their travel across the Atlantic dur-ing the following decade, these underlying theoreticalprinciples became founding concepts for TraditionalNeighborhood Development in the 1980s and madetheir way into New Urbanist theory in the 1990s.

Krier’s focus on the European urban quarter was matched by Dauny and Platter-Zyberk’s revived


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57

interest in the American neighborhood concept ofsocial planner Clarence Perry, first promulgated in theearly 1920s and more fully developed as part of the1929 First Regional Plan of New York. Perry wasactive in the American Regional Planning Associationwith Lewis Mumford and Clarence Stein and HenryWright, the architect-planners of Radburn. Perry’straining as a sociologist had taught him the impor-tance of cohesive neighborhoods as political, social,and even moral units of a city. Moreover, Perry livedin the New York railroad suburb of Forest HillsGardens (noted in Chapter 1), and this experiencestimulated his concept of the neighborhood unit asthe fundamental unit of city planning. In his 1929monograph for the Regional Plan of New York, Perrywrote from first-hand experience about the value ofhigh quality urban design in fostering the good spiritand character of a neighborhood, and created a plandiagram of a typical neighborhood layout (Perry,1929: pp. 90–3; in Hall, 2002: p. 132). This diagramillustrated a hypothetical area bounded by majorroads with community facilities, including a schooland a park, at the center (see Figure 3.2).

Central to Perry’s concept was the ability of all resi-dents to walk to those facilities they needed on a dailybasis, such as shops, schools and playgrounds. Thesize of the neighborhood was determined by a five-minute walking distance from center to edge, approx-imately 1/4-mile, creating a population of about 5000people, large enough to support local shops but small

enough to generate a sense of community (Broadbentp. 126). The street pattern was a mixture of radialavenues interspersed with irregular straight and curv-ing grids with small parks and playgrounds liberallyscattered throughout. Shopping was located along theedge at the intersections of the main roads within thefive-minute walking distance for most residents.

Duany and Plater-Zyberk developed this same con-cept and updated it for American urban conditions ofthe late twentieth century. In their Lexicon of NewUrbanism (DPZ, 2002) they illustrated a similar sizedurban area, bounded by highways, and scaled to thefive-minute, 1/4-mile walk. In this contemporary ver-sion, more extensive commercial development islocated along the edges of the bounding highways,and a street of mixed-use buildings leads from onecorner into the central public park, where communityinstitutions and some local shops are located. Theschool has moved to the edge, due to much largerspace requirements for playing fields and parking, andthis educational facility is now shared between neigh-borhoods. Duany and Plater-Zyberk’s street grid istighter and more organized than Perry’s but is similarin concept to the original (see Figure 3.3).

Duany and Plater-Zyberk’s understanding howpowerful diagrams can be in regulating developmentand promoting good urban design is one of the mostimportant contributions to urban design and townplanning in contemporary America. This claim isbased on the duo’s revolutionary innovation of graphic

NEIGHBORHOOD UNIT 1927

Pedestrain shed one-quarter mile radius

Civic space at center

Many playgrounds

Neighborhood institutions and schools within

High capacity thoroughfares at the edge

Regional institutions at the edge

Shopping at traffic junctions at the edge

Figure 3.2 Clarence Perry’sNeighborhood Unit, 1927. Thecircle illustrates a five-minute(approximately 1/4 mile) walkfrom the center. (Diagram [2002version] courtesy of Duany Plater-Zyberk and Company)



58

development codes as the means of making sure devel-opments are controlled by concepts of good urbandesign in three dimensions, rather than by the conven-tional means of two-dimensional diagrams of land useand dense tomes of legal language. The role of design-based codes is central to this book: they are exempli-fied in several of our case studies, and discussed indetail in Chapters 5 and 10, so here we will simplyhighlight their importance. In Seaside and subsequentprojects, Duany and Plater-Zyberk established thepractice of encoding all the salient features of buildingforms, types of urban space (streets, squares, parks andso on) into a simple-to-read sheet of diagrams that cre-ated the physical vocabulary for building the commu-nity. Into these three-dimensional templates were theninserted conditions pertaining to building use. This isexactly the opposite of conventional planning practice,where use of buildings or land is paramount and issuesof physical design are usually relegated to detailed legallanguage that tries, inadequately, to describe details forthe arrangements of buildings and spaces. Learningfrom Duany and Plater-Zyberk’s breakthrough in theearly 1980s, the authors developed their first graphic,design-based code for the town of Davidson, NC, in1995 (Keane and Walters, 1995) (see Figure 3.4). Thisexample was indicative of work by several architect-planners in communities across North America duringthe mid-1990s, searching to find ways of translatingDuany and Plater-Zyberk’s code for a privately con-trolled development like Seaside into a document that

operated for all circumstances in the fully public realmof city zoning (City of Toronto, 1995; Hammond andWalters, 1996).

This issue of coding remains a crucial one becausemost aspects of this traditionally based urbanismare still illegal under many conventional Americanzoning ordinances that control development inAmerican towns and cities (Langdon, 2003a). Theseoutdated ordinances, developed in the decades afterWorld War II, provide the framework of detailed regu-lations that have implemented the modernist and sub-urbanized view of the city, categorized by low-densitysingle-use developments separated out across the land-scape. As we discuss in detail in Chapter 5, the solutionadopted by New Urbanist designers has been to rewritedevelopment codes based on models of traditionalurbanism, and to persuade municipalities to imple-ment these as parallel or substitute zoning regulations.

If a renewed appreciation of traditional Americanurbanism and a breakthrough in development codingwere the main highlights of Traditional NeighborhoodDevelopment, the equivalent emphasis of Transit-oriented Development was made clear in its title: it renewed the severed connection between urban form and public transportation. Transit-orientedDevelopment embodied many similar and compli-mentary ideas as its Traditional NeighborhoodDevelopment companion concerning traditionalurban patterns, but it evolved specifically from theconcept of the ‘Pedestrian Pocket.’ This was essentially

TRADITIONAL NEIGHBORHOOD DEVELOPMENT 1997

School to be shared by adjacent neighborhood

Short face of residential blocks

Club

Playgroud in each quadrant

Roads connect acroos edges wherever possible

Bus stops at center

Mixed-use streets anchored by retail at 100% corners

Parking lot designed as plaza

Workshops and offices along edges

Regional institutions at the edge

Neighborhood shops and institutions at center

Figure 3.3 TraditionalNeighborhood, 1997, as designedby Duany Plater-Zyberk andCompany. As with Figure 3.2, thecircle represents a five-minutewalk from the center. (Diagramcourtesy of Duany Plater-Zyberkand Company)



59

a small town, or ‘urban village’ organized primarilywith the needs of the pedestrian in mind, like the pre-automobile suburbs that formed the basis forTraditional Neighborhood Developments, but devel-oped around new public transit – usually light rail –that enabled residents of one ‘pocket’ to travel conve-niently to others and to a major metropolis (Kelbaugh,1989). Once again the concept of the five-minute walkdefined the scale of the development, five minutesbeing established as the maximum distance an averageAmerican will walk to catch transit (see Figure 3.5).Walking distance apart, there are remarkable similari-ties between the TOD vision and Ebenezer Howard’sconcept of Garden Cities, where a series of indepen-dent communities would be located around a majormetropolis and connected together by railways.

This full transit vision has not yet been implementedanywhere in the USA, although Portland, Oregon, per-haps comes closest, but the marked upsurge of interestin light rail transit in cities across the USA is a testamentto the power of the original Pedestrian Pocket/Transit-oriented Development concept. The City of San Diegowas one of the first to adopt Calthorpe’s Transit-oriented Development principles in an official city ordi-nance in 1992 (Calthorpe Associates, 1992). Manyother cities have followed suit with similar codes pre-pared by the other consultants who have mastered thetechniques of Transit-oriented Development. Transit-Oriented Development has thus managed to extendthe same planning and urban design ideas found inTraditional Neighborhood Development into a regionalcontext by connecting existing places and new commu-nities along fixed transit corridors, primarily utilizinglight rail or commuter rail technology. Each transit stopcan catalyze a neighborhood planned for a mixtureof higher-density uses within a five- or ten-minutewalking radius (1/4–1/2-mile) organized around pedes-trian-friendly streets, squares and parks.

Traditional Neighborhood Developments andTransit-oriented Developments were relatively fewin number during the 1980s. Seaside in Florida(1982), and Kentlands, near Washington DC (1988),by DPZ provided the leading built examples.Peter Calthorpe’s Laguna West, near Sacramento,California followed in 1990. Both types of develop-ment became far more common during the 1990s,due largely to avid proselytizing of the ideas aroundthe nation by Duany, Plater-Zyberk, Calthorpe andothers (Duany and Plater-Zyberk, 1991; Calthorpe,1993), but also to changing national demographics ofsmaller, more diverse households for whom morecompact, walkable, and mixed-use neighborhoods

were attractive places to live. These two movementscoalesced in the formation of the Congress for theNew Urbanism (CNU) in 1993, which has heldannual congresses every year since that date. The basictenets of the movement were defined in the Charterof the New Urbanism, which was ratified in 1996,and which established guiding principles and para-digms for postmodern urbanism.

The Charter (reproduced in Appendix I) isorganized into four sections: (i) an untitled preface ofgeneral statements; (ii) the Region – Metropolis, Cityand Town; (iii) the Neighborhood, District, andCorridor; and (iv) the Block, the Street and theBuilding (Congress for the New Urbanism, 1998,2000). The document first emphasizes coherent urbandesign and planning at a regional scale, promoting therenewed urbanity of existing areas, and the increasedurbanity of new development. This focused urbanismis balanced by a concern for the environmentally sus-tainable relationship between any metropolis and itsagrarian hinterland and natural landscapes. The sub-sequent sections spell out the movement’s concernsfor the reconstruction of American cities at a varietyof scales, utilizing many of the concepts articulatedpreviously by Leon Krier and his fellow neo-rationalistsin their manifestoes for the reconstruction of theEuropean city, and adapting them to Americanpractice.

The Charter is a manifesto for physical and socialchange in American towns and cities. New Urbanismaims to alter the ways people understand and build theplaces where they live and work, superceding mod-ernist concepts of separated single-use zoning areas,buildings isolated in open space and an environmentdominated by the automobile. Instead, the main orga-nizing principles involve: the creation of compact,defined urban neighborhoods, comprising a compati-ble mixture of uses and housing types; a network ofconnected streets with sidewalks and street trees tofacilitate convenient and safe movement throughoutneighborhoods for all modes of transportation; theprimacy of the pedestrian over the automobile; theintegration of parks and public spaces into each neigh-borhood; and the placement of important civic build-ings on key sites to create a strong visual structure ofmemorability. In short, it was an endorsement of theforms and types of traditional urbanism that had beenpresaged in some avant-garde sectors of American acad-emia a decade and a half earlier, as noted in Chapter 1.

One of the most important applications of theseNew Urbanist ideas is in the design and planning ofnew projects on infill ‘grayfield’ sites, usually the



60

1. For buildings set back from sidewalk, balconies, stoops, stairs, open porches, bay windows, and awnings are permitted to encroach into setback area up to 8'.

2. Attached decks are permitted to encroach into the rear setback up to 15 feet.

3. For buildings set up to the sidewalk, upper level balconies, bay windows and their supports at ground level may encroach a maximum of 5'0" over the sidewalk.

4. Main pedestrian access to the building and to individual units is from the street (indicated by larger arrow), unless specifically exempted by one of the provisions of Section 8.1. Secondary access may be from parking areas (indicated by smaller arrow).

Parking

10� Min./25’ Max.

ROWSpecial case 0� Min. />25� Max.

8� Min

15� Min

8� MaxROWSidewalk

StreetSidewalkStreet

Parking

1. Buildings shall be placed on the lot within the zone represented within the hatched area.

2. In most cases, the build to line will be 15' behind street ROW. Special site conditions such as topography, pattern of lot widths, or setbacks of existing buildings permit a larger setback. In urban conditions, apartments may be set up to the property line at the sidewalk, including corner conditions.

3. Building facades shall be generally parallel to front property lines. All buildings shall front onto a public street. All ground floor residential units with exterior access shall front a public street, unless specifically exempted by one of the provisions of Section 8.1.

4. Parking shall be located to the rear of the building.

5. Points of permitted access to the parking indicated by arrows.

6. Hedges, garden walls, or fences may be built on property lines or as the continuation of building walls. A garden wall, fence, or hedge (min. 3' in height) shall be installed along any street frontage adjacent to parking areas.

7. Trash containers shall be located in the rear parking area (see Parking Regulations).

8. Mechanical equipment at ground level shall be placed on the parking lot side of building and away from buildings on adjacent sites.

Building Placement/Parking/Vehicular Access Encroachment/Pedestrian Access

Lot Type/Apartment Building

1. The intention of buildings in all locations must be to relatethe principal facade to the sidewalk and publicspace of the street.

2. Corners: Setback at street corners will generally replicatefrontage conditions. However, side setbacks on a minor streetmay be less than the front dimension.

3. Within the limits described, front and side setbacks will varydepending upon site conditions. Setbacks should be used in amanner which encourages pedestrian activity. Squares or spatiallydefined plazas within building setback areas can act as focal pointsfor pedestrians.

The apartment building is a residential buildingaccommodating several households. In traditional towns, thisbuilding type coexists with a variety of other building types. Asuccessful contemporary design permits its integration with otherresidential types through the coordination of site and buildingdesign (see Architectural Regulations). Apartment complexesshould be one or more separated buildings similar in their scale onthe public street to large detached housing.

Special Conditions:Description:



61

ResidentialUse36

�Max

.*

8�Max.

Var

ies

1. Building height shall be measured as the vertical distance from the highest finished grade relative to the street frontage, up to the eaves or the highest level of a flat roof.

2. The height of parapet walls may vary depending on the need to screen mechanical equipment.

3. Building heightto ridge may vary depending on the roof pitch.

4. Permitted uses are indicated above.

A. To perpetuate the unique building character of the town and its environs, and to re-establish its local identity, development shall generally employ building types that are sympathetic to the historic architectural vocabulary of the area in their massing and external materials.

B. The front elevations facing the street, and the overall massing shall communicate an emphasis on the human scale and the pedestrian environment.

C. Each building should be designed to form part of a larger composition of the area in which it is situated. Adjacent buildings should thus be of similar scale, height, and configuration.

D. Building silhouettes should be generally consistent. The scale and pitch of roof lines should thus be similar across groups of buildings.

E. Porches should form a predominant motif of house designs, and be ocated on the front or to the side of the dwelling. When attached to the front, they should extend over at least 15% of the front facade. All porches should be constructed of materials in keeping with those of the main building.

F. Front loaded garages, if provided, shall meet the standards of Section 8.16.

G. At a minimum, the Americans with Disabilities Act standards for accessibility shall be met.

A. Main roofs on residential buildings shall be symmetrical gables or hips with a pitch of between 4:12 and 12:12. Monopitch (shed) roofs are allowed only if they are attached to the wall of the main building. No monopitch shall be less than 4:12. All accessory buildings shall have roof pitches that conform to those of the main building.

B. Balconies should generally be simply supported by posts and beams. The support of cantilevered balconies should be assisted by visible brackets.

C. Two wall materials may be combined horizontally on one facade. The "heavier" material should be below.

D. Exterior chimneys should be finished in brick or stucco.

Configurations

A. Overhanging eaves may expose rafters.

B. Flush eaves should be finished by profiled molding or gutters.

Techniques

Principles

Architectural standardsPermitted height and uses

Building Type/Apartment Building

Figure 3.4 Excerpts from the Regulating Code for Davidson, NC, Walters and Keane, 1995. These two codepages establish the three-dimensional controls for apartment buildings in terms of urban form and buildingscale and massing. The emphasis here and in all other aspects of the code is making sure that buildingscontribute effectively to making properly defined public spaces – the streets, squares and parks of thecommunity. (Diagrams courtesy of the Town of Davidson, NC)


location of failed shopping malls or other outdatedcommercial development (CNU, 2002). Calthorpe’ssuccessful reconstruction of an 18-acre derelict mallin Mountain View, California (1996–2001) into amixed-use neighborhood where all residents livewithin a five-minute walk to a train station exempli-fies this trend. This more integrated vision of anenergy efficient, and less car-dependent lifestyleembodied in Transit-oriented Development derivesfrom the longstanding interest among Calthorpe andhis west coast collaborators in environmental andecological issues, dating from their work on architec-ture and renewable energy in the 1970s. This agendafor a more sustainable urban environment has becomea central one for many architects and planners whoconsider themselves New Urbanists, and during the1990s it married with a rural counterpart developedby the planner Randall Arendt, and exemplified inhis influential book, Rural by Design: MaintainingSmall Town Character (Arendt, 1994).

Arendt’s main contribution to New Urbanism andSmart Growth has been to approach the design of

small town environments from the position ofpreserving the rural character of the surroundingcountryside threatened by suburban expansion. Hisdesign approach first establishes the important ruralfeatures and landscape components of the propertyto be developed, safeguards these areas from buildingactivity, and only then inserts new developmentcarefully into the natural setting. By clusteringdevelopment, more land can be set aside as perma-nently protected open space, and in many instancesthis ethos of landscape preservation has addedconsiderable value to new housing. Americans haveshown they will spend more money to live nearprotected green space (see Figure 2.16).

With careful planning at the community scale,these areas of open space can be connected togetherto create a long-lasting green infrastructure for theenvironmental benefit of the community (Arendt,1994, 1996). One downside of this otherwise admir-able approach is that the extra economic value con-ferred on properties developed in this manner raisesthe cost of housing above the level many people canafford. To overcome this objection, the town ofDavidson, North Carolina, has enacted a zoningordinance that both requires the preservation of50 percent open space in new greenfield develop-ments, and the provision of 12.5 percent of the newhousing to be at price ranges refined as affordable,that is, accessible to people earning 80 percent ofthe national median income (Davidson, 2000).Taken together, these visions of urban and ruralsustainability provide the strongest argument for NewUrbanism in its alliance with the Smart Growthmovement, and indeed, for New Urbanism to besynonymous with Smart Growth.

While Leon Krier was a major influence on thedevelopment of this New Urbanist agenda, his was byno means the only European influence. The work ofseveral architects and urbanists who played crucialroles in the historical development of the Anglo-American city also contributed to New Urbanisttheory and practice. A reprise of the range of influ-ences brings back into focus several personalities wehave already met earlier in the text. We have notedthat Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City reformmovement, with its emphasis on well-planned, self-contained new towns served by transit and definedby large tracts of productive countryside, was also animportant precedent for the TOD strand of NewUrbanist theory. The work of Raymond Unwin, andhis brother-in-law Barry Parker has also been crucial.We explained in Chapter 2 how Unwin and Parker


62

1 mile second

ary a

rea

1/2

mile

T. O. D. PATTERN

Figure 3.5 Transit-oriented Development diagram.Developed originally as the ‘Pedestrian Pocket’ byPeter Calthorpe in the late 1980s, the concept ofTOD has become widespread across the USA. Thisdiagram, along with Figures 3.2 and 3.3 are takenfrom The Lexicon of The New Urbanism by DuanyPlater-Zyberk and Company. (Diagram courtesy ofDuany Plater-Zyberk and Company)


gave tangible form to Howard’s Garden City ideals inthe English new town of Letchworth (1904) andHampstead Garden Suburb in north London (1907).Unwin’s book, Town Planning in Practice (1909)spread his planning and urban design ideas throughEurope and America early last century, and the vol-ume’s recent republication in America (1994) hasrevived the relevance of the work to postmodernurban designers.

We have also clarified how Unwin himself wasincreasingly influenced by the work of the Austrianteacher and designer Camillo Sitte, whose book CityPlanning according to Artistic Principles (1889) set outprinciples regarding the artful composition of publicspace. Werner Hegemann and Elbert Peets (1922)summarized Sitte’s findings for American professionalsin the 1920s with the publication of their TheAmerican Vitruvius, and the book’s republication in1990 brought Sitte’s work before a whole new gener-ation of American urban designers. Hegemann andPeets also provided examples of European GardenCities as well as codifying Beaux Arts concepts forAmerican use. In addition, they illustrated America’sown traditions of the City Beautiful movement, andtheir revived handbook became a seminal text forNew Urbanist design in the 1990s.

In Europe there were other parallel movements inurban design that predated New Urbanism by severaldecades in some instances, but without notableinfluence at the time of the American movement’sinception. This can largely be explained by the factthat despite their common emphasis on the streetand the pedestrian, these parallel movements werepicturesque and empiricist in inspiration as opposedto the rationalist approach to urbanism espoused byKrier. We explore this duality further in Chapter 4,but briefly we mean that the picturesque approach isbased on understanding the city through humansensory experience (primarily visual), and this relianceon personal experience is a hallmark of empiricistphilosophy. By contrast, Krier’s approach usestypologies, or pre-existing patterns of urban formand space as the basic a priori building blocks ofurbanism. This a priori deductive reasoning, whichin design puts a higher priority on essential andunchanging consistencies of urbanism rather thanthe vagaries of visual experience, is deeply embeddedin the rationalist strand of western philosophicalthought.

In Britain, the previously mentioned work ofGordon Cullen provided a paramount example of thepicturesque approach, and we have described how his

book Townscape (1961) became a seminal work aboutpedestrian-scaled urban environments based on tra-ditional elements of streets and squares. From the1970s onward, this approach to urbanism gave rise toneotraditional developments in Britain under therubric ‘neo-vernacular design,’ or ‘pseudo-vernacular’to its critics. This trend was formalized with the pub-lication of the official County of Essex Design Guidefor Residential Areas (1973), a visual code book thatestablished the principles of good (i.e. traditional)urban design which new developments were expectedto follow. The Introduction complains that few peo-ple in the County of Essex were happy with the‘dreary suburban uniformity’ of postwar housing.New buildings lacked any defining characteristicsthat made them specific to the region, and the regula-tions were intended to spur a ‘more varied and imag-inative approach’ to design (County Council ofEssex, 5). Using regulations to promote innovationmight seem a counter-intuitive process, but the pointof the Essex publication and others like it was to pro-mote tighter, more pedestrian-friendly layouts of atype that were not achievable by means of developers’standard suburban designs. The new layout princi-ples demanded design thinking of a higher standard,but at the same time, their basis of traditional formsmade them easily understandable to professionalsand lay people alike (see Figure 3.6).

In Spain, this neotraditional direction was presagedin 1929 by the idiosyncratic picturesque developmentof the Pueblo Español, or ‘Spanish Village’ as partof that year’s international exhibition in Barcelona.Only a few hundred yards from Mies van der Rohe’smodernist icon, the Barcelona Pavilion, the architec-tural team of Reventós, Folguera, Nogues and Utrillocreated a brilliant encapsulation of traditionalSpanish townscape. Organized as a warren of smallstreets linking three plazas, the urban compositionfaithfully recreated examples of Spanish vernacularbuildings, and disposed them in ways that created amyriad of beautiful urban vignettes. A populartourist destination ever since its creation, it wasmarkedly out of step with the avant-garde architec-tural and urban doctrines of the times, and this mas-terwork has remained largely unknown andunappreciated by architects and planners for decades(see Figure 3.7).

Similar picturesque approaches to urban com-position were also evident in France, exemplifiedby the ‘Provincial Urbanism’ of Jacques Riboud atLa Verrière-Maurepas in St. Quentin-en-Yvelines out-side Paris (1966). Seven years later, in southern


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France, Françoise Spoerry expanded on this use of tra-ditional and picturesque urban forms in his resortdevelopment at Port Grimaud (1973) and later hill-town developments at nearby Gassin.

Most recently, during the late 1980s and 1990s, intandem to New Urbanism, a new interest in ‘urbanvillages’ has developed. In Britain, under the impetusof HRH Prince Charles, and his planning advisor, theever-present Leon Krier, this work focuses on the cre-ation of sustainable mixed-use urban developments asthe incremental building blocks of urban expansion

and redevelopment. The intent is to facilitate highquality but affordable urban living while preservingthe economic and environmental resources of thecountryside. One tangible result of this initiative hasbeen the new village of Poundbury, outsideDorchester designed by Leon Krier in 1988, and thefirst phase of which was completed in 1997 (seeFigure 3.8). In its idiosyncrasies and royal patronage,Poundbury has limited use as a precedent for every-day urbanism just as Seaside’s unexpected success as aplayground for the very affluent has curtailed its


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ParkingGarage

PKEY

4.151 d Sketch of mews court (see Fig.4.151c)

GFront doorMain prospect2 m wallMinimum highway area requiredin courtPrivate zonePublic zoneAdopted highway in public zone

Figure 3.6 A page from theoriginal 1973 version of theEssex ‘Design Guide forResidential Areas.’ Thesedrawings illustrate the preceptof using modest buildings tocreate coherent, spatiallyenclosed public space.(Illustration courtesy of EssexCounty Council)


applicability to other sites in America. However,Poundbury is notable for Krier’s use of picturesquecomposition, marking a move away from his previ-ously strong rationalist roots. More important in thedevelopment of urban villages has been the generalacceptance in the UK of this type of development athigher densities as the best approach to inner cityregeneration, witnessed by new projects inManchester, Birmingham, Liverpool and Bristol(Baker, 2003).

In mainland Europe since the mid-1970s, LeonKrier’s brother Rob Krier has been steadily amassinga series of collaborative projects and built worksthat in their spatial language are indistinguishablefrom New Urbanism, and which are based largely onre-establishing continuity with the traditional formof the European city. This work is exemplified bythe master plan by Krier–Kohl Architects for the newcity district of Kirchsteigfeld, in Potsdam, Germany,a typological essay in streets, squares and perimeterblocks designed between 1992 and 1997 and par-tially complete in 2003 (Krier, R., 2003: pp. 84–99).What sets this and other European developmentsapart from spatially similar developments in Americais the complete lack of historicist architecture in thebuild-out of the plan, accomplished by over thirtyseparate architectural firms. Instead of cornicemouldings and classical columns, the buildings atKirchsteigfeld match crisp, contemporary aestheticswith traditional urban forms (see Figure 3.9).

This European neorationalist approach to citydesign displayed in the work of the Krier brothers,Aldo Rossi and others, and the neotraditional pic-turesque townscape popular in Britain, both empha-size the art of contextual relationships betweenbuildings, and the importance of well-defined publicspace. This view of the human-scaled city found itsAmerican counterpart in the work of Paul Goodman,


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Figure 3.7 Pueblo Espanol, Barcelona, Reventós,Folguera, Nogues and Utrillo, 1927. Faithfulreproductions of traditional Spanish architecture areused to re-create an intimate urban scale and senseof place. Created for the international exhibition of1927, it remains a popular tourist destination today.

Figure 3.8 Poundbury, Dorset, Leon Krier, 1988–97.Although cleverly designed by Leon Krier,Poundbury’s overt traditional and neo-classicalarchitecture has led several critics to dismiss thisvariant of New Urbanism as merely an exercise innostalgia.

Figure 3.9 Kirchsteigfeld, Potsdam, Germany, RobKrier, 1992–2003. Rob Krier, brother of Leon, has usedsimilar traditional urban typologies of street andsquare, but this new German suburb has been builtwith refreshingly crisp and clean contemporaryaesthetics. Similar successful urban design in the USAis all too often rendered in clumsy, pastiche neo-classicism.


Kevin Lynch, and Jane Jacobs during the early 1960s.Lynch’s seminal work Image of the City (1960) intro-duced the powerful idea of making the city ‘legible’to the user through the coding and manipulation ofsimplified urban elements such as districts, paths,edges, nodes and landmarks. Jacobs, in her powerfulindictment of modernist city planning, The Deathand Life of American Cities (1962), specificallyreminded architects of the importance of the street incity life, though the message fell on deaf ears for atleast another decade. The same points were repeatedin Britain in 1973 by Nicholas Taylor in his book TheVillage in the City, where he argued for the return totraditional patterns of public and private space, frontand back gardens, porches and streets as the necessaryarmature of community life (Taylor, 1973).

NEW URBANISM AND SMART GROWTH

The three strands of New Urbanism that we havedescribed earlier, Traditional Neighborhood Develop-ment, Transit-oriented Development and design forrural conservation, weave an agenda for more sustain-able patterns of development that is virtually synony-mous with Smart Growth. Planners, local governmentofficials, citizens and an increasing number of devel-opers have shown great interest in New Urbanistdesign, particularly in areas that are experiencinggrowth-related conflicts. Many see New Urbanism asan approach that enables a community’s growth to bechanneled into a physical form that is more compati-ble with the scale of existing neighborhoods, discour-ages excessive auto use, is less costly to service, anduses less land and natural resources. These attributesprovide a pretty good description of Smart Growth,and although many definitions of Smart Growth existin America from organizations like the Smart GrowthNetwork, the National Resources Defense Council,the Sierra Club and the Urban Land Institute, to nameonly a few, there is common agreement around a basicset of principles.

Smart Growth means developing in ways that areenvironmentally responsible, economically viable,and well designed. A reasonable expectation, youmight agree. But as we’ve seen, most suburban devel-opment in America over the last few decades failsthese basic tests. Disused strip centers degrade theenvironment, suburban subdivisions cost more taxdollars to service that are recouped in property taxes,and an awful lot of suburbia is poorly laid out andshoddily built.

We have to do better, and to the three centralcriteria noted earlier we would add an importantfourth: the ways that new developments are gener-ated and regulated should involve citizens and stake-holders in an open democratic forum. Not onlyshould urban public spaces be democratically open intheir use; the ways they are produced should also bedemocratically transparent. But this public debatedoes not necessarily mean ‘consensus.’ Too often asearch for consensus means agreeing around thelowest common denominator, the most minimal setof concepts that offend the least number of people.Time and again we have seen this process strip awayall the best features of a proposal, until the schemethat’s finally agreed upon is an empty shell, even atravesty of its original content and format. It is notconsensus that’s important; the crucial factor is a con-centrated, open debate, to provide a fair and equalopportunity for concerned citizens to state theirpoints of view. In this way officials who have to takethe tough decisions are fully informed, and theyknow that different opinions have been aired duringthe design process.

This open process can be difficult, but the tempta-tion to avoid this forum and to design developmentsbehind closed doors away from the inconvenienceand messiness of public scrutiny leads to equallysevere problems. The attitude that ‘the professionalsknow best’ was invalidated by the errors architectsand planners made during the modernist period of citybuilding. To these mistakes we would add the verypoor quality of private sector developments wherearchitects and planners were minimally involved.Clearly, designers, planners and developers can allbenefit from citizen involvement in creating theirvisions, however complicated and messy this processmight be. In the case studies we discuss these issues inmore detail, and examine how concentrated urbandesign charrettes can provide the best opportunities formediating conflicts and educating a community aboutits future options.

Many citizens’ groups are vocal in their opinions,and they have every right to demand the opportunityto speak about their ideas. But just because they’revocal doesn’t mean they’re right; many Smart Growthinitiatives have been squashed by wrongheaded localopposition. Sometimes Smart Growth policies areenacted by government over the objections of localpressure groups, a process that requires considerablecourage by elected representatives. It also means they,and their constituents, need to distinguish betweenmyths and facts about Smart Growth. Indeed, much


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opposition to Smart Growth arises from misconcep-tions and misunderstandings about the relevantissues, and it is worth reviewing the basic principlesand some of the most common errors before we goany further.

Not quite an error, but an important clarificationconcerns the similarities and differences betweenSmart Growth and ‘sustainable development’. Theseterms are often used interchangeably, and we, theauthors, are guilty of that on occasion. There is muchoverlap between the two concepts, and all physicaldesign concepts that constitute Smart Growth sup-port sustainable development. However, the adjective‘sustainable’ adds a deeper dimension (Porter, 2000:p. 2). It implies a profound respect for long-termconservation of natural resources, energy conscious(green) building design and the enhancement of acommunity’s human capital, raising important issuesof social justice and equity. Appendix II sets out ourset of Smart Growth principles dealing primarilywith the physical design of communities, and adds anote or two (in italics) where sustainable develop-ment extends and deepens these concepts. Here wesummarize some of the most important points underthe headings of General Policies, Planning Strategies,and Urban Design Concepts.

General policies1. Plan collaboratively amongst municipalities within

a region.2. Target public investment to support develop-

ment in key areas and to discourage develop-ment in others. Extend suburban areas only inlocations where they can be supported by exist-ing public facilities and services, or by simpleand economic extensions of these services.

3. Reinforce the centers of cities, towns and neigh-borhoods. Locate regional attractions in citycenters wherever possible, not in suburbanlocations.

4. Make development decisions predictable, fair,and cost effective. Involve community stake-holders and citizens in the decision-makingprocess. Require zoning decisions to follow theadopted plan.

5. Provide incentives and remove some legisla-tive barriers to persuade and enable developersto do the right thing. Make it easy to buildsmart developments and harder to build sprawl.

Planning strategies

6. Integrate land use and transportation planningto minimize the number of trips by car and thedistances driven. Provide a range of transporta-tion choices to mitigate congestion.

7. Create a range of affordable housing opportuni-ties and choices.

8. Preserve open space around and within the com-munity, as working farmland, areas of naturalbeauty or areas with fragile environments.

9. Maximize the capacity of existing infrastructureby reusing derelict urban sites and filling in gapsin the urban fabric. Preserve historic buildingsand neighborhoods and convert older buildingsto new uses wherever possible.

10. Foster a distinctive sense of place as a buildingblock of community development.

Urban design concepts

11. Create compact, walkable neighborhoods withconnected streets, sidewalks and street trees tomake walking to work, to school, to the bus stopor train station, or just walking for pleasureand exercise, safe, convenient and attractive.Integrate offices and shops, along with commu-nity facilities such as schools, churches, libraries,parks, and playgrounds into neighborhoods tocreate places to walk to and reduce vehicle trips.Design for densities that can support active neigh-borhood life. (The Denver Regional Air QualityCouncil estimated that urban designs that followthese guidelines can reduce the Vehicle MilesTravelled (VMT) by as much as 10 percent(Allen, p. 16)).

12. Make public spaces the focus of building orien-tation and neighborhood activity. Move large carparks away from streets and screen them withbuildings.

To all of which we would add:

13. Think three-dimensionally! Envision your com-munity in urban design detail.

The concepts embodied in this list will be elaboratedand exemplified in the Case Study section later inthis book, but as noted earlier, it is important to sep-arate myths about Smart Growth from the facts.Sometimes these myths are the result of honest mis-understandings; othertimes they are created by delib-erate exaggeration and distortion of the facts byopponents of Smart Growth (of which, more later).


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MYTHS AND CRITICISMS OF SMARTGROWTH AND NEW URBANISM

There are half-a-dozen myths in particular thatcirculate freely in American debates about SmartGrowth, and it is important to put the recordstraight. These are:

1. Smart Growth is code for ‘no growth.’2. Smart Growth is all about high density.3. Smart Growth is all about cities and wants to get

rid of suburbs.4. Smart Growth is anti-car.5. Smart Growth doesn’t work in the marketplace.6. Smart Growth means more regulations that slow

development and increase costs.

Let’s take the first two points together; they are clearlyin opposition to each other, which should tell ussomething straight away about the muddled thinkingthat still exists about this topic. Many developers arevery suspicious about Smart Growth, fearing it will atthe very least make life harder (see Myth no. 6) and atworst drive them out of business as citizens’ groupsurge more and more restrictions on developmentin order to stop growth in their community.Neighborhood groups on the other hand, often imag-ine that Smart Growth is either a plot by architectsand planners forcing a high-density lifestyle uponthem for some socialistic purpose, or it’s a conspiracyby developers to get rich by building as many homesas possible on any given piece of land.

Before correcting these two myths, it is importantto clarify the issue of density, for what is perceived ashigh density in an American residential neighbor-hood would be considered average or even low inBritain. In many public meetings we’ve held on thistopic, Americans used to living in places that haveonly one or two houses per acre complain stronglyabout ‘high’ densities of 10 dwellings per acre.For comparative purposes, 10 units per acre(25 dwellings per hectare) is the average density cur-rently built in British suburbs in 2000. However, thenational government’s Planning Policy GuidanceNote (PPG3, 2000) regards this as too low, and rec-ommends a minimum of 30 dwellings per hectarenet, and a preferred range of between 30 and50 dwellings per hectare net (12–20 units per acre).(These British figures are calculated on the net sitearea that excludes major roads and landscape buffers,so the actual gross densities to equate with Americanfigures would be slightly lower.)

To extend this comparison, Parker and Unwin’smodel village at New Earswick, begun in 1902, isabout 11 dwellings per acre, a figure consistent withthat of the New Town of Runcorn, designed at a ‘low’density in the 1970s to ‘reduce overcrowding.’ Thesedifferences in suburban community norms betweenAmerica and Britain are less evident in the redevelop-ment of central urban areas. In a city like Charlotte,densities for downtown living range from older neigh-borhoods with four houses per acre to new mid-riseapartments at 100 dwellings per acre (26–650 per-sons per hectare). Foregoing the lowest densities inthis spectrum, the range of medium to high numbers(20 units per acre and up) are broadly in line withBritish practice.

While attitudes to density in Britain and Americavary, the fact that towns and cities will continue togrow is consistent in both countries. A ‘no growth’strategy is impossible to uphold. The British govern-ment announced in February 2003 a major new devel-opment initiative for south-east England to cope withthe anticipated need for as many as 800 000 newhomes by 2030 in that part of the country (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/2727399.stm).In America, the US Bureau of the Census expects thecountry’s population to grow by 58 million people by2020, or more than 21 percent.

While growth is inevitable, the way it is handled isnot, and as shown by the 12-point list of principlesearlier, Smart Growth advocates support many differ-ent strategies to improve the quality of development.Denser development is only one of many tactics.Density alone means nothing; in the wrong place itcan be harmful, but as part of a more comprehensivestrategy of mixed-use neighborhoods and alternativetransportation choices – buses, trains, bicycles, walk-ing – it is definitely part of the solution. The positiveattributes of this strategy include a more walkable,less polluted environment, less reliance on the car,and easy access to shopping and employment.

Development should occur across a range of scalesand densities depending on the situation and site con-ditions. Around transit stations that form the centersof new neighborhoods, in areas that have a mixtureof uses, and along bus routes, densities should bemedium to high, between 20 and 80 dwellings peracre (130–520 persons per hectare). This puts a largenumber of people in locations where they can reducethe use of their cars by riding trains and buses, andwhere they can walk conveniently to other uses in theneighborhood. Importantly, large apartment com-plexes should not be built in places that are distant


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from other facilities and only accessible by car. Thisjust causes extra traffic and pollution as large numbersof new residents drive everywhere for everything. Oneof the conventional American land-use planningtools, zoning land near large roads as high density‘multi-family’ apartments as a buffer between thehighway and single-family neighborhoods, is there-fore one of the least smart things to do.

In locations that are purely residential, densitiesshould be lower, from 2 to 20 dwellings per acre(13–130 persons per hectare). The higher densities inthis range should be used sparingly but are necessaryto provide smaller, less expensive homes in locationsdispersed throughout the community, and not allclustered in higher density areas. In theory, as onereaches the edges of any community the densityshould reduce dramatically as urban uses recede andrural uses dominate the landscape. However, as wewell know, it is precisely these edge locations thatreceive most new growth pressure, and which oftenget swamped by a tide of new houses and apartmentsspread all across the landscape.

In this situation of sprawling at the edge, there arethree basic strategies to manage this growth:

(a) If the proposed development doesn’t meet SmartGrowth criteria, and the vacant land has no wateror sewer service, the municipality can stringentlylimit the development capacity of the land byrefusing to spend public money to extend itslines or to build new ones. This option should beused more often, but many elected officials stillbelieve their main task is to facilitate ‘develop-ment’ to improve their community’s tax base, asnoted in Chapter 2.

If it is judged sensible to allow growth at aparticular edge location, or if water and sewerservices are already available nearby, then theother two options come into play depending oncircumstances:

(b) The new development can take the form of ahigher density mixed-use ‘urban village’ that cancreate a new center for an evolving community; or

(c) It can be designed as a low density, low impactresidential development that minimizes its effecton the environment and conserves as many of thesite’s environmental features as possible.

This discussion should make it obvious that SmartGrowth isn’t anti-suburb, as is often claimed by itsdetractors in Myth no. 3. Smart Growth is not allabout cities and density at the expense of the

suburbs. On the contrary, one of the aims of SmartGrowth is to make better suburbs as part of a strategyto improve and extend the choices of urban andsuburban lifestyles for homebuyers. Even the devel-opment industry in America is beginning to realizethat the product they have been building for thelast forty years has serious flaws. A 1998 report pub-lished by the Urban Land Institute, the developers’think tank and professional association, stated thatconventional housing subdivisions, with their socialisolation, segregated land use, car dependence andlong commutes, did not meet consumers’ needs tofeel part of a real community (Warrick and Alexander,1998). The following year the much-studied annualpublication Emerging Trends in Real Estate 1999noted that standard suburbia may not be sustainable,with many low-density suburban communities suf-fering a loss of value due to poor design and increasedtraffic (O’Neill, 1999). Here is the paradox. Lots ofAmericans want to live in the suburbs, but they’re fedup with problems created by standard suburbandesign. Smart Growth offers ways out of this dilemmawith more advanced and integrated suburban designconcepts.

From this brief discussion on suburban options itis easy to see that Smart Growth is not anti-car (Mythno. 4). Wanting to provide transportation choices toimprove people’s lifestyle is just the opposite. SmartGrowth seeks to improve driving conditions byreducing the number of car trips people take everyday. Road improvements and new roads have a bigrole to play as part of any integrated transportationstrategy, but the need for public investment in newhighways can be limited to everybody’s advantage byreducing the amount people drive. Designing mixed-use communities to improve the balance betweenjobs and housing, and concentrating growth inestablished areas (especially if they are served by busesor trains) are two smart ways to lessen the need andthe length of car trips, and to offer more choices oftravel modes. By changing America’s near totaldependency on the car to a situation where we havemore choice of how to get around our communities,we can help to reduce congestion, air pollution andsave public money on new highways.

As noted in Chapter Two, the concept of morewalkable communities has recently been supportedby health professionals in the USA. Major researchprograms are underway to combat the big increasesin the incidence of adult and child obesity, adult-onset diabetes and other ailments that are afflictingAmericans who don’t walk anywhere in their daily


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lives. A very small percentage of children walk toschool, largely because it is impossible. New schoolsare generally located at the edge of communities andaccessible only by car. The parents of these obese kidsalso don’t walk. There are few places to walk to in thespread-out suburbs, and few sidewalks to walk on.The public health concept ‘active living by design,’promoted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundationin America, supports exactly the kinds of neighbor-hoods designed with Smart Growth and NewUrbanist principles. This health initiative promotes achange of lifestyle for children and adults to onewhere walking becomes part of the normal daily activ-ity. This attitude toward physical health for the gen-eral population is also extended to the elderly, andwalkable neighborhoods can provide opportunitiesfor the continued independence of older citizenswhen they can no longer drive.

The myth that Smart Growth doesn’t work in themarket place (Myth no. 5) is another commonmisconception that can be dispelled as easily as theother inaccuracies. One of the clearest signs of itsincreasing success and acceptance by the market is theincreasing number of books and reports on the sub-ject published in America by the Urban LandInstitute, as noted earlier in the text. One of the ULI’smissions is to lead the development industry andeducate its members about new trends. ULI reportsnote that real estate values are expected to rise fastestin places that incorporate the attributes of successfulcities, including a concentration of amenities, a mixof uses, and walkable neighborhoods (O’Neill, 1999:p. 11). People increasingly want to live in such places,whether they are city centers, or close-in neighbor-hoods, or in well-planned suburban fringe locations.Americans increasingly desire communities thatbalance new housing with places to work and shop,and preserve open space for natural beauty andenvironmental purposes.

The longing to live in such places is reflected inhigher house prices, which is good and bad news; goodthat it reflects a clear market profitability, but bad as itlimits affordability of housing, making the goal of abalanced, diverse and socially equitable communityharder to achieve. Underlying the growing marketsuccess of Smart Growth development is a shift indemographics. Empty nesters, smaller families, mar-ried couples without children and single people aredemographic groups that are growing, and lookingfor housing that reflects their priorities, includinglow-maintenance living and urban amenities. TheUS Census anticipates that 80% of all new house-

holds that will be formed by 2020 will comprisesingle people or couples with no children; already thetraditional nuclear family accounts for less than onequarter of all American households. These demo-graphic pressures will force the market to diversify,and Smart Growth developments will becomeincreasingly profitable as they satisfy this inexorabledemand. This same profitability extends to the com-mercial sector. Reports in Urban Land and theWharton Real Estate Review in 2003 demonstrate thatretail and office properties located as part of a mixed-use ‘Main Street’ type development often performbetter than conventional suburban strip centers bysubstantial margins (Bohl, 2003; Rybczynski, 2003).

While these trends are impressive, opponents ofSmart Growth and New Urbanism point to the over-whelming preponderance of conventional sprawldevelopment in America, and ask why Smart Growthand New Urbanism didn’t succeed long ago if theideas are as good as they’re claimed to be? Why don’tthey dominate the market place today?

The superficial reasonableness of this argumentobscures the facts of history. As we have noted atsome length, dispersed suburban development inAmerica since World War II was implicitly directedby federal housing and transportation policies andsubsidized by government funds, including generoustax breaks on mortgage interest payments. Lowdensity, large lot, car-dependant suburban life hasbeen heavily marketed as the zenith of Americansocial achievement, and this pattern of consumptionand land use has been bureaucratized by planners andengineers as the only modern way of building anddeveloping. Developers generally have a history offollowing the line of least resistance to quick profits,and thus the marketplace has succumbed to years ofdirection, advertising and subsidies, churning outcookie-cutter subdivisions and strip shopping centersto meet the demands that have been manufactured inthe minds of suburban Americans.

In short, it has not been a free market. Principlesof planning and design now labeled as Smart Growthor New Urbanist were illegal under most local zoningcodes across America for 40 years. In many placesthey still are. Until very recently, consumers have nothad much of a choice. In a parody of Henry Ford’sfamous offer of customer choice of color for hisModel T (any color so long as it’s black) homebuyersand business owners during the 1950s through the1980s could choose either conventional suburbia,or … conventional suburbia. Now that SmartGrowth and New Urbanist options are becoming


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available, they are claiming an increasing share of thesuburban market, while studies have shown that theunmet demand that exists today for compact, alter-native forms of development comprises between30 and more than 50 percent of the same market(Steuteville, 2001: pp. 1, 3–4). This consumerpreference will likely grow as more and more smartdevelopments come on line. Meanwhile there is clearevidence from developers’ own costing comparisonsthat New Urbanist developments are more costeffective than their conventional sprawl counterpart.

The developers of a New Urbanist community inCommerce City, Colorado costed out a compactNew Urbanist development and compared it in detailwith an alternative conventional subdivision for thesame site. The total development costs for the 171 acre(68.4 hectares) Belle Creek community came to$6.9 million for the New Urbanist scheme against$6.5 million for the conventional design. However,the conventional design yielded only 175 units,146 single-family, and 29 townhouses. By compari-son, the New Urbanist version yielded 212 units,183 single-family, and 29 townhouses. This greateryield reduced the developers’ cost per lot to $32 567in the New Urbanist design as opposed to the moreexpensive $37 146 per lot in the conventional version(Schmitz: p. 183).

The last of our six myths, that Smart Growthmeans more government regulations that slow devel-opment and increase costs is the hardest to disprove,as there is sometimes a disconnect between theoryand practice. In theory, local governments wishing topromote Smart Growth will revise their regulationsto streamline the process of approval and provideincentives for developers to comply with the newrules. In practice this isn’t always so. The decade ofthe 1990s in America is littered with examples ofSmart Growth initiatives that were frustrated by cityzoning ordinances and development regulations thatmade innovative developments based on traditionalurbanism illegal. There were several other instanceswhere the project was realized only by the persistenceof the developer and his or her architects in the faceof official opposition and adherence to outdatedstandards. Many, many more developers gave up andreverted to standard sprawl subdivisions that wereapproved easily. Fortunately this depressing situationis changing. The authors and their colleagues in theLawrence Group have collectively been involvedsince 1994 in rewriting zoning ordinances and devel-opment regulations for nearly two dozen towns andcities in the southeastern states of America, including

model codes for the Atlanta metropolitan region.Many other architect-planners are at work on thesame task across America.

The codes we write embody the Smart Growthprinciples noted earlier in this chapter, and also pro-vide incentives to reward developers for embracing themore advanced ideas, including speedy approvals forcomplying with the more design specific rules. Thecodes are focused around traditional urban concepts,and in their content and graphic format, they go along way to resolving the problems of implementingSmart Growth concepts (see Appendices III, IV and V).However, there is one further difficulty: elected offi-cials are sometimes reluctant to give approval quicklyto new schemes within their jurisdiction, thus obviating one of the main incentives to developers.Sometimes this is to avoid the impression of govern-ment being merely the handmaiden of developers. Atother times, elected officials and some professionalplanners have trouble in reorienting their thinkingtoward new concepts of design and building form andaway from conventional formulas based on use andgeneric dimensions. Progress is being made in thisvitally important area, and we discuss some of ourexamples further in our case studies.

As we noted before, some of these myths arisefrom honest misconceptions about new ideas, but atother time, opponents of Smart Growth and NewUrbanism spread disinformation deliberately. Mostof this latter kind of opposition in America comesfrom groups on the conservative right of the politicalspectrum. At a convention in February 2003, acoalition of right-wing, libertarian and free-marketorganizations met to plot the downfall of SmartGrowth. These groups, such as the Thoreau Institute,the Buckeye Institute, the Cascade Policy Institute,the Heartland Institute, Heritage Foundation, and theReason Foundation, publicly despise Smart Growthand New Urbanism as intrusive government plan-ning and ‘social engineering’ that tramples onAmericans’ ‘rights’ to do whatever they want withtheir land. Not content with spreading disinforma-tion, the 2003 conference actively promoted smearcampaigns against Smart Growth advocates and NewUrbanists. Speakers at the event advised attendees to‘relentlessly’ undermine the credibility of profession-als like ourselves, and paint us and our colleagues inthe minds of the public as ‘pointy-headed intellectualfascists’ out to ruin people’s lives (Langdon, 2003b:p. 7). Theorists of laissez-faire economics view theworld as inhabited only by self-focused consumersand taxpayers; the whole premise of urban design and


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collaborative planning is anathema to them becauseit’s based upon public-spirited concepts of commongood and integrated, long-term public interest.

It is hard to remain dispassionate in this context.Groups like this make the lives of urban designers andplanners difficult because they are usually well funded,and cleverly organized. Countering their propagandaand regular attacks on Smart Growth can be almost afull-time job in itself, but we can take some comfortfrom the increasing fervor of the anti-Smart Growthmessage. The increased opposition shows that conceptsof Smart Growth are successfully gaining ground inthe market place, and in the mind of the Americanpublic as more and more walkable, transit-supportivedevelopments are constructed. Ordinary Americanscan increasingly see the advantages for themselves.

The extent and determination of this politicalopposition to progressive planning in the USAdistinguishes American professional practice from itsBritish counterpart. While democratic protest againstdevelopment of all sorts has a long and venerable tra-dition in the UK, the organized, national campaign,focused from one end of the political spectrum onthe work of architects and planners has few equiva-lents in Britain. For our right-wing opponents, SmartGrowth and New Urbanism are combined andinflated into one single threat to ‘American freedom.’But New Urbanism itself often comes under separateattacks from within the architectural profession andacademia. The most common of these are the accu-sations of romantic nostalgia, and avoiding the ‘reali-ties’ of the contemporary city. These charges appearin many critiques of traditional urbanism (Fortyand Moss, 1980; Ingersoll, 1989; Sudjic, 1992;Rybczynski, 1995; Landecker, 1996; Huxtable,1997; Chase, Crawford and Kaliski, 1999). Thesecritics characterize New Urbanism as an escapistdesire to avoid complex realities by returning to arose-tinted imagined past, even a falsification ofhistory (Ellis, 2002). English critics in the 1980sattacked the ‘pseudo-vernacular’ as promoting a falsemythology of rural village life, while some Americancommentators accuse New Urbanists of using tradi-tional urban forms to promote a fantasy world of smalltown America, where the memories of unpleasant factslike racial segregation are expunged from history.Other writers falsely identify New Urbanism with low-density suburbs, and claim its practitioners are ‘dismis-sive of the present urban landscape’ (Kaliski, 1999).This is linked with the criticism that regularly surfacesin academic and other writings is the charge thatNew Urbanists want to impose a sanitized, simplified

representation of reality on the complex pluralism thatis the contemporary city (Safdie, 1997).

It seems to us that all these criticisms are based ona caricature of New Urbanism, either falsely constructedfor the purposes of theoretical argument, or simplybased on a massive misreading of the circumstances.It is as if these critics believe for their own purposesthat New Urbanism begins and ends with the cuteaesthetics of Seaside, instead of being a multifacetedurban and environmental movement. The reader canbe the best judge of whether the work illustrated inthe case studies in Chapters 7–12 is guilty as charged,or whether the critics miss their aim by a mile. Whenwe’re working with residents in a poor African-American neighborhood to bring them affordablehousing and a dignified environment (Chapter 11)it’s laughable (almost insulting) to accuse NewUrbanism of escapism and avoiding unpleasant factsfrom America’s history. When we work to manage theecology of a suburban region by protecting its naturalinfrastructure; by setting out policies and designs fora better balance of jobs and housing to reduce com-muting and improve air quality; and by integratingtransit options into the future lives of all sectors ofthe population, (Chapter 7), it’s equally galling forthis kind of work to be misrepresented as the imposi-tion of a singular, limited vision out of touch withreality and demonstrating a ‘carelessness towardsexisting conditions’ (Kaliski, 1999: p. 101).

The disdain some academic theorists have for NewUrbanism is predicated on the fact that the languageof traditional urbanism has been able to build abridge between design theory and developmentpractice. Our colleagues in academia like to arguethat our ideas have merely become commodified, co-opted and transformed into shallow concepts usefulto a developer in maximizing his or her profit.Academics, and some professional architects, tend tofeel tainted by the association with developers, andseek to distance themselves from the ‘sullied’ environ-ment of the marketplace.

We find this convergence of design theory anddevelopment practice unusual – but helpful. We areused to being in conflict with developers, and findingourselves more in harmony with traditional adver-saries can be disorienting. Only a decade ago at thebeginning of the 1990s, to propose ideas of tradi-tional urbanism in the context of American sprawlwas to invite scorn and derision from developers andbuilders. In terms of slowing or stopping the jugger-naut of sprawl this alliance between theory and prac-tice, between design and development, embryonic


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though it is, is an essential bond, to be nurtured inevery way possible. Now of all times is not the timeto break away in search of new theoretical forms ofurbanism while parts of our cities decay and our envi-ronment is degraded. As a society, we have our workcut out to improve our American habitat before theseproblems reach unmanageable proportions.

Urban design in America involves trying to makeorder out of chaos. While theoreticians and fellow aca-demics might laud this chaos as vital and exuberant,most people who have to live and work in it just find itugly and depressing. Believe us: it is. (See Figure 2.13).The denigration of New Urbanism, and the call toteach ‘chaos theory instead of Italian hill towns’ oftenheard in architectural schools rings hollow to those ofus engaged in trying to improve this mess on theground. Fancy theories from Europe and America thatcelebrate concepts of cacophony, discontinuity,fragmentation and spatial fluidity, and a disdain for

traditional urban space in favor of ‘zones of transition’(Koolhas and Mau, 1995: p. 1162) are fine from theluxurious context of an historic European city or anAmerican ivory tower. But out in the spatial purga-tory that comprises much of the American builtlandscape of the last fifty years such privileged intel-lectualizations have little relevance. Urban design isnot about surfing chaos; it is about providing clarityand humanity in a harsh and confusing world, andsaving our environment from our society’s selfishdepredations. Traditional urbanism – the world of thestreet, square and urban block – is not a quixoticeffort to recreate an American past that didn’t exist(Ellis, 2002: p. 267). It modernizes and retrofits his-torical patterns that are still relevant today, acceptingthe most advanced technologies, and matching theemerging new demographics in American society. It isthe best weapon we have in our quest for a sustainableurban future.


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SYNOPSIS

This chapter affirms two of our central beliefs: placematters, and places are best produced through the useof traditional urban forms. As validation of theseconvictions we journey to an unlikely setting, ruralMississippi, and the Neshoba County Fairgrounds, aself-made urban jewel in the heart of the countryside.From this example we can learn some basic conceptsof urban design about the arrangement of buildingsin space and the formation of ‘urban rooms.’

The Fairgrounds also embody all three of the urbandesign methodologies we examine in the second sec-tion of this chapter: typology, picturesque urbanism,and designing for the social use of space. We placethese concepts in a philosophical triangle of rational-ism, empiricism, and pragmatism, important pillarsof western thought, and illustrate how design actioncan draw inspiration from these philosophical bases.

Finally, we return to address a critique of tradi-tional urbanism raised briefly in Chapter 1, namelythat the streets and squares we are busy designing arenothing more than the setting for a shallow con-sumerist spectacle, a ‘café society.’ We offer a refuta-tion to this criticism and outline a pragmatic modusoperandi for urban designers in the face of complexand conflicting realities.

THE AFFIRMATION OF PLACE

All the conversations in Chapter 3 have been predi-cated upon one fundamental point of view: placematters. The physical settings that support andenrich our daily lives matter to the extent they arefunctional, beautiful, and special to us in one or more

ways. Richard Florida’s focus on place (in Chapter 1)as an economic engine of prosperity through theemergence of a new, place-hungry ‘creative class’reinforces this perspective. William J. Hudnutt III,long-time mayor of Indianapolis and now a residentfellow for public policy at the Urban Land Institute,confirms Florida’s diagnosis, noting that the youngergeneration of wealth producers look for ‘locationfirst, jobs second’ (Hudnutt, 2002). What count forthe ‘laptop crowd’ and other creative people are thequality of life and the quality of the places where it’slived. These highly skilled young professionals takethe attitude that they can work anywhere, so theylook first for places that are attractive and possess theactive urban lifestyle they are seeking. Generally, thiscombination comprises, as we have noted before, asynergy between venues of entertainment and cultureand cool places to live. This means restaurants, bars and pubs, arts and music, walkable neighbor-hoods and districts with sidewalk cafés, streets withtrees and attractive street furniture, and a variety ofhousing choices in a variety of price ranges.

All this energy focuses on public space, the settingfor people’s behavior in the world outside themselves,and the medium of their personal and communityorientation. Our professional concentration on thetraditional vocabularies of street and square, park andplaza, Europe’s most coherent forms of public spaceand those most supportive of community values, willbe well understood in Britain and its continentalneighbors. However, in America in the early twenty-first century such spaces are still the exception ratherthan the rule. So we hope our British readers will for-give us if we seek once more to make this essentialpoint regarding the relevance of traditional urbanspaces. This time we use an example chosen for the

4Devices and designs: sources of good urbanism



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dramatic impact of its odd setting. Places don’t getmuch odder for an urbanist that rural Mississippi,but that’s where we are headed to next.

That we can travel to rural Mississippi in America’sDeep South and find ourselves in the midst of asophisticated, self-made urban environment of close-packed streets and squares affirms our belief in tradi-tional forms of urbanism. The Neshoba CountyFairgrounds, a little over eight miles southwest of thesmall town of Philadelphia, Mississippi, demonstratean unambiguous urge to be urban in the mostunlikely setting. This Mississippi backwater is chieflyremembered in history for the brutal slaying of sev-eral civil rights activists during the early 1960s, whilethey were campaigning for the right to vote forAmerican blacks. But some attitudes have changed inthe last 40 years, and the Neshoba CountyFairgrounds provide an odd mix of Southern conserva-tism and religious fervor combined with a livelysociability and ardent festivities. The cultural impor-tance of Neshoba in the American South was illus-trated when California Governor Ronald Reaganchose the Fair as the site of his announcement that hewas running for President of the United States in the1980 election.

For British readers we should explain that theannual county fairs and larger state fairs in Americaare very important events in the life of communities.There is a strong agricultural bias to the Neshobaevent, but the festivities, which last only a week, alsoinclude fairgrounds with rides, carousels, andsideshows (called ‘Midways’ in America) and horseraces. The closest English equivalent would be a com-bination of a County Show, the annual regatta weekat holiday resorts around the coast, and a large villagefete, but this doesn’t really come close in terms ofscope and activity. One of the most interesting thingsabout these community festivals is that they ofteninclude permanent structures on site, used only forthe hectic few weeks in the summer for the fair andits preparation. The Neshoba County Fairgroundsare unusual in that the community of self-built two-storey wooden cabins resembles a permanent town,laid out in a pattern of streets and squares with a con-sistent range of building types (Craycroft, 1989) (seePlate 1 and Figure 4.2).

The arrangement of the buildings on site, togetherwith their details and materials of construction, havebeen controlled by common agreement between thefamilies, some of whom have inhabited the settle-ment over several generations since the Fair’s found-ing in 1895. Families return year after year for the

one week each summer when the place is active withmusic, dancing, political and religious rallies, prod-uce and craft fairs and horse racing events. For theremainder of the year family members visit theFairgrounds occasionally to carry out maintenanceand improvements to their temporary homes.

A Fair Board, acting as a sort of town council,oversees adherence to the informal zoning regula-tions, adopted as ‘The House and Garden Rules’ in1958. These rules set out the overall size and massingof the buildings (originally 16-feet wide by 30-feetdeep by two storeys high) and specify consistentlytight (four feet) spacing between buildings. The onlyexceptions to this spacing are for existing trees; notree can be cut without the Fair Board’s approval.Where trees complicate the spacing of buildings, theextra width of space is used for ancillary elements likeside porches or extra parking. Figure 4.1 illustrateshow all structures have to face onto public space,respect ‘build-to’ lines along the streets, and arerequired to incorporate double-height front porchesand gable roof forms for the houses (Craycroft:p. 100). The buildings and spaces produced by theapplication of these vernacular urban and architec-tural conventions blend typological consistency withmany small variations bred of personal taste, prefer-ence and material choices.

The 16-feet width of the cabins has practical roots:the construction of the dwellings is generally timberballoon frame, and the longest available timber camein 16-foot lengths. Ground floors are raised two tothree feet above the ground to avoid dampness andtermites, and within this gable-roofed two-storeyform, a common suite of secondary items such assteps, railings, posts and doorways comprise a vocabu-lary of details.

The Fair Board also monitors new applications formembership, and has on several occasions agreed tonew ‘subdivisions’ of cabins built as extensions to theoriginal ‘town form’. These new areas have been con-structed to regular grids, have wider cabins (24 feet),and have more enclosed, air-conditioned areas ratherthan open porches. These newer extensions to the Fairlack the charm of the more informal, older neighbor-hoods, where the specified dimensional order iswarped by site circumstances like trees and gullies toprovide a degree of irregular ‘picturesque’ urbanismunusual for most American communities (see Figure 4.2). There is a constant tension between thetraditionalists and the newcomers, pitting authen-ticity to tradition against modern conveniences(Craycroft: p. 96). The issues concern more than just


CHAPTER FOUR ● SOURCES OF GOOD URBANISM

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aesthetics; when air-conditioned, closed spaces replaceopen front porches, the social dynamic changes dra-matically. People have to be invited inside as opposedto the casual open neighborliness of the older parts ofthe Fairgrounds where the semiprivate/semipublicnature of the front porches invites a wide range ofsocial discourse. Suburban priorities of isolation andseparateness are making themselves felt even here.

Despite this suburbanization of social attitudes onthe part of some residents, the design and planningconcepts underlying the Neshoba County Fairgroundsare distinctly urban, even though it sits in the contextof rural Mississippi. This paradox, while usefully val-idating our contention that certain forms of tradi-tional urbanism have universal applicability, can bepartly explained by the fact that Mississippi, althoughneither a prosperous nor progressive state, is blessedwith many fine ‘courthouse square’ towns, such asPhiladelphia, Oxford, and Holly Springs. In thesetowns, usually county seats, the neoclassical or neo-Gothic courthouse commands the middle of thetown square, with a more or less regular grid of streetsextending outward on all sides. This regional culturalform (it is also common in the American mid-west)provides a precedent in miniature of European urbanlayouts, filtered through several layers of cultural trans-formation, but still clearly recognizable. Figure 4.3illustrates clearly the typological similarity betweenNeshoba and its grander precedent by means of a section through the courthouse and square in

Figure 4.1 Section Through a Typical ‘Street’ at Neshoba County Fair. This drawing illustrates how porchesand verandas on the building façades facing the public space of the ‘street’ may vary in detail and size butnot in their basic form and orientation. The requirement for all structures to include these spaces in theirdesign contributes hugely to the exciting interplay of public and private spaces throughout the Fair. See alsoPlate 2. (Drawing courtesy of Robert Craycroft)

Figure 4.2 Figure-ground Site Plan of NeshobaCounty Fair, 1980s. The newer neighborhoods areeasily recognized by their more regular andgeometric layout. Founders’ Square is toward thelower left of the plan, with the community assemblypavilion slightly off-center within it. The large ovalspace is formed by the race track. (Drawingcourtesy of Robert Craycroft)


Philadelphia. Mississippi, compared with a same-scale section through Founders’ Square at NeshobaFairgrounds.

It is interesting to compare the scale and density ofthe Fairgrounds to its urban neighbor, Philadelphia.The temporary population of the Fair is about 6500people, the same as the nearby town. However,Philadelphia covers 370 acres (148 hectares) at a den-sity of 17 persons per acre (42 persons per hectare) orabout six dwellings per acre (15 per hectare).Neshoba, by contrast houses its 6500 people on 57acres (23 hectares) at a density of 115 persons peracre (287 persons per hectare) or approximately44 dwellings per acre (110 per hectare) (Craycroft:p. 130).

The plan of the Neshoba County Fairgroundsprovides a fascinating organic adaptation of this recti-linear form with the community pavilion locatedapproximately in the center of Founders’ Square. Thelayout is full of site-specific quirks, but everywhere it’sclear that traditional urban typologies are the basis forall transformations. Public streets are lined with‘houses’ constructed with semiprivate porches thatprovide the transition from the public world of thestreet into the private realm of the interior (see Plate2). Even more notable is the communal commitmentto what are in effect mandatory urban design regula-tions for the layout and construction of the dwellings.In the region beyond the Fairgrounds, the pervadingculture is one of self-assertive property rights, andindividual property owners largely reject regulatorycontrol over private land and development.

This vernacular example of urban typologies andtheir encoding into local custom marks an interestingintersection with New Urbanism’s focus on creatingurban and building codes for the development ofnew communities. Duany and Plater-Zyberk’s codefor Seaside, Florida, produced in 1983, marked thebeginning of this important realization that design-ing the right code was as important as designing themaster plan for any community. It is noteworthy inthis regard to recall a visit made to the NeshobaCounty Fairgrounds by Andres Duany in 1985,where Professor Robert Craycroft from the School ofArchitecture at Mississippi State University, and aleading authority on the Fairgrounds, explained thecoding of this self-regulating community to Duany.(The English author was a colleague of ProfessorCraycroft at that time at MSU, and also benefittedfrom his extensive knowledge of the Fairground’surban qualities.) The development of codes thatinform and regulate the design of buildings, and howbuildings relate to public space, is a central thesis ofNew Urbanist theory and practice, and the Neshobaexample is important because it shows that usingcodes to control urban form is possible even in cul-tures unsympathetic to regulation. The central pointin this instance seems to be that the codes serve thecommunity’s self-interest and maintain its uniquecharacter to the benefit of all.

It is not simply the compendium of appropriateurban design concepts – streets and squares designedas outdoor public rooms – that makes NeshobaCounty Fairgrounds a useful example. One of the


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Founders Square, Neshoba County Fair

Courthouse Square, Philadelphia, Mississippi

Figure 4.3 Founders’ Square,Neshoba County Faircompared with the CourthouseSquare in NeighboringPhiladelphia, Mississippi. Drawnat the same scale, these twospaces clearly illustratetypological similarities. In bothcases, a geometrically formalspace is enclosed around afocal community building.(Drawing courtesy of RobertCraycroft)



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most important points in the analysis is the way theFairgrounds bear witness to three powerful traditionsof urbanism: the typological heritage of past formsused in a contemporary context; the picturesqueapproach to civic design; and designing for the socialuse of space, rather than simply its appearance. Thesethree traditions provide useful methodologies forcontemporary urban designers, and most practition-ers utilize a personal combination of all threeapproaches. Our own design perspective colors theanalysis that follows (it’s a little heavy on the picturesque) but the important lesson is to demon-strate how a clear basis of theory can directly inform how we and others work on the ground incommunities.

URBAN DESIGN METHODOLOGIES

Good urban design is important in every neighbor-hood and every district in every city, and the range ofurban design techniques is extensive. In this section,we outline some of the most simple, yet potent con-cepts of urban design and hope that designers andnon-designers alike will find them as useful as we do.We start with simple ideas and then relate them to adeeper level of philosophical principles. Later on, inChapter 6, we discuss some practical extensions ofthese ideas and their application to everyday mattersof urban design and planning.

Urban design can mean different things to differ-ent people. To architects it can simply mean design-ing buildings that are responsive to their urbancontext. To landscape architects it often means detail-ing the surfaces of public spaces with hard and softlandscape elements and materials. To planners, it hasusually connoted some hazy notion of urban beauti-fication (Lang, 2000). We prefer a more holistic defi-nition as we have indicated throughout the book. Forus, urban design is no more and no less than thedesign in three dimensions of the public infrastruc-ture of the city and its relationship to the naturalenvironment. Urban design is the intersection ofarchitecture and planning, and one of its main foci isthe way buildings relate to each other to create thepublic domain of cities, towns and villages.

At its best, urban design is the agent of transfor-mation from abstract ‘space’ to humanized ‘place’ –and one of our favorite definitions of place is ‘spaceenriched by the assignment of meaning’ (Pocock andHudson, 1978). It is the urban designer’s responsibilityto collate and synthesize the historical, physical and

historical factors that help provide such layers ofmeaning and emotional richness.

To realize these objectives we use a vocabulary ofstraightforward techniques, and the applicability ofthese concepts and methods of design to the profes-sion of planning was reinforced for us when one ofthe authors taught a workshop about urban designfor planners in North Carolina in the Spring of 2003.Over two half days, teams of experienced profession-als grappled with designing developments on infillurban sites. We say designing – not planning – for aparticular reason: the participants were not allowedto create their normal planners’ bubble diagrams ofuses linked with arrows. Instead they had to think interms of specific building footprints and the sizes andcharacter of public spaces. The planners were operat-ing at or beyond the limit of their professional com-petence, for designing doesn’t come easy to aprofession that hasn’t been taught concepts of formand space for several decades.

Despite the rules of the workshop, the plannersstarted out by doing what they’d been trained to do:they ‘planned’ by diagraming different uses inabstract zones on a site plan without reference tobuilding form or spatial dimension. Many of theideas were appropriate, but the colored diagrams onlyscratched the surface of the given problems.Challenged to move beyond abstraction, plannerseventually found they knew more than they gavethemselves credit for. For example, they knew that agood depth for an apartment building was 40–50feet. Sixty to 80 feet deep was appropriate for retail,while offices in America generally require floorplatesfrom 90–120 feet deep. (Unlike Europe, internal,windowless offices are normal in the USA.) Whenthe teams drew the actual dimensions and shapes ofbuildings, and located them specifically on the site,whole new levels of consideration opened up. Wherewas the front of the building? Where was the back?How were these two conditions different? Wheremight the front entrances be located? Where was theservice and loading bay? What degree of enclosurewas appropriate for public space? Where did publicspace begin and end? Where were the thresholdsbetween public space and private space? And howcould these transitions be handled? These issues sim-ply don’t appear at the level of colored diagrams ofuses. But they are vital factors in the creation of anysuccessful urban place.

The planners in the workshop relished this newscope and level of detail. They didn’t need to drawbeautifully; they just needed to commit to a layout of


buildings and spaces and draw the plan with somedegree of accurate scale. Then they could evaluatetheir outline solution, and improve it with a second,and a third drawing.

One issue stood out above all others – the relation-ship between the fronts and backs of buildings. It is ageneral rule of urban design (to be broken very rarely,if ever) that building fronts should face buildingfronts and backs should face backs. In this way, terri-tory and patterns of activity can be identified andpublic spaces defined and distinguished from private.In a simple example of a typical street of houses,‘public’ front gardens face each other across the side-walks and roadway, while ‘private’ backyards are adja-cent to similar spaces at the rear of homes. Asindividuals and families, we have different patterns ofsocially accepted behavior for each zone. It is easy toimagine the spatial and social confusion if someone’sfront garden and front door faced a private backyard.The cohesion of the public realm would have beenbreached by the intrusion of private space, and pri-vate areas compromised by excessive visibility. Thissimple principle applies to all scales of urban devel-opment … or it should.

However, this was new information to many plan-ners used to working in more or less exclusively sub-urban situations. In the suburbs the looser spatialpattern of buildings allows dysfunctional back-to-front relationships to be masked by distance or land-scape screening with no consideration given to thedesign and integrity of the public realm – the spacesbetween buildings – especially from the point of viewof the pedestrian. Structures are sited very carelesslyin suburbia because the quality of the public realm israrely an issue. The only ‘public’ spaces we walkacross are asphalt parking lots. The concept of publicspace as an ‘outdoor room’ for shared communityactivities has been forgotten.

Outdoor rooms, be they long skinny ones likestreets, more rectangular versions like squares andplazas, or irregular and green like neighborhoodparks, all have one thing in common: a greater orlesser degree of spatial enclosure. Spatial enclosure isa function of the proportions of the space – theheight of the buildings relative to the width of thespace. From experience and the study of precedent,good height-to-width ratios for spaces that feel com-fortable for a variety of human activities range fromthe tightness of 1:1 or 2:1 for pedestrian activities(a more extreme ratio of 3:1 can be pleasantly dra-matic) to a more relaxed standard of 1:3 and up to amaximum of 1:6 for spaces that include cars, either

moving or parked (see Figures 4.4–4.5). Beyond theheight-to-width ratio of 1:6, all sense of enclosure islost; the width of the space is too great and the build-ing height too low (see Figure 4.6).

The condition of enclosure generated by theheight-to-width ratio of the space is related simply tothe physiology of the human eye. If the width of apublic space is such that the pedestrian’s cone ofvision encompasses more sky than building façades,then the feeling of enclosure is slight. In the reversecondition, where the building façades predominate,the feeling of enclosure is heightened.

The other important notion never to forget is thatthese major public rooms must be enclosed by thefronts of buildings, not the backs, and rarely the sides.The front façades of buildings are their public faces,and as such they must front onto public space,whether it’s a street, square or a neighborood park asillustrated in Figure 4.7.


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Figure 4.4 Fosse Street, Dartmouth, Devon.The tighturban enclosure enhances the social experience ofshopping for residents and visitors alike in this seasidetown. Note how the vista is terminated by the towerof the parish church.


The design planners’ workshop convinced us of theurgent need for this kind of information – fronts andbacks and public rooms – as the foundation for moreelaborate concepts. The participants were hungry forthe knowledge and eager to develop and refine theirskills. Within a few hours of intensive work thesenon-designers were creating some quite sophisticateddesigns with clear spatial ideas (see Figure 4.8). Thedrawings were basic but sufficient to communicate

the spatial arrangements, and the important thing tograsp here is that careful drawings like these begin todeal with three dimensions in terms of anticipatedbuilding height and widths of spaces. These three-dimensional qualities can be explored further in sec-tion, a vertical slice through the buildings and sitethat delineates building heights and ground levels.One doesn’t need to draw perspectives to design inthree dimensions. Urban designers do so, either byhand or computer-generated models, to develop adesign more thoroughly, but for non-designers, thesection can establish many key qualities of publicspace, scale and building massing (see Figure 4.9).

Sometimes, basic urban design is as simple as this:size the buildings correctly and locate them in spaceso that public space is clearly defined. In real life it’susually more complex and subtle, and urban designisn’t simply a pragmatic affair of common sense tech-niques. It has deeper levels of meaning and operation,and the different ways of working noted earlier canbe traced back to key philosophical concepts in west-ern thought: typology to rationalism, picturesqueurbanism to empiricism and designing for the socialuse of space to pragmatism. We’ll begin our review ofurban design methods with typology, a basicallysimple but often misunderstood notion.

Typology

Knowing the dimensions of various types of build-ings is the first move toward working typologically,


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Figure 4.5 Birkdale Village, Huntersville, NC, ShookKelly, 2002. The more relaxed spatial enclosure of this‘urban village’ accommodates the car whileproviding generous spaces for pedestrians (see alsoPlates 4–7). (Photo courtesy of Crosland Inc., andShook Kelly)

Figure 4.6 Rosedale Commons, Huntersville, NC,2000. The low scale of the buildings around thesquare defeats any intention of creating an invitingenclosed space for pedestrians. This weak elementmars an otherwise attractive development with anintegrated mixture of uses and a good pedestrianstructure (see also Figure 6.37).

Figure 4.7 Latta Park, Dilworth, Charlotte, NC. Thesocial space of this neighborhood park is defined bythe homes (behind the trees) lining the public streetsaround the perimeter. Activities are supervisedinformally by the resident who look over the spaceand by pedestrians on the streets.


that is, using established norms to design new projects.It’s a very powerful tool, especially when it combinesbuilding mass and urban space at the same time.Clearly, the formality of the American courthousesquare typology (of civic building and public space)that underlies the original layout of Neshoba County

Fairgrounds reinforces the civic attributes of a spacein a direct and potent manner. The lineage of thisparticular typology can also be seen in an importantseries of Renaissance paintings of the ‘Ideal City’ (seePlate 3).

This makes clear what we mean when we use theterm typology: consistent patterns for buildings andurban spaces that are derived from historical exam-ples and which can be used and reused in differentcontemporary conditions. In some ways it’s theopposite of modernist belief that ‘form follows func-tion,’ or that each function has its own special form.Functionalism is derived from a biological analogy,where each species in the natural world demonstratesits own particular characteristics, but in urban termsthis correspondence quickly breaks down.

We understand that the same building form canaccommodate several different functions during itslifetime through a process of conversion and adaptivereuse. The form of a building can be far more perma-nent than its use, and this enables us to think of cer-tain building plan types that might suit a variety ofdifferent uses. Even a cursory analysis of cities revealsthe existence of some consistent patterns of buildingsand urban spaces that have been utilized in differentlocations, conditions and times for their own merit,without a primary recourse to function. For example,the perimeter block – where buildings ring the edgesof a site like a rectangular doughnut – appears incities all over Europe and America across several cen-turies. The uses in the buildings may vary within thespace of the block and during the life of the build-ings; the basic form, however, remains the same (seeFigure 4.10).

This appreciation of the longevity of form over thetransience of function, the reliance on time-testedmodels of urbanism, and the belief in the universal (orat least wide ranging) applicability of these conceptsin many different contexts, relates typological designto principles of Rationalist philosophy dating fromthe European Enlightenment in the seventeenthcentury. At that time, great thinkers like FrenchmanRené Descartes (1596–1650) sought universal lawsand principles by which to comprehend the world, anintellectual position that was not limited by thevagaries of human experience. Typology has become acommon term in architectural discourse, but not inthe allied disciplines, and it’s not always clearlydefined. It’s often confusing to nonarchitects, as it isto many architects and students of architecture raisedin the Fountainhead tradition of the architect as thecreator of unique and original forms.


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Figure 4.8 Design for a redeveloped suburbanshopping center. This quick sketch from an urbandesign workshop for planners was produced byprofessional planning officers with no formal trainingin design or graphics. Although a little crude, it showsa clear grasp of the spatial enclosure needed todefine effective public space, with buildings frontingonto streets and a large formal lawn between twopublic buildings.

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10�–0�

Figure 4.9 Typical ‘Street Section’ Drawing. Properlyproportioned sections – vertical slices throughbuildings and spaces – effectively engage the three-dimensional qualities of a design proposal byillustrating the heights and relative sizes of buildings,trees, people and cars.


Part of this confusion is because there have beenseveral definitions of typology during the last 200years, and these have not always agreed with eachother (Durand, 1805; Quatremere de Quincy, 1823;Argan, 1963; Rossi, 1966/1982; Colquhoun, 1967;Vidler, 1978; Moneo, 1978; Krier, 1979 et al.).While acknowledging this complex intellectual his-tory, we choose a simple approach, and we utilizetypology in our work as a practical way of learningfrom history and interpreting this history into thepresent. It helps us to establish workable patterns ofurban forms and spaces quickly at the outset of a pro-ject, setting out a framework that can be enriched bythe subtleties of site circumstances.

To explain this a little further, the urban perimeterblock (for example) can be classified as one version ofthe ‘courtyard’ typology. The space on the interior ofthe block is defined by the backs of the buildings lin-ing the street edges, is generally shared only by theusers of the buildings on the block, and shieldedfrom the fully public world of the street outside.Those readers familiar with Alfred Hitchcock’sfamous film Rear Window will recall that much of thetension in the plot comes from Jimmy Stewart’svisual trespassing into the private realm of the court-yard within such a block. The academic quadrangleso typical of Oxford, Cambridge, Yale, Harvard and

many other university campuses is another version ofthe courtyard typology, derived in this instance fromthe medieval cloister where a zone of protected linearcirculation is attached to the interior faces of the build-ing. Courtyards of this type, with or without thecolonnaded cloister, may be sculpted out from themass of a larger structure or, as shown in Figure 4.11,they may be created as the space between freestandingbuildings. The ubiquitous American atrium hotel is aperversion of this typology, where rooms face into alarge multistorey internal volume.

Other recurring patterns of space are the circularform – for example, the Circus at Bath and the publicspace at Broadgate in central London (see Figure 4.12) –and the linear circulation spine with attached spacesalong its length, a pattern that underlies the Greek stoaand the American Main Street.

Three final points about typology need to bemade. First, it is clear from these examples that ‘type’is different from ‘model.’ A model is something to beclosely copied, an object that should be repeatedexactly. Type on the other hand encapsulates the gen-eral forms and characteristics of an object that maythen be interpreted differently by individual design-ers. This is very close to Plato’s notion of an ‘idealform’ that underlies the creation of each particularobject, be it the ideal form of a bed that underpins a


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Figure 4.10 Perimeter Block, Charlotte, NC, LS3PArchitects, 2003. Apartments line the public streets,creating a pleasant central courtyard despite therather anaemic pseudo-classicist architecture. Thisspace is shared by the residents but is distinct fromthe fully public realm of the city beyond.

Figure 4.11 South Quadrangle, University of NorthCarolina at Charlotte, 2003. The typology of theacademic quadrangle is alive and well, but thebanal and vaguely historicist architecture stifles thedevelopment of social life in the space. The genericfaçades are sealed around the perimeter, providingfew intermediate social spaces for shelteredgathering. Compare this courtyard with Plate 1 andFigure 4.12.


craftsman’s construction, or the ideal form of anurban square that lies at the heart of an urbandesigner’s plan for a plaza.

Second, typology is as much about variations as itis about norms, as in the relationship between court-yard/plaza/courthouse square, and civic buildingsnoted earlier. It is a wonderful tool for blending‘ideal,’ historic forms with specific contemporarycircumstances.

Third, and we owe this to the Italian architect andurbanist Aldo Rossi, typology allows architecturaland urban forms to gather validity and usefulnessfrom the tradition of architecture itself, and not haveto rely on some external justification, say from thesocial sciences, semiotics or chaos theory. Thisinternalization of meaning suggests a strong thread of

historical continuity as opposed to a continual cycleof new theories and intellectual fads – such asdeconstruction, which attempted during the 1980sto justify new architectural forms by reference toFrench linguistic theory.

We have little patience with this ‘intellectual caf-eteria’ approach to architecture and urbanism,whereby architects can pick and choose their con-cepts and meanings from a menu of fashionableoptions. The city and its problems are too serious avenue for intellectual games, and Rossi reminds us ofthe value of studying our historical precedents. Herein America that means most directly the traditionalforms of towns, cities and suburbs from the latenineteenth and early twentieth centuries – one of themain sources of the New Urbanist vocabulary.Typology is the opposite of superficial nostalgia; itholds the key to new buildings because it is both therepository of ideas about building and urban formsthroughout history, and at the same time the genesisof new works in the city.

This simplified approach to typology lets us con-nect with, and be informed by, an architectural andurban legacy larger than the particular urban designproblem under study; and, almost as importantly, itcan render our design concepts more easily under-standable to other, non-architect members of thedesign team. In the compressed time frame of acharrette, the intensive design workshop we use toproduce our community master plans, it’s especiallyimportant for members from each discipline to trustthe depth and quality of ideas of their colleagues.Our forms and concepts derive a high degree ofauthenticity from typology, and its power to bridgefrom history to the present and the future: this isone important way that the traffic planner, thelandscape architect and the development economistcan understand where we as architects and urbandesigners are coming from. We are utilizing time-tested techniques, not inventing untested ideas outof the blue.

Two typologies that we use in this manner, and which appear in several of the case studies,are the Mixed-use Center and the TraditionalNeighborhood. These and two others, the Districtand the Corridor, are explained more fully inChapter 6, in the section on our charrette method-ology, but we have already seen (in Chapter 3,Figures 3.2 and 3.3) the typological principle atwork in the updating and continuity of the traditionalneighborhood from Clarence Perry’s version in


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Figure 4.12 Broadgate Arena, London, ArupAssociates, Phase I, 1985. The circular form of themain public space is lined with stores on severallevels, and its shady passageways and overhangingbalconies create multiple opportunities for smaller,intimate spaces around the edge of the main focalplaza.


the 1920s to the DPZ reworking of the same type inthe 1990s.

Picturesque Urbanism

In contrast to the rationalist basis of typology, the‘townscape’ or picturesque approach to urban designis more ‘empirical.’ It’s based on the specific impactparticular compositions of urban form and spacemake on the senses and emotions of the observer,rather than relying on pre-existing, generalized con-cepts of form. Empiricism provides one of the othergreat founding principles of Western thought, articu-lated most clearly by Englishman John Locke. In his1687 Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Lockeargued (in opposition to Descartes) that everything weknow about the world is amassed through sensoryexperience – sight, sound, smell, touch and so forth –and then from reflection upon our experience(Broadbent p. 80). This philosophical worldviewtranslates directly into urbanism, through the workof Gordon Cullen, for example, with his principles oftownscape and ‘serial vision’ – comprehending thecity as an orchestrated sequence of visual experiencesin the tradition of the English picturesque landscapegarden, and orchestrating these experiences into athree-dimensional mental map of the city as a seriesof connected places.

The reader will recall from earlier discussions thatthis method of design derives specifically from thework of the Austrian urbanist Camillo Sitte at the endof the nineteenth century, and was also much used byRaymond Unwin and Barry Parker in their designs forthe early Garden Cities and garden suburbs before theWorld War I. The illustrations of Oaklands Park, inDawlish, on the Devon coast in southwest England,illustrate the creation of spaces as a series of vignettes,composed for pictorial or ‘romantic’ effect, a qualityheightened by their emphasis on vernacular imageryand allusions to local building styles and materials.The spatial arrangement is specifically based on theviews that a pedestrian, or a motorist at slow speed,can appreciate as a meaningful and attractive sequence(see Figures 4.13–4.15).

Sitte’s 1889 text emphasized the emotional experi-ence of being in urban spaces, and City BuildingAccording to Artistic Principles is an impassioned argu-ment against one sort of typology, as manifested inthe unimaginative uniformity and repetitive formulasof the nineteenth Austrian developers’ architecture inForster’s heavy-handed Ringstrasse plan around

medieval Vienna (1859–72). But Sitte’s own work,based as it was upon countless empirical visual analy-ses of historical European plazas, was paradoxicallytypological to some degree. He studied historicexamples not as models to copy, but to identifyunderlying principles of artistic composition fromearlier periods that were transferable to his time (seeFigure 4.16). It’s not hard to extend this search forprinciples into a classification of types of differentarrangements for piazzas and squares, based on vari-ables such as the relationship of major buildings tothe space(s), the location of points of entry into thespace, a hierarchy of major and minor spaces andtheir connections and so forth. Rob Krier’s exhaustivetypological studies in his 1979 book, Urban Space,follow this approach and explicitly refer to andextend the work of Sitte.

At the same time, Sitte was primarily concernedwith the visual organization of spaces, and it was thisattribute of his work that Unwin and especiallyCullen developed further. While there is no evidenceof any direct link between Sitte and Cullen (Gosling’sdefinitive book on Cullen’s work barely mentions theViennese author [Gosling, 1996]) the townscapemethod of designing from eye level – based on apedestrian’s visual experience of moving around thecity – is the natural three-dimensional developmentof Sitte’s two-dimensional analyses.

The primary articulation of space in Cullen’svocabulary is the distinction between ‘Here’ and‘There.’ ‘Here’ is where one stands, in a space that isknown and understood, occupied at least temporarilyby the user. ‘There’ is a different space, divided insome way from the first. It may be revealed to theobserver in a direct manner as in a framed viewthrough an arch, or it may be concealed and onlyhinted at by means of partial closure of the view, orthe manipulation of the opening, or by a change oflevel. By a coherent sequence of transitions from asuccession of ‘heres’ to a series of ‘theres’ Cullenbuilds his technique of ‘serial vision,’ a means ofcomprehending, enjoying and designing the publicspaces of a city by creating memorable visual con-trasts and images. He seeks to manipulate the ele-ments of a town or city to achieve an impact onhuman emotion (see Figure 4.17). The urban placecomes alive ‘through the drama of juxtaposition’where all the elements that combine to create a par-ticular environment, buildings, spaces, materials,trees, water, traffic and so forth, are woven togetherin ways that release the drama of urban experience


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(Cullen, 1961: pp. 10–11). There have been severalvariations of Cullen’s ideas, notably Ivor de Wofleand Kenneth Browne’s Civilia, and Francis Tibbalds’Making People-Friendly Towns (1992). Most recentlya series of articles by Andres Duany and others inNew Urban News (2002–03) on urban compositionderive directly from Cullen’s seminal work.

Cullen’s examples, like those of Camillo Sitte andRaymond Unwin before him, were drawn from thevernacular urbanism of European towns and cities,places where the urbanism was organic rather thanmonumental. These urban places had been assem-bled over time as a result of many individual deci-sions rather than laid out at a single stroke in the


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4.13

Figures 4.13–4.15 Oaklands Park, Dawlish,Devon, Mervyn Seal and Associates, 1972–76.Buildings in this modest housing estate arearranged to enclose a specific series of spacesand to frame particular views as the resident orvisitor moves through the development by car oron foot. The architecture is an abstracted versionof the Devonshire seaside vernacular.

4.14 4.15


the desire to distinguish and enhance the localauthenticity of places, and are structured around thepeople who inhabit them.

The Social Use of Space

It’s important to add one other qualifier to pic-turesque urbanism as a design method: while thesocial use of space was implied in the work of Cullenand his followers such as Francis Tibbalds during the1980s and 1990s, these urban designers concentratedprimarily on the visual aspects of design. By contrast,three important American urbanists – Jane Jacobs,Kevin Lynch and William H. Whyte – focusedinstead on what has been referred to as the ‘socialusage’ of space (Carmona et al.: pp. 6–7). In theirefforts at dealing with practical realities concerningthe patterns of human activity, these three authorsillustrate a third philosophical position, the uniquelyAmerican one of pragmatism.

Pragmatism is best known through the work ofAmerican philosophers Charles Sanders Pierce(1839–1914), William James (1842–1910) and JohnDewey (1859–1952). Pragmatists embrace ‘truths’ inthe plural, examining conditions in the world fromthe basis of their practicality and utility in the realmof concrete human experience. In the context ofurban design and planning this approach has devel-oped its theories and concepts by looking ‘moreclosely at the practical effects of living in cities’(Broadbent: p. 86).

Jacobs, Lynch, and Whyte all stressed the impor-tance of everyday human experience in urban design,and each in his or her own way rejected the abstrac-tion of city life inherent in modernist values andassumptions about cities. Lynch, in his seminal work,The Image of the City (1960), explored people’s per-ceptions and mental images of urban places as a wayof relating the techniques of design specialists to theeveryday appreciation of spaces by their users. Jacobs,most famously as we have already discussed, concen-trated in The Death and Life of American Cities(1961) on the space of the street as a practical venueof daily life, and its role as a spatial container of socialactivities. Whyte extended this interest in the prag-matic use of urban space in his famous little bookand accompanying video entitled The Social Life ofSmall Urban Spaces (1980), which derived commonsense rules about the design of public space by watch-ing to see what worked best in the everyday worldand then using these lessons on the drawing board.This social view of habitable space and the impact of


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S. GIMIGNANO

III

III

a

b

N

S

I. Piazza del Duomo. II. Piazza della Cisterna.

PEROUSE

a. Duomo. b. Palazzo communale.

I. Piazza del Vescovato. II. Piazza di S Lorenzo. III. Piazza del Papa.

I

II©

Figure 4.16 Drawings of Piazzas after Camillo Sitte,Excerpted from ‘The American Vitruvius,’ byHegemann and Peets, 1922. These two examples,San Gimignano and Perugia (Perouse), illustrateone of Sitte’s main points about the asymmetricalplacement of major buildings in public space,thus creating a series of varied spaces of differentsizes and character. (Illustration in the publicdomain)

manner of Pierre L’Enfant’s plan for Washington DC(1791), or the Beaux Arts-inspired plans of theAmerican City Beautiful movement at the end of thenineteenth century. Townscape principles of spatialarticulation are often hard to achieve in the contextof American towns and cities dominated by a repeti-tive and uniform grid – derived from ThomasJefferson’s scheme for land division in the newly set-tled lands of the expanding western frontier. But webelieve that these techniques are even more valid in acontext where the urban fabric lacks richness andvariety. By selectively, and we stress selectively, break-ing the unforgiving monotony of American grids,and creating a more diverse palette of spaces forhuman activity, the urban designer can create memo-rability and significance (see Figure 4.18). Thesequalities help mediate the complex and conflictingdemands, discussed later in this chapter, regardingtensions inherent in a lot of urban design and plan-ning. Global forces that seek to unify cities with com-mon buildings and products are contrasted with and


human behavior on design was importantly extendedby Christopher Alexander and others in their com-pendium of design ideas, A Pattern Language (1977)and raised to a specifically urban level of considera-tion in A New Theory of Urban Design (1987). Toshow how interconnected all these different strandsof urban design are, Alexander’s emphasis on urbanpatterns also connects back to the work of Sitte,whom Alexander frequently cites.

While this American socially based approachshares many similarities and intentions with itsEuropean picturesque counterpart, it also illustratesan important difference. The townscape technique ofurban design retains the viewpoint of the specialistdesigner. It is his or her eye that is composing theurban scene. For Lynch, Jacobs and Whyte it’s theperceptions and use of space by ordinary urban

residents that are paramount. This devolution ofdesign, and a desire to construct neighborhoodsand cities that are responsive to the needs and expec-tations of their citizens is an important tenet of contemporary urban design. It illustrates thepush toward democratic populism and communityactivism in architecture planning, noted in Chapter 1.At the same time it indicates a third methodologyof urban design. This third, pragmatic mode ofoperation is best categorized as ‘making places forpeople,’ and synthesizes the design of urban space asan aesthetic entity and a behavioral setting basedon the realities of human use and activity (Carmonaet al.: p. 7).

The place where the Americans, Lynch, Jacobs,and Whyte most clearly come together with theirBritish counterparts, Cullen, Tibbalds and others is


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Figure 4.17 Gordon Cullen’s‘Serial Vision,’ from‘Townscape,’ 1961. Thesensibility to evocativequalities of irregular urbanform and space in Sitte’s workis taken to a higher plane ofdevelopment by Cullen. WhileSitte’s work exists largely intwo-dimensional plan form,Cullen’s genius as adraughtsman brings the thirddimension of urbanexperience vividly to life.(Illustration courtesy of TheArchitectural Press)


the street – the connective tissue of democratic spaceand visual experience that structures towns and cities.But ironically we have little opportunity to celebratethis consensus. No sooner have we reached some pro-fessional agreement about the appropriateness of tra-ditional urban spaces than other critics raise newdoubts about the authenticity of our revived streetsand public spaces (Sandercock, 1999). Are they not,these critics argue, just locations for a passive ‘cafésociety,’ developer-driven stage sets for consumptionfrom generic retailers like Starbucks, The Gap, andVictoria’s Secret rather than places for active citizen-ship and democratic engagement? Are these priva-tized realms masquerading as public spaces? InAmerica additional voices are raised asking if thesenew streets and squares are simply exclusive settingsfor the white middle class, places from which poorerblack and Hispanic populations are excluded byincome level if not by social policy. These are some ofthe arguments we examine in the next section.

THE STREET AND ‘CAFÉ SOCIETY’

We have seen in the earlier chapters on the history ofcity design how the objectives of urban design in thetwentieth century have swung back and forth like a

pendulum. Beginning with the street as the basicbuilding block of urbanism at the start of the century,professional opinion has arced across to the otherextreme where the development of open, continuous,modernist space marked the ‘death of the street’ inthe decades just before and after World War II. Mostrecently as the century drew to a close, design theoryand practice have returned to the street as the arma-ture of contemporary, sustainable urbanism. Onceagain, buildings are seen today as edges to publicspace, defining ‘urban rooms,’ rather than objectsadrift in open space. In Britain, this latter return totraditional urbanism was exemplified by texts such asResponsive Environments (Bentley et al., 1985) whichstill acts as an effective primer for students and prac-titioners alike. In America, Peter Calthorpe’s TheNext American Metropolis (1993) provided a similarlyuseful text at a more general level of consideration.

The urban wisdom contained within these andother publications has become enshrined in Britishgovernment policy guidance notes such as By Design:Urban Design in the Planning System: Towards BetterPractice (2000), and By Design: Better Places to Live(2001). In America traditional urban design princi-ples have, as we noted in Chapter 3, been best articu-lated in the Charter for the New Urbanism (1998) andin publications by the Urban Land Institute, such asChuck Bohl’s Placemaking: Developing Town Centers.Main Streets and Urban Villages (2002). The differ-ences between British and American policies aboutplanning and urban design are examined moreclosely in Chapter 5, but suffice it here to say thatwhile many design and planning objectives are similaron both sides of the Atlantic, in Britain they tend tobe embedded within government policy (howeverflawed in application) while in America, there is alarge void at the national level. Any push for goodurban design is usually a function of independent pro-fessionals and pressure groups outside government.

With the help of an increasing number of textsand guidance manuals, designers in Britain andAmerica have come to use street-oriented approachesto solve contemporary urban design and town plan-ning problems, either retrofitting older commercialcenters and corridors to become pedestrian-friendly,or by creating whole new walkable neighborhoods ongreenfield sites. The dramatic increase in urban livingin America has placed new demands on the publicspaces of cities. Even transportation engineers nowrealize the function of a city street, for example, is nolonger simply to move traffic. It is expected to be aplace that can support several activities, movement


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Figure 4.18 Two Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills, California,Kaplan McLaughlin Diaz, Architects, 1990. Located atthe intersection of Rodero Drive and WilshireBoulevard, this ‘upmarket theme park for adults,’ asNew York Times critic Paul Goldberger described it,uses a diagonal to create attractive pedestrianspace in a car-dominated environment.(Illustration courtesy of Kaplan McLaughlin Diaz)


on foot, bicycle, car or transit, and a place to meet forbusiness or pleasure over a cup of coffee or a glass ofwine. The street is once again a place of rest andrelaxation, work, entertainment and recreation.

But several critics, particularly in America andAustralia, have castigated traditional urbanism basedon streets and squares as being retrogressive and nos-talgic, preferring instead either to search for new cityforms or, in some cases, to accept the existing modelsas indicative of consumer preference (Sudjic, 1992;Rybczynski, 1995; Safdie, 1997; Dovey, 1999;McDougall, 1999; Marshall, 2000; Sorkin, 2001).These and other critics have bemoaned the fact thattraditional urbanism is by its very nature somewhatprescriptive, relying as it does upon a set of spatialtypes that require adherence to street alignments,build-to lines and proportional form-to-spacerelationships. We have argued our rebuttal to theserather tired arguments at several points throughout thetext, but a more substantive critique of traditionalurbanism is one that we noted briefly in Chapter 1,namely that these attempts to create walkable commu-nities, and the use of traditional urban forms in theservice of those ambitions, merely create stage sets for asybaritic ‘café society.’ Such a society, it is claimed, is avenue purely for the consumption of goods rather thana place of creative cultural and democratic activities, aplace where the richness and meaning of public life isreduced to a manufactured spectacle.

This criticism is easier to refute in the context ofthe refurbishment and adaptive reuse of buildings incentral city districts, such as Quincy Market inBoston (1826, refurbished 1978), and CoventGarden in London (piazza 1631, but extensivelyrebuilt several times; market hall 1831, refurbished1980) (see Figures 5.1 and 6.11). In locations likethese, the urban nodes of entertainment, recreation,and retail activities have been integrated into an exist-ing city fabric, often with dramatic improvements of urban life over a wide area. A similar rationaleof social usefulness also applies to the regeneration ofgrayfield sites, turning old, worn-out shopping cen-ters and commercial districts into new urban villages,but the fabrication of fresh suburban versions ofthese environments on peripheral greenfield sitesraises more difficult questions.

We address the issue of why such developmentsaround the urban edges of cities are unavoidable inAmerica in some detail in Chapter 6, and make ourcase for turning necessity to advantage. Briefly, webelieve that making new urban villages in the suburbscan be one of the most useful strategies to introduce a

hierarchy and sense of place into the otherwisesprawling periphery. They are part of a strategy totransform the suburbs into a more coherent urbanfabric with discernable centers, neighborhoods anddistricts. One reason for the loving to death of Seasidewas the lack of other places like it. Now that morenew developments are being created in the form ofurban villages, we believe the urbanity craved so avidlyby many Americans will evolve from a consumeristspectacle into a normal setting for everyday life.

This claim is unlikely to quell the critics, but thereis one point on which all can agree. Unlike thepseudo-public space of the suburban shopping mall,where the communal space is privately controlled,the streets, squares and parks in an urban village mustbe truly public. This is crucial, for democracy andurban life cannot flourish in privatized enclaves.

In America, the paradigm of new urban villages asthe settings for middle-class urban spectacles isincreasingly well ensconced in the suburban culture.Branded as ‘lifestyle centers’ with themed retail andentertainment venues, these developments profitfrom established urban typologies. They utilize urbanblocks with vertical mixed uses of high-density hous-ing and/or offices over retail stores, and traditionalspatial typologies of Main Street and urban square tocreate pedestrian-friendly environments that encour-age window shopping, browsing and sidewalk diningin decent weather.

To entice people onto the street or public square isone of an urban designer’s key objectives. But allarchitectural and urban spaces need a program, a setof anticipated human activities that can take place inthose locations, actions that can transcend passiveconsumerism. To meet this need in our Americanpractice, we construct an ‘ideal user,’ someone wemay best describe as a sort of twenty-first centuryflaneur, an updating of the famous urban dwellerfrom the boulevards of Paris, immortalized by theFrench poet Charles Baudelaire.

In his essay ‘The Painter of Modern Life,’ firstprinted in the Paris newspaper Le Figaro in 1863,Baudelaire described the flaneur as someone wholived his life in the public world, strolling the boule-vards, frequenting the cafés, bars and public build-ings of Paris. He was anonymous in the urbancrowds but drew energy from the teeming urban lifeall around him. (We should note in passing that thiswas a male role; women – apart from prostitutes –were not allowed this luxury of unaccompaniedmovement in the nineteenth century city.) ButBaudelaire’s urban wanderer was not simply a passive


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spectator. The French poet stressed that his pedes-trian searched the city with a lofty aim. He was look-ing for ‘modernity’ in the metropolis, and in hissearch the flaneur did not merely consume urbanculture. He created it by his ‘passionate’ activity.Multiply this individual by a population of thou-sands in a city, or even in a suburban center, and thepossibility of an authentic public life in America istantalizingly within reach.

One of our chief ambitions as designers is to createand maintain this public realm as a place where con-temporary flaneurs, of both sexes, can flourish, andsucceed in their quest of generating urban activityand culture. This is where the issue of truly publicspace is so vital. Private control over spaces that lookpublic but aren’t emasculates democratic participa-tion in the life of the community.

One development that tries to achieve this goalof meaningful and active public space is BirkdaleVillage, in Huntersville, North Carolina, a suburbancommunity just north of Charlotte. It may not suc-ceed in every test we apply for our idealized flaneur,but none the less, it is a brave attempt. Located near afreeway interchange (a mark in its disfavor), Birkdalesupplies urban amenities to the suburban middleclass; it has gathered unto itself many aspects of thetraditional center that the tiny town of Huntersvillenever possessed prior to its evolution into a burgeon-ing bedroom community of 32 000 in 2002.

Like a traditional town center, the 52-acre (20.8hectares) Birkdale Village, with its apartments andoffices over the stores, and a cinema at the end ofMain Street, physically connects via a grid of walk-able streets to adjacent housing developments (seePlate 4). But beneath this veneer of normality,Huntersville is a town with extraordinary socialdemographics. The town’s population is 86 percentwhite and its median household income is a whop-ping $72 000, considerably more than the regionalaverage. For comparison, in other Carolina communi-ties like Winston-Salem the figures are 55 percentwhite with a median income of $37 000. Spartanburg’sdemographics are 42 percent white with a medianincome of $22 400. Huntersville is thus an urbanarea that has a limited social spectrum of users andinhabitants. Not surprisingly, the stores in BirkdaleVillage are upmarket, and the rents for the apart-ments are relatively high, but this exclusivity com-bined with the sense of near-genuine urbanity hasbred great commercial success (see Plate 5).

The one important element that is missing is acivic presence. There is no Town Hall, no library,

police station or post office. The library is isolated onthe other side of the freeway, while the other civicfunctions remain rooted in the small downtown core,three miles away, in a brave effort to stabilize andretain that fleeting piece of history. However, on thepositive side, the infrastructure of streets and publicspaces in Birkdale Village has been taken over fromthe developer by the town and are publicly ownedand maintained. They are truly public. They could,for example, be the legal site for a political demon-stration, an important test. The fact that these publicspaces have been created by means of private devel-opment is not an issue. The problem only occurswhen the spaces that we use for public activitiesremain in private hands.

Despite its positive impact on the community, sev-eral local people and professionals worry that noteverybody can afford to live or shop in the new defacto town center. This is fair criticism. It’s a fact ofdevelopment economics that the extra costs andcomplexity of creating a true mixed-use center of thistype can most easily be justified in an area of highdemographics and above average disposable personalincome. However, this argument can easily be over-stated. The construction cost of Birkdale Villageaveraged out to $75 per square foot (approximately£450 per square meter). Given the lower land costsfor the smaller area required for this more compactdevelopment compared to a conventional develop-ment that would need a larger site to lay out allthe components in separate pods, this is not anextravagant figure.

However, building the project is not the most dif-ficult issue. Developers need the reassurance of ele-vated demographics and consumers with highdisposable incomes to support the development risk,and to create this type of development in less wealthylocations requires some kind of public subsidy for theprivate development to defray costs, such as landacquisition. The market alone cannot provide thisnew urbanity for the working class and other, poorersections of society unless it is part of a larger, pub-lic–private venture that tackles social equity andjustice in the city. Every sector of the populationdeserves access to this improved urban future, notjust the wealthy bourgeoisie, however important theymay be in the process. This real problem of exclusiongives ammunition to the critics who complain thatthis is a stage set of Main Street, and makes a carnivalexperience of what should be the substance ofeveryday life. They argue that people are unawarehow their public life has an unreal, sanitized and


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tranquilized quality. In these critics’ terms, the passivecafé society has triumphed over an active urbanreality to the detriment of all concerned.

We acknowledge this argument, but we don’t quiteagree. In an American suburban culture where realurbanity is not something many citizens have experi-enced, Birkdale’s Main Street ambience is a novelcondition. The development’s truly public spaces, theunusual suburban presence of people living andworking above the shops – sharing in the publicrealm of the street from their private balconies andopen windows – is the nearest thing to city life thatmany people have ever experienced. It’s imperfect,but it’s a start. Surveys and empirical observationsclearly show that Americans are hungry for an urbanexperience, and we believe it’s very possible for a sub-stantial number of Americans to grow into thislifestyle, and to gradually learn what it means to beurban dweller, a flaneur. If you go to Birkdale on aFriday or Saturday night you’ll see plenty of genuinestreet life and urban activity. These people are notaware of some distant academic criticizing theirbehavior. The folks illustrated in Plate 6 aren’t acting.They’re being.

Our opinion is not entirely objective. In the mid-1990s the authors were instrumental in helping thetown of Huntersville rewrite its zoning ordinance toban conventional commercial strip development andto curtail residential sprawl. We did this by mandat-ing that commercial development should be mixed inits uses and connected to adjacent residential devel-opment, and by requiring all new residential develop-ment to be laid out with a connecting network ofstreets and public spaces. We used examples of tradi-tional urban design as models, and wrote the codearound the attributes inherent in their design – goodproportions, contextual design, compatible mixturesof uses and pedestrian-scaled townscapes whichretained the convenience of the car but reduced itsautonomy.

In short, high-density, mixed-use developmentslike Birkdale, which meet all the requirements andexpectations of the code, are precisely what we had inmind (see Plate 7). We would have preferred thatsuch a development of town center scale took placein the real town center, but the realities of the marketand development economics made that impossible.The old town center, such as it is, is a mile frommajor highways with limited access and awkwarddevelopment potential due to a straggling and diversepattern of individual land ownership. It’s a devel-oper’s nightmare with difficult and expensive land

acquisition combined with poor communicationsand limited visibility to passing traffic. When com-pared to a site near a busy freeway intersection, thereis no contest.

In circumstances like this it’s the urban designer’sjob to deal with reality and make the best places pos-sible. It is important, we believe, not to make thequest for perfection the enemy of good design. Byholding out for utopia, the urban designer runs therisk of being marginalized and neutered. We areproud of our small part in creating the Birkdaledevelopment. It’s not easy to build things of higherquality on either side of the Atlantic but now thatdevelopments like Birkdale are a physical reality inAmerica, we can put them to good purpose. We caneducate the public and the development communityabout good urban design and, importantly, theeconomic practicality of creating high quality urbanenvironments as opposed to the generic world of sub-urban dross.

But not all the action is in the American ‘burbs’.Affluent populations from the outer and middlesuburbs are returning to the city center and innersuburbs. With the departure of manufacturing andindustry from the inner city, former industrial build-ings become available for conversion to middle andupper income housing, and where old buildings arein short supply, developers eagerly manufacture newones that look old to meet the need without a trace ofirony (see Figure 4.19).

The rising affluence of the inner city forces out ormarginalizes lower income groups, who are increas-ingly displaced by the middle class unless localgovernments intervene in the marketplace to provideaffordable housing. Most service sector downtownsstill provide job opportunities for lower paid workers –in the form of security staff, janitors, waiters, salesassistants and so forth. But the market provides verylittle in the way of housing for these workers, orindeed for the lower ranks of professional such asteachers and nurses and valued public safety employ-ees like policemen and firemen.

One successful federal initiative in America toreduce this problem has been the HOPE VI pro-gram, whereby derelict public housing is demolishedand replaced by better-designed homes in a mixtureof subsidized public housing and affordable marketrate dwellings. The urban and architectural designphilosophy of HOPE VI has mirrored that of NewUrbanism: to integrate different types of housingtogether in the same community, socially and visu-ally, so that it is impossible to tell which housing is


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of which type. Charlotte has one such successfuldevelopment in its downtown area, First Ward Placejust two blocks from the new light rail line throughthe city center (see Figure 2.14). There is only one

problem with this good development. It’s a drop inthe ocean. Charlotte, like many American cities, hasa crisis of insufficient affordable housing. First WardPlace needs to be multiplied all over the city on sitesadjacent to public transit, job opportunities and ser-vices. This kind of development needs to be an inte-gral part of the future urban villages envisaged at keynodes along the transit lines. Local authorities needto mandate the inclusions of affordable dwellings inevery major development, as is required by the zon-ing ordinance of Davidson, North Carolina.

When affordable housing is minimal or absentfrom the city center altogether, the revitalized centercity does become no more than the playground forthe affluent classes. When this situation is combinedwith the economic exclusivity of suburban centerslike Birkdale Village, American society is presentedwith a challenge of major proportions. The publicspaces of cities are the only places where citizensencounter people who are different from themselves,but which some people may find daunting. Meetingstrangers can be scary to a lot of people but theprocess is important in creating a civilized society(Sennett, 1973, 1994).

When we go out in public and encounter onlypeople like ourselves, we are impoverished, and, mostworryingly, our public life is being tranquillized. Allthe rough edges, odd or idiosyncratic behavior,unique individuals, any distractions that might dis-turb our consumption at the corporate stores, arebeing smoothed off and edited out, banished to partsof the city we never see. In this invidious manner wesurrender our grip on the messy complex reality ofcity life and slip uncomplainingly into the velvetglove of a convenient simulacrum. The urbandesigner is in the thick of this debate. It’s difficult. It’s awkward. It gets confusing. But there’s no otherplace to be.


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Figure 4.19 Camden Road, SouthEnd, Charlotte,NC, Namour Wright, Architects, 1998. Useful newurban infill development is often masked in Americaby a fake historicism that glorifies the past at theexpense of the present. To fit in with public taste,many developers desire their buildings to look oldthe moment they are completed.


IIIPractice

PART


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SYNOPSIS

This chapter examines some of the similarities anddifferences between the planning systems in Britainand America. Most of the similarities occur in theprofessional realm, where architects, urban designers,and planners in both countries do similar tasksusing similar concepts. The differences are in thepolitical and cultural spheres, where a deep divideexists between American attitudes toward the san-ctity of private property rights and the British (andEuropean) propensity toward the communal good. Wehighlight some of these variations in detail to explainthe different cultural contexts in which professionalshave to work.

We then discuss two fundamental differencesbetween the American and British systems: first, theAmerican distinction between planning – establish-ing the future vision – and zoning – the legal meansof regulating growth; and second, the fact that inAmerica, plans are advisory and have no force in lawother than to fulfil the requirement to have a plan. InBritain, by contrast, while local plans are not legallybinding documents that specify precise dimensionsand design parameters as they do in parts of main-land Europe, local governments, after a period of lax-ity during the 1980s, are once more obliged to makedecisions about applications to develop land strictlyin accordance with their adopted plans. Planning anddevelopment control is a unified process in whichdesign regulation is increasingly a part.

In the final section we examine the relationship ofurban design principles to the regulation of the builtenvironment, through a brief historical discussion ofdesign-based ordinances, particularly as they haverelated to American practice. We note the typological

basis that underlies most design-based coding, anddefend the use of urban design guidelines in contem-porary practice.

DESIGNING COMMUNITIES IN DIFFERENT CULTURES

From an American perspective, working as an urbandesigner in Britain seems like a rather privilegedposition. We know this will raise hoots of derisivelaughter from British urban designers who battledaily with government intransigence and client inep-titude, but remember, one of the authors is English,with experience on both continents, so there is abasis of reality in this observation. We don’t contendthat urban design in the UK is easy. We are simplyaffirming that British professionals operate in a dif-ferent world than their American counterparts. Forexample, there are British government policies onurban design, manifested through publications suchas Planning Policy Guidance Notes issued throughthe 1990s. Nothing like these exist in America. Thereare government-backed regional centers for architec-tural and urban excellence in Britain. Unheard ofin America. The British government’s new-foundwisdom on matters of urban design has been largelyinfluenced by the professional organizations compris-ing the national Urban Design Alliance, includingthe Royal Institute of British Architects, the RoyalInstitution of Chartered Surveyors, the Royal TownPlanning Institute, the Institution of Civil Engineers,the Landscape Institute, the Civic Trust and theUrban Design Group. No such interdisciplinaryprofessional consensus can be found anywhere inthe USA.

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Before we begin a more detailed discussion of howgrowth and development is managed at the commu-nity level in both nations, one obvious fact has to bestated: America is a very big place, and this vast differ-ence in scale accounts for some of the variations ingovernment structure and focus. England and Wales,for example, will more or less fit inside the state ofOklahoma. The nation of France is about the same sizeas the state of Texas. America has 50 states, comprisinga complex collage of cultures, climates and attitudes.

Given this disparity, it’s not surprising that one ofthe most obvious contrasts is at the level of nationalpolicy. In Chapter 4, we noted the publication by theBritish government of reports entitled By Design:Urban Design in the Planning System (2000), and ByDesign: Better Places to Live (2001), topics close to theheart of this book. This is a level of consensus regard-ing policy and expectations at a national level that’snot easily imaginable in America at the start of thetwenty-first century. There is simply a large void ofofficial concern and policy at national and state levelsregarding the design of American towns and cities.This is not so much by neglect, but a matter of ideol-ogy: the American planning system in general workson the presumption that policies and regulation areprimarily a local matter. This devolution is an excel-lent concept in the abstract, but in the absence of anyclear guidance about national themes or priorities, orregional issues, from the federal or state governments,most planning remains introverted and local in scale,and competitive with adjacent municipalities ratherthan collaborative.

This competitive attitude between local govern-ments is a crucial weakness in the American system,but it has deep roots; in large part it’s based on money,particularly revenues from local taxes. Compared toEurope, where a more centralized system is the norm,a higher percentage of money to fund local govern-ment in America comes from local taxes. In Americantowns and cities, schools, police and fire protection,and the public infrastructure of streets, sidewalks,water and sewer are funded directly from taxes on pri-vate property in the community. To avoid always hav-ing to raise taxes to pay these costs, which continuallyincrease due to inflation, local governments try toattract new development to expand the amount oftaxable property within their borders. They oftenfight hard to outbid their neighbors by offering vari-ous incentives to developers and companies, includ-ing, ironically, rebates from local taxes.

However, not all growth pays for itself. Forexample, the taxes received from a typical American

housing development generally don’t pay for theservices received by the homeowners, mainly due tothe cost of providing schools for their children. Butthe taxes on a strip shopping center can create a profitfor local government, as that development doesn’trequire the schools, libraries, community centers,swimming pools, courthouses and so forth expectedby homeowners and their families. The shoppingcenter will only need police and fire protection, watersupply and sewer service. Therefore, the types ofdevelopment that produce sprawl are often activelysought out by elected officials and economic develop-ment officers in American towns and cities in orderto garner revenue to fund civic services.

Another important difference concerns what istaxed. In Europe, the tax structure is more heavilyweighted to taxes on consumption rather thanproperty. In other words what you use is taxed moreheavily than what you own. The opposite is true inthe USA, where taxes on consumption, for example,those on petrol, are only a fraction of the equivalentsin Europe. As often happens, Britain hovers some-where between the two poles.

This emphasis on taxing consumption is beingextended in many European nations to so-called greentaxes on pollution, particularly in Sweden, theNetherlands, Germany and Denmark. This policy canboth reduce the contamination of the environmentwhile allowing for some reductions in personal taxa-tion. Between 1994 and 1998, for example, Denmarkraised taxes on petrol, water supply, energy and wastewhile reducing the income tax levied on its citizens by8 to 10 percent (Burke, 1997, in Beatley: p. 257). Anysuch fundamental changes in tax structure toward thiskind of more centralized and use-based tax system arevery unlikely in America, and local governments willtherefore continue to operate in their normal, com-petitive, and localized manner. Many observers seenothing wrong in this; a fundamental mantra ofAmerican culture is that competition provides the bestsolution to most questions. In this crucial instance ofmunicipal finance however, competition is the prob-lem, not the solution. It is the Achilles’ heel ofAmerican planning.

In addition to competing with their neighborsfor sources of revenue, elected officials in almostevery place we work tell us they fear the loss of theircommunity’s identity, and are thus protectively sus-picious of adjacent municipalities who may havedifferent agendas. For example, the members of sev-eral progressive town councils in the Carolinas oftenshare few values with the County Commissioners


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who administer the largely rural lands beyond thetowns’ boundaries. For example, the leaders of thetown of Mooresville, 30 miles north of Charlotte, arekeen to link themselves with the big city’s rail transitplans, becoming the terminus of a proposed northernline from Charlotte. However, Mooresville is locatedin Iredell County, an area that, apart fromMooresville and a few other towns, is predominantlyrural as opposed to the urban environment of the cityof Charlotte and its surrounding MecklenburgCounty. It has been very hard for the Mooresvilleofficials to make common cause with their countycounterparts, who see the rail link and its associateddevelopment as symptomatic of the advancingurbanization that threatens their rural values.Mooresville’s ambition to connect to Charlotte repre-sents a major economic development opportunity forthe town and fulfills some of its Smart Growth objec-tives. However, these priorities are driving a wedgebetween the town and the county, and there is nooverall planning authority with the power to sort outthis dispute and resolve local and regional issues.Indeed, when North Carolina set up the statutoryMetropolitan Planning Organizations to managetransportation planning in the state’s urban areas, itestablished five separate bodies for the Charlotteregion, specifically so regional coordination would bedifficult, and to resist the rise of regional governance.

While this might be extreme, few American statessee such mediation or plan coordination betweenjurisdictions as part of their function; indeed, manystates don’t require coordinated plans for their terri-tory. In avoiding this issue of extended governance,state government represents the opinion of manyAmericans who view such higher authority, whetheras a regional government or, even worse, a nationalgovernment policy for controlling the developmentof private property, as a deeply socialistic concept.Some sectors of public opinion even consider suchplanning initiatives as the precursor to the erosion offundamental civil liberties.

This was certainly the case in the 1930s when thefederal government first introduced legislation tocreate a national housing policy as part of the NewDeal. Opponents destroyed the fledgling AmericanNew Towns program at that time, branding it asocialist concept, and not many attitudes havechanged since then. The authors are reminded of arecent observation by a conservative Charlotte politi-cian to the effect that if an ugly environment isthe result of unplanned free enterprise, then so be it.The city councilman considered that outcome much

preferable to an attractive city brought about at theprice of government regulation.

This isn’t to say that there is no national legislationthat affects the physical form of American towns andcities. There are and have been several examples, theurban renewal legislation discussed earlier being onedramatic postwar instance. While that set of policieshas left a lingering and difficult legacy, other recentexamples are more progressive. But few concernthemselves with design. The shining exception is theHOPE VI program, an effort to demolish substan-dard public housing ghettos and replace them withmore attractive mixed-income neighborhoods. Whilethe statement of objectives does not mention design,the federal department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment (HUD) has been open to the sugges-tions of New Urbanist architects, including ElizabethPlater-Zyberk, and supplementary guidance notessuch as Strategies for Providing Accessibility andVisitability for HOPE VI and Mixed Finance Home-ownership, prepared by Urban Design Associatesprovides exemplary design information (HUD,2000). The HUD website http://www.designadvisor.orgalso provides excellent advice for the design and lay-out of affordable housing.

We have already noted the success of Charlotte’sHOPE VI project near the city center, and this isrepeated in many cities across the nation. It’s thusdisappointing to note that at the time of writing in2003, the administration of President George W.Bush planned to end the whole program in October2003 (New Urban News, March 2003). This inten-tion to abandon a very successful program seemsmainly ideological. It was a program much favoredby the administration of President Clinton, and itsucceeded in large part because central governmentdid specify clear standards and New Urbanist designobjectives that individual cities were expected to fol-low. But this level of federal guidance (some wouldsay control) of local government does not sit wellwith many American politicians and citizens.

No federal urban program is as design based asHOPE VI, but another notably effective nationalinitiative has been the transportation and planninglegislation entitled ISTEA (1991) and its successor,TEA-21. ISTEA, widely pronounced as ‘iced tea,’ isan acronym for the Intermodal Surface TransportationEfficiency Act. The act explicitly linked land use andtransportation planning, supported planning forpublic transit, highlighted the relevance of planningfor bicycles and pedestrians, and promoted the ideaof connecting all these modes in an integrated


system. It expressly funded transportation systemsthat provided alternatives to the car in cities, espe-cially in those with bad air pollution. It also includedsome money for historic preservation in situationswhere historic properties were enmeshed with trans-portation planning. In the context of minimalregional planning, these initiatives marked a big stepforward, but there was little mention of urban designin these considerations. This is simply not an issuethat enters into American thinking at a national level.

In American government, many policy initiatives ona wide range of matters originate at state level, and in aneffort to improve the quality of their environment, afew states have enacted growth management legislationwith some regulatory force. These include Hawaii in1959, Vermont in 1970, (two of the smallest states in theunion, where pressures of development are more obvi-ous because of their limited size) followed by Oregon in1973, Florida in 1985, Maine and Rhode Island in1988, Washington in 1990 and Maryland and NewJersey in 1998. Altogether, 13 states have some form ofstatewide growth management control (in 2003), buteven here results vary. In parts of these states a numberof important natural landscapes have been preservedand some built-up areas were transformed to a moresustainable urban form, but nearby other parts of theenvironment is still visually and ecologically a mess.

One of the most effective techniques of regionalplanning at state level has been used by Marylandand New Jersey. Both states focus their spending andtax incentives to business on communities whereadequate infrastructure is already in place to supportinfill or contiguous growth rather than new green-field development. Smart Growth strategies like thisare not designed to stop development; they simplydecide on the locations for the wisest investment ofpublic funds (Katz, 2003: p. 49).

Design is not a factor that looms large in thethinking of most state governments, but an interest-ing advisory document from the National GovernorsAssociation, published in 2001 and entitled NewCommunity Design to the Rescue: Fulfilling AnotherAmerican Dream, argues that approximately one-thirdof Americans have expressed preferences for living inneighborhoods which are walkable, have a mixture ofuses, and provide alternatives to using the car forevery household trip. In other words, it acknowledgesthat substantial numbers of Americans want to live incommunities that embody at least some SmartGrowth principles. The report goes on to note thatonly 1 percent of housing in America offers suchconvenience and sustainability (Hudnut, 2002).

Given these progressive sentiments, it is disap-pointing that in many states the growth managementlegislation that would bring about these more sus-tainable urban patterns is weak. It is often wellintentioned but relatively toothless, and advisoryrather than regulatory. North Carolina, for example,announced in 2000 an initiative to preserve onemillion acres of natural open space in the state.However, it provided no funds or mechanisms toachieve this goal, leaving it up to the conscience ofprivate developers and landowners, and relying onthe inadequate powers and finances of nonprofit landtrusts or individual communities to do the job.

Indeed in America it’s often left to individual citiesor large metropolitan areas to enact their own growthmanagement legislation, and this often includepolicies on urban design. Portland, Oregon, SanDiego, California, the twin cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul in Minnesota, Denver, Colorado, Chattanooga,Tennessee and Austin, Texas are notable examples.These cities have created policies with good strategicplanning objectives that embody principles of SmartGrowth, and San Diego made a step forward in 1992when it adopted exemplary design guidelines fortransit-oriented development (prepared by CalthorpeAssociates) that embody definitive New Urbanistdesign principles. This example, usually for specifickinds of development like TODs, has been followedby several cities across the USA.

Atlanta, Georgia, is one such instance. The multi-county Atlanta metropolitan area was forced intoregional planning and growth management by afiscal crisis caused by the poor quality of its air; itwas so polluted that the federal government cut offroad building funds under the provisions of theClean Air Act, a law dating from the presidency ofRichard Nixon. This legislation explicitly tied theprovision of funds to a city’s maintenance of decentair quality. Stimulated by this threat to its economicgrowth, Atlanta, with the backing of the state gover-nor, took a more proactive position regardingsustainable planning and urban design as a compo-nent of revamped planning guidance. The coordi-nating regional planning authority, the AtlantaRegional Commission, developed a ‘Smart GrowthToolkit’ which includes information of topics suchas transit-oriented development and traditionalneighborhood development. These documents, pre-pared by one of the authors in conjunction withthe Atlanta planning firm of Jordan, Jones andGoulding, feature specific urban design guidelinesand case studies and include model zoning


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ordinances for adoption by municipalities in theregion. However, the governor’s active support forregional Smart Growth legislation did not servehim well at the polls. In the 2002 election, he wasdefeated by an opponent who has been markedly lessenthusiastic and supportive of these policies.

The most notable American successes of collabora-tive planning and attention to design at this metro-politan level are Portland and Minneapolis-St. Paul.In the former, an ‘urban growth boundary’ approxi-mates to an English ‘green belt’ of preserved ruralland around the urbanized area: a regional authorityguides planning decisions and the urban area is wellserved by public transit. The regional model is moreadvanced in the Twin Cities. Here a MetropolitanCouncil has planning authority for sewer, transit andland use over a seven-county area, and guides growthin a more orderly and economical manner than if theprocess was left to the normal conditions of marketforces and competitive municipalities. The state legis-lature beefed up a conventional planning agency witha budget of $40 million to a regional authority withreal power and an annual budget of $600 million(Katz, 2003: p. 48). Most crucially, the Twin Citieshave a tax sharing arrangement, whereby 40 per centof the property tax revenues from commercial andindustrial development are distributed across the met-ropolitan region. This goes a long way toward offset-ting the competition for new development and itstax revenues that motivates most conventional localgovernment in America.

Like British towns, individual cities in Americausually have some form of urban design guidelines,either included within zoning legislation or as a free-standing advisory document. Sometimes such poli-cies and guidelines are progressive, and demonstrate adeep care and concern for a city’s urban environment.Other times they are nearly nonexistent, or honoredmainly in the breach. Mostly, they fall in between.The city of Charlotte, for example, has in recent yearsenacted design provisions that place emphasis on thecreation of a good pedestrian environment at streetlevel in the downtown core. Among other things,these provisions require a certain amount of street-level retail space to be provided in new downtowndevelopment, and ban the construction of overstreetwalkways that link the internal environments ofoffice towers and deprive the street of much neededactivity. Despite these regulations, in 2001 the citycouncil approved a mid-air tunnel connecting thecity’s newest skyscraper to its neighbor with almostno discussion of the consequences, and waived the

street level retail requirement in a nearby largedevelopment by one of the city’s powerhouse banks.Yet within a few blocks of these failures and oversights,Charlotte has developed its exemplary HOPE VIaffordable housing project, embodying good urbandesign principles and built with decent architecture,following plans from outside consultants, UrbanDesign Associates (UDA) from Pittsburgh, and localarchitects FMK and David Furman (see Figure 2.14).

Often urban design quality is left to the develop-ment industry to enact for its own market-drivenbenefit. Sometimes the results are outstanding, suchas the Rouse Corporation’s reconstruction of the his-toric Faneuil Hall and Quincy Marketplace inBoston (see Figure 5.1). Other times the results fallshort of excellence but still attain a high standard,such as the Birkdale Village development describedin the previous chapter. But usually the results aredisappointing, amounting to little more than frag-ments of pedestrian space with benches and decora-tive lighting between retail stores surrounded by hugeasphalt car parks (see Figure 5.2). In cases like this,urban design is a mere fig leaf decorating the naked-ness of the development team’s imagination.

Figure 5.1 Faneuil Hall Marketplace, better known asQuincy Market, Boston,Alexander Parris, 1826,Refurbished by Benjamin Thompson and Associates,1978. The architects convinced the developers topersevere with this project at a time whenredevelopment and refurbishment of historicstructures was not a high priority in America. Here,new building insertions and details do not attempt tolook old; there is a healthy dialogue between historicand contemporary. The public spaces are wellscaled and crammed with city residents, officeworkers. and tourists, availing themselves of the manyrestaurants and stores. (Photo by Adrian Walters)


This hands-off approach to government regulationof planning and urban design standards is indicativeof the overall American cultural attitude towardprivate property, attitudes that are so pervasive in theUSA that not all Americans realize that they areculturally determined. To some they have the statusof natural law. To provide some perspective for theAmerican reader, it’s worth outlining some instancesof urban planning and design in European coun-tries, relating these to cultural attitudes in thesecountries, and then focusing on the British situation,which is usually the one most closely referenced byAmericans. This is not to denigrate the USA, butto explain why some design and planning conceptsare transferable between Europe and America, andothers are not.

We have noted earlier how American cities con-sume land much faster than they grow in population.European cities by contrast grow more compactly athigher densities, for a number of historical and cul-tural reasons. Even in densely urban nations like theNetherlands, only 13 percent of the land area isurbanized. In Sweden, a far less dense country, thefigure is nearer 2 percent (Beatley: p. 30). Clearly his-torical factors are important. Most European citiesare old, with their compact form derived from a timewhen cities were constructed for ease of fortification

and for the convenience of pedestrian and horsetraffic. But this does not explain the compact formof new settlements, like Vallingby new town outsideStockholm (1954), or Almere near Amsterdam, datingfrom 1977. In places like Holland a strong commu-nal work ethic mitigates against American tendenciesfor hedonistic and expansive single-family lifestyles,while Swedish culture contains a very strong sense ofenvironmentalism that promotes the conservation ofrural land.

Some comparative figures of densities in Europeanand American cities will give the reader an overview ofthe different levels of urban compaction on the twocontinents. In Amsterdam, for example, people live atnearly 49 persons per hectare (19.6 per acre). InStockholm the figures are 53 persons per hectare(21 per acre), and London, 42 persons per hectare(17 per acre). Public transit is highly developedthroughout Europe, and new developments as well asexisting centers are often conveniently served bybuses, trams and trains that reduce Europeans’ depen-dence on cars and support these denser, more sustain-able urban patterns. In contrast to these figures, twoof the densest American cities, New York and (surpris-ingly) Los Angeles have densities of 19 and 22 personsper hectare, respectively (7.6 and 8.8 per acre). Thefigure for New York, of course covers the whole city,not just Manhattan. Houston, Texas, a city withoutany zoning controls and which exaggerates typicalAmerican conditions, averages a meager 9.5 personsper hectare (3.8 per acre) (Beatley: p. 30).

Amidst all the reasons why European settlementsare compact and America’s are sprawling, there is oneimportant cultural difference that best explains it. Ithas nothing to do with the automobile. Europeanslove their cars every bit as much as do Americans, andthey drive them an increasing amount. No, the realdifference is in how Americans think about land.Because there is so much land, and because the his-tory of the nation was forged by quick and dramaticurban expansion across the wide-open spaces of thecontinent, most Americans view rural and agricul-tural uses of land as temporary. Despite their avowedattachment to their rural heritage, Americans’ senseof value in land is driven by the concept of the high-est and best use; that is, the most profitable use forthe individual landowner. Land is an economiccommodity and not a social resource, and thus agri-cultural and rural uses are expected to give way intime to urban uses. Indeed, in most Americancommunities arable land is zoned for housing orother urban uses as a right.


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Figure 5.2 Sycamore Commons Shopping center,Matthews, NC. LS3P Architects, 2002. Searching for asemblance of urbanity to use as a marketing tool,American developers increasingly commission theirarchitects to design fragments of pedestrian spacearound restaurants as islands of refuge within largesurface parking lots serving big-box stores.


In Europe, a much higher social value is attachedto rural land. Agricultural uses are conceived associally important at a deep, fundamental level,having to do with aspects of national character, self-sufficiency and national security. National, andindeed continental policy through the EuropeanUnion endorses this importance of farming to theeconomy and culture through the complex labyrinthof agricultural subsidies (Beatley: p. 58). These subsi-dies, particularly in continental Europe, help tomaintain the countryside as a quilt of smaller work-ing farms, stabilizing the social economies of ruralcommunities against the rapacious economics oflarge-scale agribusiness.

The development pressure that promotes sprawl inAmerica is also curtailed in Europe by different socialnorms regarding property rights for private land andthe amount of control public authorities can exertover private property, but before exploring these inmore detail, let’s review the basic American positionfor British readers.

Private Versus Public: The American Debate

In both nations, the concept of ‘compulsorypurchase’ in Britain, or ‘eminent domain’ in America,establishes the right of governments to purchase,at fair market value, private land needed forcivic improvements like building new roads. Theargument between private and public interests inAmerica stems more from other actions by governmentthat affect land values without any compensationbeing paid to the landowner, and all planning iscircumscribed by the concern to avoid violating the‘takings’ clause of the federal constitution. The FifthAmendment to the US Constitution reads in part‘No person shall be … deprived of life, liberty orproperty without due process of law; nor shall privateproperty be taken for public use without justcompensation.’

Originally conceived by the nation’s founders as aconstraint upon the arbitrary power of governments(like the British crown) to take or seize land or prop-erty without payment, this precept has been extendedby property rights advocates to cover changes in thezoning provisions on private land. For example, ifproperty in a rural area on the outskirts of anAmerican city was originally zoned for three housesto the acre, and the city wanted to reduce this classi-fication and downzone the land to, say, one houseevery five acres – on the grounds that the higher level

of development would injure the environment andpollute water sources – then the elected officials mayhave to brace themselves for a law suit from theaffected property owners. Many property ownerswould have little hesitation in suing the city fordevaluing, or ‘taking’ economic value away fromtheir property. If the city lost, it would be liable forperhaps millions of dollars in compensation to thelandowners. Even if it won, it would likely have accu-mulated large costs in legal fees.

In cases like this cities do have the law on their sideto a greater extent than one might imagine from theircollective temerity. As we mentioned in theIntroduction, the Supreme Court’s 1978 decision inPenn Central Transportation Company v. City of NewYork established the principle that a taking does notoccur unless government actions take away all devel-opment rights from a piece of property. Simplychanging the zoning and reducing the use of landdoes not violate the Constitution. This ruling wasendorsed by the Supreme Court’s 1992 decision inLucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council whichaffirmed that a taking occurs when all use of propertyis denied by government, but left open the questionof whether a partial devaluation constitutes a taking.There is constant pressure from conservative groups,homebuilders’ associations and property rights advo-cates for this decision to be revisited and for theinterpretation on takings to be extended to includeall downzonings, but for the moment the law stands.Polemic pamphlets arguing the property rights cause,such as The Truth About Property Rights publishedby the National Association of Homebuilders, arewidely distributed to influence public opinion onthis matter and to encourage conservative lawmakersto introduce new legislation that would restrict theplanning powers of local government (NAHB, nodate).

The American Supreme Court has also approvedsimilar actions for the ‘health, safety and welfare’ ofcitizens under the concept of ‘police powers’, vali-dated by a series of rulings over many years. Thesepowers have nothing to do with cops and robbers,but constitute case law that makes provision for com-munity actions to protect and enhance the publicgood. The key Supreme Court decision dates from ahistoric case in 1926, Village of Euclid et al. v. AmblerRealty Co., which confirmed the general validity andlegality of zoning property for the ‘public welfare.’In our hypothetical example of reducing residentialdensity to protect water supplies, there is a very goodchance a city would win a court battle. However,


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case law is always a moving target, and this delicatebalance between zoning for the good of a communityand a constitutional provision for the protection ofprivate property is a condition that’s far from settled.Thus planning authorities tread very carefully, or notat all, in matters that engender such conflicts. Oftenmany very sensible planning policies that wouldbring substantial benefit to the community are aban-doned at the concept stage because planners don’tthink elected officials would uphold the policiesunder threat of legal challenge from aggressive prop-erty owners backed by national lobbyists. In otherinstances, attempts at environmental regulation arefoiled by individuals.

In a celebrated case in North Carolina in 2001,property owners along the banks of the CatawbaRiver, a waterway that supplies many communitieswith drinking water, faced new regulations thatrequired them to retain a buffer of natural vegetation50 to 100-feet wide along the water’s edge. This wasto enable run-off pollutants from future develop-ments to be filtered out naturally before reaching theriver. In a fit of rebellion against a county govern-ment they regarded as ‘communist,’ several propertyowners cut down every tree on their land before theregulation came into effect. By damaging their landto this draconian degree, these landowners declaredthey were striking a blow for individual freedom.

Public Versus Private: The EuropeanExperience

Actions like this must seem totally bizarre to mostpeople in Europe, where tree preservation orders arecommonplace. (They appear bizarre to manyAmericans as well.) In Europe generally, there are nosuch legal constraints about devaluing land. Landownership doesn’t come with pre-packaged rights todevelop it, so there is no ‘taking’ and no compensa-tion payable except in the obvious cases of land pur-chases for public projects. For American readers we’llsay that again: Ownership of land doesn’t include therights to develop it. These rights are generally con-ferred by government, acting on behalf of the publicgood and in accordance with a community plan thatis the result of democratic debate. Patterns of growthare thus shaped far more by public authorities, andsome areas around a town or city may be designatedfor future development, while others are not. In situ-ations where land is required for public projects suchas roads or railways, it is simply purchased by thegovernment at the value of its existing use.

The extent to which governments plan and designsuch growth varies from country to country. InGermany, for example, no building can take placewithout a specific, detailed plan for the development,usually prepared by government planners (Beatley: p. 59.Authors’ emphasis added). Such plans illustrate thesiting and massing of buildings, building heights anddensities, even tree planting. They are in effect urbandesign master plans. A planner from a German cityvisited Charlotte on a study tour a few years ago, andexplained his country’s system to his American hosts.A Charlotte planner asked what would happen if alandowner at the edge of town wanted to develophis open land for housing, or an office park. TheGerman visitor didn’t understand the question. ‘Whywould they do that?’ he asked. In their turn, many ofhis American hosts had difficulty in comprehendinga planning system that wasn’t constructed aroundpublic reactions to private initiatives.

In Britain, government direction of growth isnot so detailed, but it still exceeds the objectivesof American planners. At a conceptual level, there isconsiderable similarity between the two systems, butthe major differences appear in the manner of imple-mentation, and these variations are largely a productof cultural imperatives. The function of the Britishplanning system is to secure, in the public interest,the orderly and appropriate use and development ofland. The system originated from concerns aboutpublic health and slum housing in the Victorian city,but as well as controlling and preventing abuses ithas evolved to serve more positive and proactiveobjectives. British planners are charged with anti-cipating needed development and providing thenecessary infrastructure. They are required to protectthe natural environment and historic structures, andto stimulate economic development. During the 1990s,government guidance extended these establishedtasks to include meeting the objectives of sustainabledevelopment by focusing development more onbrownfield sites, limiting greenfield expansion andimproving public transit to limit increases in the useof private cars.

The attitudes and laws that gather the develop-ment potential of private land into the hands ofEuropean governments date largely from the era ofrebuilding Europe after World War II, when towns,cities and nations had to be reconstructed from therubble. A task of this magnitude clearly requirednational coordination. Attempts at national planningcertainly existed in Britain during the 1930s, as theyonce did in America under the failed New Deal


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legislation, but it wasn’t until the postwar planningActs of Parliament, notably the 1947 Town andCountry Planning Act, that these ambitions inBritain had any real legal power. The 1947 Act leftthe ownership of land in private hands, but effec-tively nationalized its development potential, makingall land subject to planning control. Subsequent leg-islation from both right- and left-wing governments,with the exception of some dismantling of the plan-ning system carried out in the 1980s by MargaretThatcher, has followed this principle ever since.

Whereas in continental Europe much, if not mostdevelopment is initiated by towns and cities in accor-dance with their very detailed master plans, in Britainthe process has elements more recognizable to anAmerican observer. In the UK, private landownersand developers often start the process by applying forplanning permission to develop their land, usually inaccordance with the precepts of the approved publicplan. All communities in Britain are required to havedetailed development plans that must follow nationaland regional planning guidance issued by the nationalgovernment on matters such as urban regeneration,sustainable development, historic buildings, trans-portation, and so forth. As we have noted earlier, thetopics for national guidance also include the quality ofdesign, and in particular urban design. Planningprocedures vary slightly between England andScotland, and with the devolution of planning powersto the Welsh National Assembly, it is possible that fur-ther regional variations may develop. Accordingly,we’ll concentrate here on the English situation; how-ever, many of the same principles apply throughoutthe United Kingdom.

Planning procedures set out in a 1991 amendmentto the Town and Country Planning Act require thatall planning applications from landowners anddevelopers must be determined in accordance withthe municipality’s development plan, unless thereis some substantial ‘material consideration’ thatmay warrant some variation. This emphasis on theadopted plan was reinforced in 1999 by the govern-ment’s Planning Policy Guidance Note 12 that reiter-ated the commitment to a ‘plan-led’ system. Whatfactors might constitute a material consideration arethe subject of detailed legal argument and variationsto approved plans are rare and are not made lightly.(In Continental Europe there is usually even lessroom for variation.)

In this situation, property owners do not oftenmake applications for developments that contradictthe approved legal plan. If they do, the application is

likely to be refused, and then this refusal by localgovernment can be appealed to the national govern-ment in London. A planning inspector then adjudi-cates the matter and issues his or her decision, which isvirtually final: the only recourse for an aggrieved partyis an appeal to the British House of Lords. A relativelysmall proportion of planning applications are decidedon appeal, and in many cases the inspector upholds theplan and disallows the appeal.

The plans on which these decisions are made aredetailed and comprise three types. The first of theseare ‘structure plans’ that cover large areas and areconcerned primarily with broad-based strategies fortransportation and other infrastructure, economicdevelopment, and the amount, location and type ofall new development to fit these first two categories.Also of major importance are energy and environ-mental issues, landscape preservation, historic build-ing conservation and concordance with nationalpolicy. These plans are based on written argumentsand description and not on maps, so there is littleconcrete link with design at this scale. However,within the areas covered by these large plans, ‘localplans’ are prepared for each community which aremap based. These plans focus on smaller areas andillustrate more detailed proposals for specific sitesand buildings, including matters of design. Third,there are ‘unitary development plans’ that relate tospecific large metropolitan areas, and combine thetwo levels of scope and detail found in structure andlocal plans.

All these plans are created by a lengthy process ofpublic participation and coordination at local,regional and national levels, and are subject tocontinuous updating and revision. They do not havethe force of law that their counterparts in Europeancountries do, but local governments are obliged bynational policy directives issued from Westminster tofollow their adopted plans in adjudicating applica-tions to develop land. During the 1990s, localauthorities have revised these plans to take intoaccount new national government guidance onsustainable development, a topic that has assumedmuch greater national importance. Sustainable devel-opment is defined in the British government’sPlanning Policy Guidance Note 1: General Policy andPrinciples (DETR, 1995), as ‘development that meetsthe needs of the present without compromising theability of future generation to meet their own needs.’This definition is taken from the 1987 report OurCommon Future, by the United Nations WorldCommission on Environment and Development and


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reflects the increasing importance of sustainabledevelopment in the planning and design ethos ofthe British government as set out in the 1994report Sustainable Development: The UK Strategy(DETR, 1994).

In addition to sustainable development, thequality of architectural and urban design has alsobeen given greater weight in determining planningapplications during the 1990s. A 1992 version of theBritish government’s Planning Policy Guidance Note 1(later reissued in 1995 [DETR, 1995]) made designan explicit ‘material consideration’ in determiningplanning applications. This focus on higher designquality and sustainability came about as a reaction tothe loosening of planning controls during the 1980sunder the direction of the then Prime Minister,Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher’s government intro-duced vestiges of the American system, characterizedas ‘planning by appeal,’ where the significance ofstructure and local development plans was consider-ably reduced. Developers were implicitly encouragedby national government to initiate new proposals,often in contradiction to the plans of communities,and the government-appointed planning inspectorsat that time gave favorable consideration to a widevariety of ‘plan-busting’ proposals. These includedlarge out-of-town shopping malls that sucked the lifeout of small town centers, and new developments inthe previously safeguarded green belts of agriculturalland around towns and cities. For several years apurely capitalist market-driven ethos dominatedplanning in Britain. Planners existed to facilitate theproposals of developers, basically the Americansituation today.

At the same time the British government wasdiminishing local government authority by disman-tling regional and local plans in the 1980s, it wascentralizing power in national government by takingvery proactive positions regarding the redevelopmentof key urban sites in major cities. In many instancesthe national government bypassed local plans, plan-ning staff and elected officials and set up ‘EnterpriseZones,’ administered by appointed officials, andbased on the concept of leveraging large amounts ofprivate investment by spending modest amounts ofpublic money. In these zones, mainly urban areas thatwere deemed in need of urgent redevelopment,planning was ‘streamlined’ in the national or regionalinterest at the expense of local politics and grassrootsparticipation. The 1980 Local Government, Planningand Land Act created these enterprise zones alongwith urban development corporations (UDCs), the

non-elected bodies to run them. Money to spend oncities was then taken away from local governmentsand given instead to these urban development corpo-rations (Hall, 1998: p. 911). Changes were thenmade in 1982 to capital gains and corporate taxationthat dramatically increased the attraction and prof-itability of property development. With the designa-tion of 15 enterprise zones around the country,the stage was set for a new era of fast-track urbandevelopment.

London’s Docklands is a case in point. Controlover more than 5000 acres (2000 hectares) fromTower Bridge to the Royal Docks, several milesdownstream on the River Thames, was taken fromthe mainly left-wing local governments by the right-wing national government and given to an urbandevelopment corporation entitled the LondonDocklands Development Corporation (LDDC). Themain concept was one derived from Americanpractice of the period. The development corporationhad broad powers to acquire land and build build-ings, and compliant public investment wouldprovide the infrastructure that would attract privateinvestment. The focus would be on working with thebusiness community rather than local politicians andresidents.

The theory of enterprise zones had been set forthby British planner (Sir) Peter Hall in 1969 and againin 1977. In the face of what were perceived as thefailures of conventional town planning to solve prob-lems of urban decline, Hall and others suggested thatcertain parts of cities should be ‘thrown open to allkinds of initiative, with minimal control’ (Hall,2002: p. 387). Opinion was divided about the suc-cess of the experiment. Many critics pointed out thelow quality of design of large urban projects that werepushed through on a fast track, particularly in theCanary Wharf area on the Isle of Dogs, the heartof the early phases. Others complained about thedemise of local democratic control over developmentand the heavily North American flavor of the devel-opment and its architecture. (The main developer ofCanary Wharf, before the company declared bank-ruptcy was the Canadian corporation Olympia andYork, and the largest buildings in the first phases weredesigned by American architects, Cesar Pelli, HOK,and Kohn, Pederson Fox) (see Figure 5.3).

Many people decried the sacrifice of traditionalcommunity values to the boom and bust cycle of cor-porate capitalism. More positive interpretationsargued that this process, rough and ready as it was,made old discarded brownfield sites as attractive to


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developers as greenfield ones, and thus supported theemerging agenda for sustainable urban form. It canalso be argued that the standard of architectural andurban design improved in later projects. Ironically,only after the demise of the LDDC in 1998 has theurban vision come to some level of fruition withthe completion of the extension of the LondonUnderground’s Jubilee Line, which did much toimprove the transportation infrastructure of the area,and provided some exemplary civic architecture inthe design of the new stations.

Elsewhere in the UK, the city of Salford, part ofthe Greater Manchester metropolitan area, success-fully revitalized its derelict docks, not least withshowpiece buildings like the Lowry Center byMichael Wilford, honoring the city’s most famousartist, L.S. Lowry, and the northern branch of theImperial War Museum (see Figure 5.4). This latterbuilding was designed by Polish American architectDaniel Libeskind, now best known for his winningcompetition design for the rebuilding of the WorldTrade Center site in New York City.

This period of ‘Americanization,’ of minimal plan-ning and maximal private enterprise, drew to a closewith the 1991 amendment to the Town and CountryPlanning Act, which established once again that

planning decisions must accord with the commu-nity’s development plan. Once again, at least rhetori-cally, the emphasis was upon the importance of localand regional development plans, and controlling sub-urban growth. With the departure of MargaretThatcher, successive governments, first Conservativeand subsequently Labour, gradually rebuilt parts ofthe planning system, with a special emphasis on thenational need to increase the sustainability of urbandevelopment. Of particular note is the reintroduc-tion of urban design concepts and criteria into plan-ning policies, either nationally in terms of GuidanceNotes, or locally by means of detailed ‘planning anddevelopment briefs’ for sites. These planning briefscomprise the public authority’s expectations for sitesdeemed particularly significant in their urban setting;they establish performance requirements to be metby private development and highlight particular con-textual or programmatic factors to be incorporated(see Figure 5.5).

Planning Policy Guidance Note 1, for example(DETR, 1995) promotes ‘high-quality, mixed-usedevelopments such as ‘urban villages’, characterized bycompactness, mixed uses, affordable housing, employ-ment and recreational facilities, access to public trans-port and open green spaces and ‘high standards of


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Figure 5.3 Canary Wharf, London, in 1995. Forseveral years after its initial construction, CanaryWharf was seen by many as an unwelcome symbolof crony capitalism in league with the Thatchergovernment at the expense of local neighborhoodsand cash-strapped London boroughs. As thearchitecture has matured, new buildingsconstructed and new transportation infrastructure(the Jubilee Line extension) provided, this image hassoftened and improved, along with a moreconstructive political climate of cooperationbetween the public and private sectors.

Figure 5.4 The Lowry Center, Salford Quays,Manchester, UK, Michael Wilford, architect,1997–2000. This project is a good example of utilizingdramatic architecture to catalyse redevelopment ofdecayed urban areas. Adjacent areas are slowlybeing filled in by a useful mixture of commercial andresidential buildings but lively public spaces are stillmissing, despite the potential of the docksideenvironment.



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Figure 5.5 An extract from a planning and development brief produced by the City of Birmingham,England. This document and others like it are produced to stimulate and guide new development andredevelopment of critical urban areas. Note the way the axonometric drawing is able to convey specificvisual and three-dimensional criteria in additional to programmatic requirements. (Illustration courtesy of theCity of Birmingham)


urban design.’ This same Guidance Note goes on todefine urban design as:

The relationship between different buildings; therelationship between buildings and the streets,squares, parks, waterways and other spaces thatmake up the public domain; the nature and qual-ity of the public domain itself; the relationship ofone part of a village, town or city with other parts;and the patterns of movement and activity whichare thereby established: in short, the complexrelationships between all the elements of builtand unbuilt space. The appearance and treatmentof the spaces between and around buildings isoften of comparable importance to the design ofbuildings themselves …

The Guidance Note continues:

New buildings … have a significant effect on thecharacter and quality of an area. They define publicspaces, streets and vistas … They are matters ofproper public interest … Good design should be… encouraged everywhere. (It) can help promotesustainable development; improve the quality ofthe existing environment; attract business and invest-ment; and reinforce civic pride and a sense of place.(DETR, 1995, available at http://www.planning.odpm.gov.uk/ppg/ppg1/02.htm.03

This brief synopsis describes a planning system thatdiverges considerably from the American model inmany ways, and demonstrates to an American audi-ence that there are other methods of planning fordemocratic societies. This is particularly relevant inthe first decade of the twenty-first century becausemany design and planning professionals within theUSA have increasingly criticized the American sys-tem for its failure to meet the challenges of suburbansprawl and regional planning during the 1990s.

Without specific reference to the planning systemsof other countries, first architects in the US, andlatterly their planning colleagues, have called forsome major revisions to the objectives and practicesof the American planning process. Most of these crit-icisms have focused on two main problems: the sepa-ration of planning from zoning (which we willdiscuss further in the next section); and controllingdevelopment through a system of zoning regulationsthat deal only with land use without any meaningfuldesign content.

While critical of the American system, none ofthese reforming voices have called for a majorredesign on a European model, however much they

may personally admire the results of those foreignsystems. Such a revolution, with its necessary abridge-ment of the private property rights embedded inAmerican culture, seems ideologically impossible.Instead, architects have concentrated on reformingzoning itself, making it based more on design con-cepts rather than use classifications, and reintegratingit with the process of making plans.

To demonstrate this trend, our case studies inChapters 9 and 10 illustrate master plans that con-tain specific zoning ordinances, with the new zoningtied directly to the particulars of the plan in its designdetail, and ready for adoption by the town or city. Inthis way the crippling divide between planning andzoning is overcome; the zoning provisions are basedon design principles, and they ensure that the provi-sions of the master plan will be followed. For thereader to understand more easily what a major shiftin policies and procedures this represents, it is neces-sary now to explain the workings and drawbacks ofthe conventional American system as practiced at thestart of the twenty-first century.

PLANNING VISIONS AND DEVELOPMENT CONTROL

With the caveat that national government in Americalacks an agenda for sustainable development, thebroad policy objectives in much British planningwould be familiar to most American planners. Themost fundamental variation resides in the relationshipbetween planning for the future and the regulationof development to achieve that goal. In America thecreation of strategies to guide development (planning)is crucially sundered from the mechanisms of devel-opment control (zoning). In Britain, and in Europegenerally, the two functions are indivisible: regula-tion of development is carried out in accordancewith the adopted plan. This is far from the case inAmerica.

Public plans are usually generalized and advisoryonly; they have no force of law and are frequentlyignored when influential people or wealthy develop-ers are applying to build projects that contradict theofficial plan. In one famous moment of Americanplanning democracy during the 1990s, an electedofficial in Charlotte, tiring of a lengthy discussion,suggested that the city council adopt a plan on whichcity staff and citizens had worked long and hard formany months. ‘I move we adopt this plan,’ she said.‘It’s only a plan and we don’t have to abide by it.’


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Within a few months, that same council member casta crucial vote in favor of a large development thatcompletely contradicted the adopted plan. Thesecavalier sentiments and actions could be, and usuallyare repeated in every city across the USA.

In our home state of North Carolina, a state legis-lator introduced a bill in 2003 that tried, in somesmall way, to remedy this situation. The bill proposedthat in cases where a municipality rezoned land fordevelopment that contradicted its official plan, thenthe public authority would have to provide detailedreasons for its decisions. Some city attorneys opposedthe bill on the grounds that establishing such a legalconnection between community plans and zoningdecisions could mean that cities would face lawsuitsfrom citizens who wanted the plan upheld! Manyelected officials don’t want to stick to the plan they’veadopted on the grounds that this gives them ‘flexibil-ity.’ By contrast, citizens and planners view this ‘flex-ibility’ merely as ‘wiggle-room’ for elected membersto accommodate the ever-changing demands ofdevelopers. This inconsistency between adopted planand permitted development brings great frustrationto planning staff and to citizens who work hard inthe democratic process of producing the plan. Atthe time of writing this book, the bill to improve theplanning situation was stalled in the legislativeprocess.

There is little interest in many state legislativebodies to deal with problems like this. Again, inNorth Carolina (which is no better or worse in thisregard than most states) elected officials in stategovernment receive a lot of campaign money fromdevelopers, builders and real estate agents, cash thatbuys these groups influence with the lawmakers. Thismay sound close to corruption to non-Americanears, but using money to buy access to politicians is aprotected right of ‘free speech’ under the FirstAmendment of the Constitution. We suspect it’s notquite what the Founding Fathers had in mind, butthat’s how it’s been interpreted by the courts in recentdecades. According to a report in The CharlotteObserver newspaper, during the 2002 election cycle,political action committees representing real estateagents and homebuilders in North Carolina gave$255 450 and $223 159, respectively to legislativecandidates, making these two organizations thelargest sources of campaign funds in the state, aheadof lobbyists for health-care groups, bankers andlawyers (Hall, R., 2003). The homebuilders and realestate organizations in North Carolina are known as‘the sprawl lobby,’ and the reader can safely presume

they were not asking lawmakers to tighten up plan-ning controls or seeking Smart Growth legislation!

Beyond these legal and legislative concerns, zoningin America today is often vilified by progressive plan-ners and urban designers for a more technical reason:it is concerned almost solely with land use ratherthan environmental or physical design. Zoning (aswe note in more detail in the next section) was cre-ated in the early years of the twentieth century as ameans of segregating uses perceived as incompatible,and protecting private residential property by exclud-ing new uses that could encroach on and reduce thevalue of existing developments. However, by thelatter half of the century it had morphed into the pri-mary bargaining chip in the legal and financial gameof property development: rezoning land to facilitate amore profitable use remains one of the main objec-tives of any developer, while neighborhood groupsline up to oppose such changes.

All too often this conflict devolves into merely asquabble over numbers. Say, for example, the devel-oper wants to raise the density on a site from fourdwellings per acre to eight (10–20 units per hectare).Neighborhood activists automatically oppose thenew number, suspicious from the outset that if thedeveloper wants that density it must constituteoverdevelopment of the site from the communityperspective. Maybe some compromise is reached at adensity of six dwellings per acre (15 per hectare).Nowhere in this process have concepts of design beenintroduced. Rarely does the conventional zoningprocess provide for a discussion about how develop-ments at a low density might be designed well orpoorly; nor how good designs of higher densitydevelopment might actually be better from an urbandesign perspective than the low-density option.Because design is not an integral element of zoningcategories, it is not something that has any legalstanding. The only variables under discussion are thenumbers, dwellings per acre or areas of commercialuses. This is one of the crucial problems that we tryto solve with the kind of design-based zoning codeswe espouse and illustrate in the case studies. Designcriteria for building form, massing and public spacedesign are embedded diagrammatically in the zoningcodes (see Chapters 9 and 10).

Conventional zoning is site specific and rarely con-siders any criteria beyond the boundary of a specificsite or project. Planning, on the other hand, concernsitself with large-scale issues and future possibilitiesover larger areas, and one clear illustration of thecrucial American divorce of planning from zoning is


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that once a plan is adopted by a city, little or noaction is taken to change existing zoning to conformto the new plan. Such ‘corrective rezonings’ are oftenvery controversial for the reasons discussed earlier(the city ‘taking’ value from private property owners).Accordingly, unless there is some overriding necessityor dominant public interest, planners and electedofficials usually hope (optimistically and unreali-stically) that property owners will adjust theirambitions to fit with the plan without further actionfrom the city.

Two contrasting Charlotte examples will illustratethe American planner’s dilemma in these circum-stances. As part of a city and countywide transporta-tion plan, Charlotte is planning a new light railcorridor that follows a defunct railway line throughold industrial and commercial areas. Train service isexpected to start in 2006. Essential elements in theplans for this corridor are new urban villages clus-tered around the train stations along the line, butmost of the land where these new communitieswould be constructed is zoned industrial. To assistdevelopers create the new development on thesebrownfield sites, the city plans to rezone large tractsto allow the range of mixed urban uses required for aurban village – high-density housing, shops andoffices. The city investment is too large, and the planstoo vital to the city’s future, to leave this new urbandevelopment to chance, or to require developers tobear the economic cost and political burden of majorrezonings, often in the face of local opposition (seePlate 8). There has even been discussion among cityofficials about the city buying key parcels of land,rezoning them, and then selling them onto develop-ers in order to stimulate the desired development.

In this instance, American planners are operatingmuch like their British and European colleagues; thecity is leading development, identifying sites, produc-ing master plans, density requirements and urbandesign guidelines for private developers to follow. It isa good and professionally well-managed process thatreflects credit on our city, but it is not the norm.More typical is another Charlotte example from2002, concerning a proposed new asphalt factory in alow-income black neighborhood.

For several months, city planners worked withlocal residents to develop a new master plan for thesmall community close to the city center. The planwas a worthy effort and outlined a range of modestimprovements and new opportunities for housingand small businesses. However, a lot of land in thecommunity was zoned industrial, a relic of old

zoning concepts from previous decades. Theseoutdated ideas imagined that nobody would want tolive near the city center in the future, and that theindustrial classification was the highest and best usefor such sites that were near major highways and con-tained mostly black residents. (The residents wereexpected eventually to move elsewhere.) In this case,having created the new plan, city planners andelected officials saw no significant public investmentto protect, nor any overriding public purpose suffi-cient to initiate the corrective rezonings that wouldupdate the zoning plan and make sure new housingwas built where the plan suggested. This was a trickytopic as the corrective rezonings would constitute adownzoning of the land from ‘industrial’ to ‘neigh-borhood mixed-use,’ effectively reducing the papervalue of the property. Accordingly, the plan wasapproved with no correlation between its future pro-posals and the existing zoning categories. Planningstaff and local residents hoped that property ownersin the area would follow the plan, but they were soondisabused of that prospect.

Within only a few months of the plan beingfinalized, a property owner declared his intention ofbuilding a new manufacturing plant that wouldproduce asphalt for construction projects. The resi-dents complained angrily, concerned about fumes,noise, heavy trucks passing their houses, and aboveall, that this proposal was in flagrant contradiction tothe plan they had worked so hard to produce andwhich the city council had so recently adopted.Embarrassed city planners explained that they werepowerless to intervene: based on the industrial zoningof his land, the property owner was perfectly withinhis rights to build the factory. In effect, the planwasn’t worth the paper it was drawn and written on.Development control was, and is, a function ofzoning, not planning.

In the early summer of 2003, this situation waspartly resolved. The Charlotte City Council essentiallybought the developer off with nearly $800 000 ofpublic money. They gave his development company10 acres (4 hectares) of city-owned land elsewhere inthe city, valued at $194 000. The city also pledged topay $460 000 to clean up environmental problems atthe new site, and to pay $192 000 to convey an ease-ment to prohibit future industrial use on the originalsite. In return, the developer agreed to pay the city anominal $50 000 for the new site and not to protestthe downzoning of the old site from industrial toneighborhood mixed-use. While this helped untanglethis particular mess, many observers of the civic scene


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in Charlotte saw the city’s actions as setting a difficultprecedent – essentially paying developers to followthe city’s plans. Others argued that these actions con-stituted an even more troublesome trend: payingmoney to achieve a downzoning established a de factotaking, with the city acknowledging the need to paycompensation to a private property owner for reduc-ing the value of his land by a zoning change desiredby city planners.

This messy story highlights the importance of zon-ing in American urban and suburban development,and it’s worth spending a little time reviewing how ithas evolved, and how it is possible to reform it byusing other strands within the history of Americandevelopment.

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT CONTROL

While many people think of zoning in America as atwentieth-century concept, derived from the 1926Supreme Court decision noted earlier, its origins onthe continent go much further back into history, tothe Spanish Laws of the Indies, codified in 1573 byKing Phillip II of Castille to regulate the founding ofnew settlements in the New World. These Laws werea landmark in the history of urban development ofthe new continent, but in fact they codified earlierpractices based on Royal Ordinances sent fromSeville as early as 1513. The Laws specified a physicalurban structure with a standardized grid plan ofsquare blocks around a large central plaza whichcontained civic buildings (Broadbent: p. 43). In thesame way that Roman civilization stamped symbolicgeometric plans on virgin soil as urbanizationexpanded, so did the Spanish in what are nowCalifornia, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Florida.This typology of civic buildings within a central squareset in a rectangular grid is precisely the same as thecourthouse square towns of the American South andMid-west that we have noted earlier.

However, the Spanish town-planning codes did alot more than set out a grid of streets around aplaza. They specified sizes, and orientations to takeadvantage of climatic factors such as sun, shade, andwind direction. They established street hierarchies,and promoted urban devices such as arcades. Thecodes also extended to regulations for the best sizeand mix of population, the housing of animals, theplacement of hospitals, and even fines for lax clergy!(Broadbent: p. 45).

More directly pertinent to our contemporary situ-ation are the various codes developed and employedin the nineteenth-century expansion of American sub-urbs, such as the one used by Frederick Law Olmstedat his Chicago suburb of Riverside (1869). Olmstedused codes to enforce the precepts of his master plan,and to maintain the desired garden suburb aestheticrecently imported from England (as we noted inChapter 2). At Riverside, like its precedents and manysuccessors, the houses were set back a uniform dis-tance from the street, and a specific tree plantingplacement was enforced on the ‘semi-public’ spaces ofprivate front yards as well as the public realm of thestreet to create the enfolding green canopy so typicalof these suburbs. One of Olmsted’s great successors,John Nolen, used similar devices in his work, a partic-ularly fine example of which is the great, green boule-vard of Queens Road, in Nolen’s streetcar suburb ofMyers Park (1911) in Charlotte (see Figure 5.6). Formany decades during the modernist period of thetwentieth century, Nolen was an obscure andneglected figure, but he was rediscovered during the1980s and 1990s with the renewed interest in tradi-tional neighborhood planning. He is now recognizedas perhaps America’s greatest town planner of the earlydecades of the twentieth century.

Codes like the ones for Myers Park were generallyformulated as restrictive covenants, binding on allhomeowners in a development, and covered a widerange of matters, including provisions that were


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Figure 5.6 Queens Road West, Myers Park,Charlotte, NC, John Nolen, 1911. Planner John Nolencreated the spatial structure of his great boulevardwith seven rows of identical Willow Oaks, marchingacross public and private space alike. The treesmake the space. The buildings are secondary.


shamefully racist. The Myers Park regulations, forexample, stipulated that no African-American couldlive or own property in the neighborhood. Whilesuch egregious examples of discrimination are longgone, zoning codes can and do still institutionalizeracism by means of requiring large minimum sizehouse lots in a residential subdivision, thus ensuringthat only wealthy individuals can afford to live there.Given the fact that America in 2003 is still largelydivided into more prosperous white and poorer blackand Hispanic ethnic groupings, the stipulation oflarge lot sizes is very often synchronous with theexclusion of blacks and Hispanics.

On the positive side, the generalist scopeand intent of Olmsted’s and Nolen’s codes enabledthe regulations to deal with the overall environment,and to specify design elements that contributed tothe character of the public space. This holisticdesign intent was in contrast to the regulationsdeveloped in England during the same period of thelate nineteenth century, which were technical codesto improve the overcrowded and unsanitary urbanenvironment of that nation’s industrial cities. ThePublic Health Act of 1875 and subsequent legislationcreated standard building regulations that improvedthe standard of working-class housing design butwhich were applied literally by speculative builderswithout any correlation to a cohesive master plan.This resulted in what became the typical environ-ment of working-class areas in British cities – acollection of monotonous straight streets constructedwith no higher ambitions of civic design. There wereno parks and few trees; these were regarded as unnec-essary embellishments that reduced the developer’sprofits (see Figure 5.7).

This type of English regulation for urban develop-ment, based on generic formulas rather than designconcepts or a specific master plan, was regrettably fol-lowed in America in the 1930s, when the FederalHousing Administration (FHA) created technicalstandards for subdivisions as requirements for federalinsurance and mortgages (Dutton: p. 72). As we haveseen in Chapter 3, it was these regulations thatincreased the widths of streets, enlarged the sizes ofblocks by minimizing cross streets, and encouragedcul-de-sacs. Since the 1930s the holistic design intentof the earlier American codes for projects likeRiverside and Myers Park was smothered by aplethora of specific requirements from an increasingrange of professional specialists, each concerned withtheir own rules and not worrying about their place inany larger picture. For example, regulations that now

govern much subdivision design include separaterequirements from planners, transportation engi-neers, fire departments, utility providers of gas, waterand electricity and public works departments forstorm water and sewers, and lending institutions.This fragmentary nature of different sets of codes isone of the biggest hurdles New Urbanist architectsand planners face in establishing new sets of regula-tions that return the focus of development control todesign standards that embody an overall designvision.

Public discussion about sprawl and the chaoticenvironment that characterizes much of suburbanAmerica often refers to the mess as an ‘unplanned’environment. This is simply not true. There is moreplanning going on than ever before. Every decisionabout the placement of buildings, driveways, signs,roadways and utilities is the result of conformity toone or more sets of planning, or more correctly, zon-ing standards. What is missing is any sense of design.Contemporary suburbia is planned to death, andmore ‘planning’ won’t improve it. The only way torectify the situation is to return to concepts of urbandesign, thinking in terms of three-dimensionalrelationships between buildings and spaces rather


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Figure 5.7 Street in Benwell, Newcastle-upon-Tyne,1970. Typical workers’ housing on the banks of theindustrial River Tyne in northeast England used the‘Tyneside flats’ – terraced houses divided intoupstairs and downstairs apartments – to increasedensity. Front gardens and setbacks were non-existent, back yards were miniscule (just largeenough to hold the outside lavatories and a shortclothes line) and recreational spaces such as parksor playgrounds were never considered. Every pieceof space was devoted to maximizing profit for thedeveloper.


than merely applying information from abstractedtables and formulas. This means a return to theexamples of Riverside and its successors. This used tobe the way America designed its suburbs, and theseplaces work as well today as when they were designedone hundred or more years ago.

But there is more to the lineage of design-basedcodes than historic examples from early suburbanAmerica, important as they may be. The incorpora-tion of design codes and guidelines into ordinancescovering urban redevelopment has a long history.Their purpose, whether used by a public agency or aprivate developer, has generally been to ensure thebuild-out of a master development plan at a consistentlevel of quality and detail. An important secondaryuse has been to control the appearance of new devel-opment in relation to the historic urban fabric of anarea. Both these ambitions are relevant to our tasktoday.

In Paris, for example, during the reign of Louis XIV,building regulations required that all new buildingsrespect the street alignment, and specified details suchas the solid-to-void ratio of building façades, the conti-nuity of eaves lines from one building to the next, andthe depth of courtyards in the building plans (Ellin: p. 46). While this level of aesthetic control hasremained common (to varying degrees) across severalEuropean countries, American urban development hashistorically been far less constricted. As we have notedseveral times earlier, in America the powers of govern-ment to control private development have been muchmore limited than in European countries, and haverarely extended beyond the zoning of land accordingto use. Issues of what passes for design have generallybeen restricted to specifying the placement of build-ings in relation to parking lots, the location of drive-ways, and tree planting requirements.

But American urban history does include somenotable exceptions to this condition, and one of theearliest examples of design affecting zoning ordi-nances dates from 1916 in New York. These regula-tions followed German models in constraining thebulk of skyscrapers rising directly from the line of thestreet by limiting their height and mandating set-backs at specific levels above ground level, in order toease the overshadowing of public streets and adjacentbuildings. The architectural illustrator Hugh Ferrisrendered these ordinances into three-dimensionalforms in his famous series of drawings, ‘ZoningEnvelopes: First through Fourth Stages,’ first publishedin the New York Times in 1922. This zoning law was

not replaced until 1961, when new ordinances wereenacted based on different design ideas.

The 1961 New York ordinance was based on newmodernist design concepts of a tower set back fromthe street and surrounded by open space. Models forthis new ordinance – buildings like the SeagramBuilding by Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson(1958) – were simple vertical boxes positioned wellaway from the sidewalk with an intervening plaza.Residential ordinances in the city followed the samepattern, and these regulations became a prototype forsimilar codes in cities across the USA.

These codes virtually eliminated the traditional ideaof the street as a linear public space defined by thewalls of buildings, and it wasn’t until the 1980s thatcities like New York, Pittsburgh and San Francisco leda revisionist trend in urban design, bringing backrequirements for streets and plazas defined by continu-ous ‘street walls’ of building façades. One of the stimulifor this movement was Jonathan Barnett’s book UrbanDesign as Public Policy (1974) which argued a powerful(and prescient) case for urban design criteria beingembedded within zoning controls. Typical of thesenew zoning codes, and others during the 1980s and1990s that followed this precedent, have been a prolif-eration of urban design guidelines attached to, orparallel with zoning categories. Such guidelines spellout criteria for developers and their architects to fol-low in developing their designs, and include: streetwidth and building height; volumetric massing; per-centages and arrangements of glazed areas in buildingfaçades; entrances and storefronts at sidewalk level;and landscaping provisions to streets and sidewalks.

We have mentioned the contributions to urbandesign by the English urban designer Gordon Cullenon several occasions in the text, but he deserves yetanother mention here as the author of one of themost innovative attempts to code the urban environ-ment. Under the title Notation, Cullen developed the‘HAMS Code’ (Humanity, Artifacts, Mood andSpace) in the 1960s. He used a system of symbolsand numeric values both to record the content andquality of an existing urban setting, and then toorchestrate future development by means of a nota-tional system that he likened to a musical score(Cullen, 1967). In this analogy, the urban designerbecame the conductor, and individual architects forindividual projects played the role of musicians, inter-preting their parts of the melody within the overallarrangement. This approach has overtones of CamilloSitte’s view, expressed in his book City Planning


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According to Artistic Principles, that architects ‘shouldcompose the city like a Beethoven symphony.’

Though unsuccessful in terms of wide acceptance,Cullen’s method of coding towns and cities informedhis own influential work on the reinterpretation oftraditional urban forms and spaces and boosted therise of neotraditional planning practices during thefollowing decades. The influential design code man-ual, A Design Guide for Residential Areas, prepared forthe County Council of Essex in England by MelvinDunbar and others in 1973, is a direct descendant ofCullen’s work and was a model for many similarordinances in the UK.

While the design ordinances for the centers ofAmerican cities were being revised in the 1980s toincorporate traditional concepts of defined urbanspaces, urban designers began to examine suburbanenvironments from similar viewpoints, seeking to ame-liorate the bland appearance and environmental degra-dation of suburban areas. But one of the main obstaclesfaced by New Urbanist architects and planners to theimplementation of their ideas was, as we’ve pointed outpreviously, the fact that most aspects of this tradition-ally based urbanism were illegal under many Americanzoning ordinances developed after World War II. Thesolution of these designers has been to follow thememorable rhetoric of Andres Duany (with his CubanAmerican background) to ‘capture the transmitters’,that is, to rewrite the development ordinances thatcontrol the form of urban and suburban development.

These new codes are based intentionally on modelsof traditional urban design. Simplified graphicdiagrams and dimensions deal explicitly with thescale, massing and placement of buildings to framespace, the organization of parking, and the design ofstreets, parks and squares. As we have noted earlier,this coding of development in easy-to-understandpictorial formats was first developed by Duany andPlater-Zyberk, in their design for the new town ofSeaside (1981), and the ‘Seaside Code’ has provided amodel for similar design-based ordinances across theUSA. In privately controlled developments likeSeaside, or Celebration, the new town near Orlandoin Florida financed by the Disney Corporation(1995), these private codes can specify great detail interms of architectural style, materials, and construc-tion. But in normal urban and suburban contexts,where development is controlled by publicly admin-istered zoning, state laws usually restrict the ability ofmunicipalities to dictate this level of detail. Conse-quently, during the 1990s much work by architects

and progressive planners focused on marrying theconcepts and practices of the New Urbanist designcodes with the full complexity of public zoning ordi-nances for towns and cities.

This led initially to the development of ‘parallelcodes’, where a set of design-based New Urbanistordinances was established as the preferred option fordevelopment, but which left the old sprawl-producingregulations in place as a matter of political expediency.More radically, some communities moved to createnew, replacement zoning ordinances based on NewUrbanist design principles. The authors have beeninstrumental in developing both types of codes forcommunities in North Carolina. In 1994–95, weworked with the town of Davidson, North Carolina,to create a parallel code, with the intention thatthis would be expanded to be a full replacementordinance after five years. In 2002 the town made thatchange. Meanwhile, the authors had assisted the adja-cent towns of Cornelius and Huntersville to enact fullreplacement New Urbanist zoning ordinances in1995 and 1996. All together these three compatiblesets of regulations controlled development across anarea of approximately 100 square miles. Some of thiswork is highlighted in Chapter 11.

Such ordinances mark a fundamental change fromconventional zoning that has been based on buildinguse as the main criterion for organizing urban devel-opment. Instead, these design-based codes operate onthe principle that buildings and spaces outlast theiroriginal uses, and that regulations should be based ongood design criteria rather than transient activities.Accordingly, the creators of such new regulations ana-lyze examples of successful urbanism, either from his-tory or from detailed design studies, and then encodethese models into three-dimensional envelopes ofbuilding types, urban forms and public spaces thatbecome the vocabulary for building towns and cities.

The primary points of reference in these codes aretypological. They are constructed around establishedbuilding types, such as storefront, workplace, apart-ment, attached house, detached house, civic buildingand so forth, and spatial types such as streets, parks,plazas and squares. Each building type is defined inthree dimensions with sets of governing measure-ments and stipulations regarding scale, character anduse of materials. Each zoning district is first andforemost comprised of a permitted range of buildingtypes, setting out the potential variations for that partof the community in three-dimensional form andlayout. In parallel with these building types, a range


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of uses is then allowed within each typology, with theemphasis on mixing compatible activities rather thanseparating them.

Similar design-based classification systems aredeveloped for the different types of streets (residen-tial streets, commercial streets and special types likeboulevards), and for public open spaces like play-grounds, parks and urban squares. The regulationsalso stress the requirements that streets and publicspaces are defined by the fronts of buildings (servicealleys are the only exception), and that they connectinto an efficient network that is attractive, safe andconvenient for pedestrians and cyclists as well asmotorists. Cul-de-sacs are generally not permittedexcept for particular site circumstances. As we havenoted previously, too many cul-de-sacs break up theconnectivity of the street system and create an ineffi-cient street layout that minimizes the choice of routeand concentrates all traffic onto only a few roads. Tomake sure that the connected streets provide safeenvironments for pedestrians, street designs in resi-dential areas focus on narrow, slow speed streets withwide sidewalks and on-street parking to protectpedestrians from moving vehicles (see Figure 5.8).

One important element of these design-basedordinances is their provision of incentives for devel-opers and landowners. These incentives assist in thetransition from conventional patterns of thinking

that are based on the use of land and structures, tonew ones that are founded on the design of buildingsand public spaces. Such inducements usually take theform of density bonuses awarded by the regulationsfor either following the unfamiliar form of the regu-lations (if the ordinance is a parallel code in competi-tion with conventional regulations), or for exceedingthe minimum code requirements. For example, a fea-ture of many ordinances written to deal with green-field development concerns the protection of openspace and the preservation of existing landscapes forvisual or environmental reasons. Several codes of thistype that we have written stipulate a minimum per-centage of the site to be preserved as open space, butif the developer exceeds this amount he or she isawarded the right to build more dwellings on theremaining land. These bonuses are awarded on a slid-ing scale relative to the amount of land preservedover and above the minimum requirement. Thistypically results in clusters of compact developmentamid areas of preserved landscape.

These or similar incentives are needed to overcomeAmericans’ cultural resistance to governmentregulation, and in particular to the perception bydevelopers and property owners that these design-based codes are more onerous than the ones they aretypically used to. We would argue that these newcodes aren’t more onerous in principle; rather it’s thefact they’re different that causes an initial negativereaction. The old suburban sprawl formulas thatdevelopers and their designers had memorized haveto be unlearned and a new design ethos absorbed inits place. For this reason we strongly advocate incor-porating as many incentives into the new zoningcodes as possible. This provides the developer with amotive to meet the spirit as well as the letter of thenew regulations. It is also a useful public relationstool for architects and planners to point out thatgood design provides opportunities to produce devel-opments that are more profitable than those churnedout by the old standard formulas.

The typological basis of these codes is important.We mentioned in Chapter 4 that typology was amechanism for both analyzing the city and forproducing new designs, and to these attributes wecan now add a third role – controlling development.This applies to zoning ordinances, and to the lasttopic we want to touch on in this chapter, urbandesign guidelines.

When we prepare design guidelines, whether theyare called ‘urban design guidelines’ or ‘generaldevelopment guidelines’, our purpose is, frankly, to


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Figure 5.8 Lexington Avenue, Dilworth, Charlotte,NC. This street was laid out in the early years of thetwentieth century when car ownership was very low.Its narrow dimensions mean that cars today mustmove slowly between parked vehicles for safety.Such narrow street designs are back in favor withdesigners, planners and some transportationengineers as American professionals relearn thatstreets are for pedestrians as well as automobiles.


minimize the chances of a bad architect or a philistinedeveloper ruining an urban area with a poor design.In this endeavor, some of our fiercest critics are archi-tects. Generally the complaint is one of ‘restrictingdesign freedom’, as we noted earlier, but sometimesthe quarrel goes deeper. This more profound attackon design guidelines was articulated by Australianarchitect and academic, Ian McDougall, at a confer-ence in Melbourne in the year 2000. McDougallexpressed this more abstruse antagonism against ‘so-called New Urbanism’, by arguing that ‘(w)e are sickof the urbanism of the café and the perimeter block.The city must not become the normalising environ-ment of nostalgic guidelines … skeletal rules derivedfrom deconstructing outmoded models of the city’(McDougall, 2000: p. 30). At the same conference,another Australian academic, Leonie Sandercockposed the question: ‘Who wants to live in a cityfrozen in its own historical aspic?’ (Sandercock,2000: p. ix). This rhetoric was ratcheted up a notchor two with the assertion by McDougall that it wasimportant for architects to debunk the sanctity ofcontext, history and memory.

To us, this sounds like the worst of modernistrhetoric retooled for a new and unsuspecting audi-ence. Only modernist doctrine considered it cool orappropriate to revel in the destruction of the past. Allother periods of architecture established some rela-tionship with history other than destroying it. Themodernist city, by contrast, was a place of demolitionand free composition of isolated objects in thereduced landscape of the city, and the restoration oftraditional urbanism marks a return to respect forpeople and the public spaces they inhabit. Designinggreat streets that frame the public realm of the cityand provide places for public life isn’t recycling tiredold ideas from Haussmann’s Paris. It is more likewaking up to a world of sanity after experiencing anightmare. We are returning to an urbanism centeredon people rather than abstract ideas, and urban spacerather than architectural form. Using design guide-lines isn’t historicizing the city. It’s implementinggood urban manners and putting people first. Howmany more loud, boorish buildings do our citiesneed?

Such an approach requires architects to designonce more within context, as illustrated in Figure 5.9.This means seeking continuity with context andhistory and rejecting idiosyncratic buildings basedon contrast with their setting, except in the mostparticular of circumstances. Most cities can only takeone Bilbao Guggenheim or Glaswegian armadillo


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Figure 5.9 Gateway Village, Charlotte, NC, DudaPaine and David Furman, Architects, 2001. Urbandesign guidelines by RTKL, 1997. These mixed-usebuildings in Charlotte’s city center all conform todetailed urban design guidelines that establishheight, setbacks of top storeys, vertical rhythms andthe requirement for pedestrian level ‘permeability’,that is, views into the ground floor uses by passingpedestrians. This communicates a sense of safetyand urban activity.

Figure 5.10 Casa Mila, Barcelona, Antonio Gaudi,1906–10. Gaudi’s building obeys the dictates ofIldefonso Cerdá’s urban regulations with a simpleplan that follows the required height and massingwith its 45-degree corner splay. But within theapartments, Gaudi explores very sophisticatedspatial rhythms, and his urban façade pulsates withidiosyncratic detail. Even greater freedom isevident on the roof, which is a riot of sculpturalornamentation. All this architectural invention occurswithin a tightly controlled urban frame, and is all themore resonant because of this contrast.


profound metaphysical ideas about Cataloniannationalism, yet the ground plans are modest and sub-servient to the city context. This mixture of reticenceand flamboyance is a model for all contemporaryarchitects working in urban settings (see Figure 5.10).

The oft-quoted exhortation to ‘employ designersof quality and trust them’ reveals the very worst ofoutdated Fountainhead thinking, where the geniusarchitect, preferably with a tortured and misunder-stood personality, stands alone as a beacon of honorand artistic integrity against the venal idiocy of thearchitecture profession, clients and public at large.This is the antithesis of community design basedaround charrettes to gather public input. To ourmanner of thinking, the best designers are not thosewho stand apart, and feel they know better. Thereally best designers are talented, modest people whowelcome public participation and understand thatbuilding cities is a collaborative act.


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conference center however wonderful each buildingmay be as a unique object.

We like to quote the example of the Catalan archi-tect Antonio Gaudi as an illustration of how architectscan create individually compelling and idiosyncraticbuildings without breaking the rules of establishedurban typologies and urban design guidelines. Two ofGaudi’s buildings in central Barcelona, the Casa Milaapartment building (1906–10) and the nearby CasaBattlo (1904–06) demonstrate conformity with theurban design parameters established in 1859 byIldefonso Cerdá in the Eixample, the city’s massivenineteenth-century expansion. Instead of breakingthe urban rules to express his own vision or to makesome kind of contrasting statement to the urban pat-tern, Gaudi celebrated his personal architecture in thedesign, materials and detailing of the building façades.The vertical planes of both buildings are massivelyrich in forms and details, expressing in some cases



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SYNOPSIS

This is a long chapter, and it ranges from informedspeculation about the future of American cities to themechanics of working in community design char-rettes. First we look at the circumstances that areshaping the American city, and ask the questions:what kinds of cities are American urban designerslikely to be working in during the early decades of thetwenty-first century, and what cultural forces arelikely to shape the nation’s urban areas? In answeringthese questions we take an optimistic view that somedegree of rationality will prevail, and that at least at alocal level, progress can be made toward a moresustainable urban future. We are less optimisticabout the chances of improvements in nationalpolicy toward the urban and natural environmentsin the USA. Stewardship of America’s future willlikely come from individual cities and consortia ofcivic and business interests rather than national gov-ernment, and thus these efforts will be limitedin their overall effectiveness. Like our case studies inthe subsequent chapters, examples of good designand planning will tend to be sporadic rather thancoordinated.

If this is the case, it’s all the more important thatSmart Growth and New Urbanist practice must pro-vide accessible models for other places to emulate,and thus create an extensive body of precedent and amomentum for better design nationwide. To thisend, it’s important that these initiatives take advan-tage of the full range of urban design techniques; thiswill improve each project’s chances of success, and bydemystifying these techniques we hope that they willbe used extensively and often, not only by urban

designers, but by planners and other parties in thedevelopment process who don’t have a design back-ground. Accordingly we extend our discussion fromChapter 4 on concepts of urban design to includemore detailed practical advice.

Finally we discuss urban design master plans andthe charrette process that we use to produce them.We explain our working methods as a prelude to thecase studies. We discuss in detail some of the urbanand development typologies that we insert into thedesign and planning process as catalysts for change,and we offer guidance about implementation strate-gies, including design-based zoning.

THE URBAN FUTURE

The title of this chapter begs the question: what, pre-cisely, constitutes the ‘real world’? What kinds ofcities are urban designers and planners going to beworking in during the early decades of the twenty-first century? What are the realities of planning anddevelopment likely to be? What future forms arecities going to take? And what cultural forces arelikely to shape them? We have discussed highlightsfrom the history of Anglo-American urbanism, andthese provide some clues. We have examined the rela-tionships between center city and suburb, and con-sidered some of the most important cultural forces atwork. We have charted the (d)evolution of the urbanperiphery from suburbs to sprawl, and consideredsome of the environmental and economic issuesacting in this process. We have also examined somecrucial differences between American, British andcontinental European policies regarding the control

6Urban design in the real world



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of development and the management of growth. Inconsidering some of the likely future circumstancesthat will shape the city for the next generation, andcreate the context within which urban designers,architects and planners will work, we will concentratemostly on American urban futures, as frankly, the sit-uation seems more urgent here. However, severalconditions have structural similarities with Britishproblems, and some proposed solutions use urbanforms and typologies common to both cultures, sowe hope some of the observations can provide a com-mentary on British circumstances.

We have seen that many aspects of American sys-tems of planning and land development are con-strained by conservative practices and attitudes thatare resistant to change. One of the main problemswith advancing the practice of community design isthat many current development practices are basedon repeating formulas that worked in the past withlittle thought for future changes in circumstances. It’snot just developers and lenders who march into thefuture looking backward. Many planners andtransportation engineers have grown comfortableadministering regulations and standards that wereestablished decades ago for a different world. Withoutminimizing these obstacles, we consciously base ourthoughts about future planning and development onchanges that might realistically be achieved in thenext decades rather than circumstances that pertaintoday.

The crucial areas of concern that most peopleacknowledge – for both American and Europeancities – are revitalizing the center city and controllingsprawl around the urban periphery. We have seen ear-lier in this book that many urban ambitions anddesign concepts common in British and Europeancities are embedded in American Smart Growth poli-cies and embraced by the professionals who espousethose policies. But the critical difference between thetwo continents is that European nations have, how-ever imperfect, national systems for addressing thesequestions through government policies and regula-tions on growth management, urban design and sus-tainability. Moreover, most of these countries enjoythe benefits of proactive and legally enforceablepublic planning procedures at regional and nationalscales.

When we’ve made comparisons like this elsewherein the book, we’ve imagined a variety of ribald andderisory comments from our British and Europeancolleagues. Many of them will stand in line torecount the failings of their particular system. But the

crucial weakness that bedevils American planningand the quest for sustainable urban development isthe lack of a system for dealing with these issues inany comprehensive manner. America presently lacksthe political frameworks to enact the kinds of growthmanagement policies common in Europe. There isinsufficient public acceptance of the concepts ofSmart Growth and little effective leadership to cham-pion these issues at the various levels of government.(At the time of writing, North Carolina is proposingto weaken its environmental management legislation.)And as we discussed in Chapter 3, increasingly well-organized ideological opposition to the whole notionof Smart Growth has been developed by right-winggroups within American politics.

A series about the burdens of urban expansion inNorth Carolina in The Charlotte Observer newspaperin March 2003 extolled the efforts of many volun-teers to promote a more sustainable agenda for man-aging growth in the surrounding region. But inreality there is little to show for these efforts as noneof the volunteer and non-profit organizations haveexecutive authority or large funds to support theiractivities. Their main achievement has been to getofficials, citizens and business leaders talking aboutthe issues. However, the progressive ideas of thesepressure groups are often politely accepted and thensidelined by a power structure based largely on main-taining the status quo. Indeed, even at the grassrootslevel, many such growth management efforts arereactive, aimed more at stopping growth in specificlocal circumstances with no comprehension of anylarger picture. At a larger scale, few, if any, Americanpoliticians are pushing for regional government asthey know full well that voters have no liking for it. Apoll in the Charlotte newspaper indicated that a largemajority, nearly half of all those questioned (47percent) believed that regional growth should behandled by citizens themselves, not government. Thekind of government agency needed to enact compre-hensive and enforceable regional planning received ameasly 12 percent of the votes.

This general distrust of government and thehijacking of Smart Growth terminology by localorganizations who want to stop growth altogetherfeeds opponents of Smart Growth as they gear up toroll back the few gains made in America, emboldenedby the weakening of environmental laws by theWashington DC government. A March 2003 editor-ial in Smart Growth Online quoted Joel Hirschhorn,the Director of Natural Resources Policy Studiesfor the National Governors Association Center for


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Best Practices, writing in an op-ed piece in www.planetizen.com that: ‘The hatred of governmentand regulations by conservatives and libertariansfrom all over the nation is more focused. Everythingthey see as wrong with (America) is labeled smartgrowth.’ Hirschhorn went on to report that SmartGrowth adversaries are ‘sharpening their rhetoric,reshaping their statistics, learning fast, getting morecohesive and painting smart growth as “snobgrowth,” which reduces home and transportationchoices, increases housing and transportation costs,limits affordable housing, harms minorities, stemseconomic growth and prosperity, and threatens “theAmerican dream” .’ (Hirschhorn, 2003).

In effect, opponents are creating an Alice-in-Wonderland world where everything is the oppositeof what it seems, and forging a coordinated campaignof disinformation to sway public opinion. Despitethe appearance of scholarly researchers, Hirschhornnotes that conservative think tanks such as theThoreau Institute operate as the public relations armof the ‘national sprawl industry’ (ibid.). Hirschhornwarns Smart Growth organizations that they must beunequivocally pro-growth. They should absolutelydisavow groups that profess Smart Growth but inreality try to stop development, and true SmartGrowth advocates must stress the market advantagesof this type of development.

A hostile political environment such as this raises theobvious question: why bother? The answer is simple.We must try. It’s our duty. The professions of architec-ture and planning have a responsibility to envision abetter future for our society and to assist governments,the public, and the private sector to achieve thesehigher goals, however Sisyphean the task may appear.Indeed, there are several small causes for optimism inthe swirling debate about the future of American cities.They are scattered across the nation, and individuallymodest in their scope and achievements, but takentogether they comprise an agenda of hope and progress.

The most progressive examples of regional plan-ning with an eye to Smart Growth are those previ-ously mentioned in Portland, Oregon, and the twincities of Minneapolis-St. Paul in Minesota. Salt LakeCity in Utah has also initiated a progressive regionalplanning process for the Salt Lake-Wasatch areawhich led to the passage of the Quality Growth Actby the State legislature in 1999 (Calthorpe andFulton: p. 138). Portland is perhaps the most‘European’ of all American cities in its planningstrategies, which feature a regional urban growthboundary, local comprehensive plans with minimum

housing densities, urban villages around rail transitstops, significant investment in the downtown core,and a regional open space plan – all with a strongregional government to back it up (Beatley: p. 67).

For Smart Growth planners and urban designersthis situation represents as close to utopia as it’s possi-ble to get in contemporary America, but to many inthe development and real estate industries, the com-prehensiveness and regional scope of this planningsystem is ideologically repugnant. It’s almost routineat homebuilders’ or Realtors’ conferences to hearspeakers lampoon Portland’s regional cooperation as‘The People’s Republic of Portland,’ and in the mindsof many passive observers, this title tars the progres-sive model with the dreaded brush of socialism andanti-Americanism. However loopy this may seem toBritish readers (and it’s pretty daft to lots ofAmericans, too) it’s a political reality that has a lot ofimpact on development decisions in many cities allacross the country. In our work in the AmericanSouth, we’ve learned to use very few examples fromPortland as it can be counterproductive, and gener-ates as much negative reaction as positive support.

There must be something special about theAmerican northwest, for the neighboring west coastcity of Seattle in Washington State also demonstratesprogressive planning around the concepts of urbanmixed-use village centers served by public transitwithin an urban area growth boundary. The founda-tion for these initiatives was laid by Seattle’s 2002Vision Plan dating from 1987, which stimulated thepassage of a statewide growth management law,the 1991 Washington Growth Management Act. Theconcept of transit supported mixed-use urban centersas a growth management tool is gathering momen-tum in many other American cities. Other NorthAmerican cities currently operating or planning newlight rail or commuter rail systems include Dallas,Texas; Sacramento, San Diego, San Jose and LosAngeles, all in California; Charlotte and Raleigh,North Carolina; St. Louis, Missouri; Baltimore,Maryland; Washington, DC; Denver, Colorado;and Toronto, in Canada. Even Phoenix, Arizona, bymany measures the most sprawling city in the USA isbuilding its first light rail line. However, few are con-sidering the more difficult, but equally necessarygrowth boundary legislation.

Our home city of Charlotte is a classic case. It isspending a lot of money and effort in planning andconstructing a good transit system with a necklace ofurban villages along the lines. At the same time it’sconstructing a massive outerbelt freeway that is


spreading growth into surrounding counties at afaster rate than planning can manage. In Charlotte,and many other American cities using the same rail-based planning concepts, there is a vocal debateabout the relevance of rail transit as the catalyst forreshaping the city. Critics describe it as a ‘nineteenthcentury technology’ unsuited to the car-dominatedAmerican landscape. The fact that passenger trainsare almost extinct in America has consigned rail tech-nology to the museum in the minds of many citizensand policy makers alike, and blinded them to the factthat modern rail transit is a very effective andadvanced technology. This is a strikingly differentattitude to Europe’s, where train service has remainedan integral part of life.

The companion piece to public transit in thesefirst efforts at creating a sustainable urban strategyis the much-touted mixed-use urban village. At itsroot, this development type represents our bestchance at meeting what is perhaps the most crucialchallenge in American urbanism at the start of thenew century: how can we re-embed real and mean-ingful public space into the sprawling new develop-ments of the urban periphery?

However, the urban village has many detractorsfrom the conservative end of the political spectrum,and opposition also arises from residents of existingneighborhoods. American conservative opiniondecries the concept as social engineering, by whichthey suggest that elitist planners and architects are‘forcing Americans to live like Europeans’ – a stepbackward to people of this jingoistic mindset. Theopposition from residents of existing neighborhoodsis less ideological. It’s generally the classic Not In MyBackyard (NIMBY) variety, where residents erro-neously equate density with crime, traffic and lowerproperty values. While these NIMBYs drive us madin practice, we have to sympathize with them to some(small) degree. Examples of this kind of urban villagedevelopment have been so sparse in American sub-urbs for the last 50 years that public opinion has fewpositive models to relate to. Only in the past fiveyears have decent developments of this type begun toappear in American cities (see Plate 9).

Despite this combined opposition, urban villageshave one very powerful ally – national demographics.The number of American households that conform tothe conventional profile of a married couple with chil-dren, typical consumers of single-family housing insuburbia, fell to less than one quarter (24.3 percent)of the total number of households as recorded in the2000 census, and is expected to keep falling for the

next several decades. By contrast, the numbers ofaging ‘baby boomers’ who are ‘downsizing’ to urbandwellings in more compact, walkable urban areas isincreasing, as is the number of ‘echo boomers,’ thegeneration that comprises the children of baby-boomers. Both generations are seeking an urban set-ting that supports their changing lifestyle expectationsas an alternative to conventional suburbia.

The urban village typology meets the needs of theyounger group of residents, workers and consumers,who desire a vibrant urban environment replete withstreet life, bars, restaurants, an art and music scene,and social diversity – the sort of places discussed byRichard Florida in The Creative Class and summa-rized here in Chapter 1. At the same time, their eldersare seeking locations that will support them as theyget older, where they can ‘age in place’ rather than becut off from community life in suburbia as theirmobility and independence decreases. The Americanauthor watched her parents suffering this undignifieddecline in their last years, and this sad family experi-ence is shared by millions of Americans. As a conse-quence, many baby boomers now approachingretirement are urgently seeking alternative and moresustaining urban settings.

Aging in place is really a public health issue, andthis connection between public health and urbanform has also been made in relation to children andyounger adult segments of the American population,particularly linking the lack of walkable environ-ments to obesity and its consequent health problems.In America, the prestigious Robert Wood JohnsonFoundation has funded research about ‘Active Livingby Design’ to the tune of $16.5 million. This is a pro-gram that explores the links between obesity and thedesign of cities and neighborhoods, and focuses onways the layout of urban areas can allow and encour-age physical activity as a normal part of all citizens’daily routines. Promotion of a healthy lifestyle meansopportunities for children to walk to school on safepedestrian-friendly streets with sidewalks, or cycle onlocal streets without recourse to arterial highways. Itmeans having a balance of jobs and housing in eachneighborhood to increase the opportunities for resi-dents to live near enough to their work so walking isa realistic option. It means having parks for passiveand active recreation that are accessible safely on footor by bicycle within each neighborhood. And itmeans having a mixture of uses, including shops andcivic buildings that people of all ages, includingolder residents, can reach conveniently by walking.This provides healthy exercise and a means for the


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elderly to stay involved with the general life of thecommunity.

If this sounds a lot like New Urbanism, it is. Thereis a direct match between the objectives of ActiveLiving by Design and the principles of NewUrbanism and Smart Growth. The demographictrends, coupled with the explicit linking of urbandesign with public health, promise a radical shift inplanning and development policies in the yearsahead. In 2003, the number of new developments inAmerica that satisfied this kind of lifestyle comprisedonly a very small percentage of residential construc-tion, but future market demand as much as any plan-ning policies will stimulate a major increase in thistype of urban neighborhood.

To these demographic and market forces forchange can be added the growing sense amongAmericans that the physical environment is a pre-cious resource to be preserved, or at least not totallysubjugated to urban uses. As we discussed in Chapter 2,the loss of natural landscape and open space, coupledwith increasing levels of pollution in America’s airand water are problems understood by an increasingproportion of public opinion. The aggregation of allthese various trends and attitudes, combined with theawesome projections for population growth in theUSA over the next two decades (an increase of 50–60million people to a total population figure of approxi-mately 340 million in 2020) allows us to make fore-casts about the future form of American cities basedon solid realities.

Some commentators see sufficient evidence toanticipate that American cities will develop a moreconcentrated urban form with more intensive usessurrounded by protected natural areas (McIlwain,2002). We are not so optimistic. This sounds toomuch like Europe to be practical in America. Weexpect American cities to continue to sprawl to thepoint of dysfunction before any radical changeoccurs, and by that time cities will have extended intosurrounding areas past the point of efficient restruc-turing without massive government redirection ofpolicies and resources. Whether American societywill evolve to permit such action is a question toolarge for the scope of this book, but we see little signof this major redirection of national objectives.However, within the large-scale inefficiency ofsprawling, market-driven metropolitan urbanism, wedo expect small-scale efficiencies to take root – exam-ples of micro-sustainability sufficient to form thebasis of a more rational urban form should oneemerge over a longer time frame. Our case studies

illustrate such micro examples in the hope that theycan be repeated enough times in enough places, andimproved upon in the process, so that a critical massof good practice can be established. In this way, suffi-cient momentum may be generated to offset theworst excesses of the mega-sprawl that’s just over theAmerican horizon.

These small-scale successes build on four progres-sive trends in American urbanism. The first, but notthe dominant one, is the continued regeneration ofcity centers, whereby central business districts aretransforming themselves into central cultural andentertainment districts with a strong residential com-ponent. Charlotte is an excellent example of thistrend, with 50 000 daily employees in its office tow-ers, and nearly 8000 residents living downtown inmedium and high-density housing. City streets thatin 1990 were arid corridors deserted of pedestriansare now home to a vibrant street life, with museums,art galleries, performing arts venues, bars, restau-rants, and even the occasional political demonstra-tion enlivening the urban scene (see Figure 6.1).However, not all cities will be able to achieve thistransformation, and those that fail are likely to beones that face the most precipitous decline ineconomic fortune.

This process of urban regeneration is shared byBritain and America, with British cities like


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Figure 6.1 Public space in downtown Charlotte, NC.A controversial street exhibition promotingvegetarianism took over the center city sidewalk atlunchtime in the summer of 2003, mingling with hot-dog stands. Many people were upset by theseimages, but the demonstrators were exercising theirdemocratic rights in public space.


Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and Bristolusing public–private partnerships to revitalize, and insome cases rebuild inner city areas (see Figure 6.2).These redevelopment efforts utilize the same formulaof high-density mixed-use projects, often with amajor emphasis on housing, set out on traditionalurban block patterns. Sometimes the projects involvethe demolition or major restructuring of 1960s eraurban highways to return lost civic space topedestrian use.

The second progressive trend in America concernsthe sites of old and out-of-date shopping malls andcommercial areas that are reinventing themselves asnew mixed-use districts, even town centers in minia-ture (see Figure 6.3). As this process continues, theemphasis will still be on shops and offices, but thesenew centers will include a wider range of uses includ-ing civic buildings like libraries and police stations,plus a lot of residential units. A recent bookpublished by the Urban Land Institute (ULI),Transforming Suburban Business Districts, sets out theparameters and opportunities for this suburbanrestructuring (Booth et al., 2002). Similar issues areexamined in Grayfields into Goldfields publishedby the Congress for the New Urbanism (2002).The Lindberg Center in Atlanta illustrated inFigure 2.15 is one good example of this increasinglycommon trend.

Third, and the most extensive trend of the four inAmerica, will be the creation of new centers in theso-called ‘edge-burbs,’ the newest frontiers of subur-ban expansion (McIlwain, 2002: p. 41). A report bythe Brookings Institution illustrated how the pop-ulation of edge-burbs grew at more than 21 percentduring the 1990s. In comparison, existing suburbsenlarged their populations by about 14 percent, andcenter cities by about 7 percent (Lucy and Phillips,2001, in McIlwain: p. 43). The trend for retrofittingolder suburban centers to meet the lifestyle expecta-tions of residents is extending to the design of newcenters around the periphery. Examples can be foundaround the edges of most large cities, and our pre-vious example of Birkdale Village in Huntersville,North Carolina, 15 miles north of Charlotte is a casein point (see Plate 5). Even in Portland, Oregon,where an urban growth boundary was established todirect growth to infill and city center sites, mostdevelopment is occurring at the urban periphery.


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Figure 6.2 Central square, Brindleyplace,Birmingham, UK. Urban design master plan by JohnChatwin, 1993. Decayed canalside land has beenreclaimed as an exciting, productive mixture of usesthough a comprehensive urban design master plan,good contemporary architecture and the carefuldesign of the public spaces.

Figure 6.3 One Colorado, Pasadena, California,Kaplan McLaughlin Diaz, architects, 1992. Adecayed commercial area in Pasadena has beenrevived into a mixed-use complex, drawing peopleto a previously blighted part of town. (Photo creditKaplan, McLaughin, Diaz).


The multiple market opportunities represented bythe growing urban desires of increasing numbers ofthe baby-boom and echo-boom generations hasboosted the economic profile of urban villages inAmerica considerably, whether on recycled grayfieldor new greenfield sites. In May 2003, the Charlottedevelopers of Birkdale Village announced they hadsold the majority share in the development to anational Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT). Thispurchase is significant because REITs comprise largeand powerful investors at the end of the developmentchain. At the outset of any development process, alldevelopers try to establish their exit strategy, that is,who will they be able to sell the development on to?Until recently, urban villages were regarded asunproven in the marketplace, and large investorswere skittish about their long-term value asinvestment property. This in turn made the initialdevelopers nervous about making the original invest-ments in these kinds of projects. The decision by thecautious, conservative end of the financial markets toput increasingly large investments into urban villagedevelopments does a great deal to establish the cred-ibility of the mixed-use center as a stable develop-ment type.

We have specifically left the fourth factor, the preser-vation of open space, till last because we want to high-light a common American misconception about thisobjective. In many ways, this is the most prolific of thepositive trends; it certainly has the most public support.Between 1998 and 2002, 679 proposals to conserveopen space were placed on local election ballots acrossthe USA, and 565 passed, setting aside a total of $21.5 billion (in US terms) for purchasing open land(http://experts.uli.org/Content/PressRoom/press_release/2003/PR_009.htm).

The conservation of open land highlights thegreatest difference between American and Britishpractice. In the UK, despite many instances of urbanencroachments into the protected greenbelts aroundcities, the overall concept of a clear distinctionbetween urban and rural still holds. A conversation inthe Spring of 2003 between the authors and MaryNewsom, a Charlotte journalist and advocate ofSmart Growth, who was giving a talk on open spaceconservation to a rural county in the Charlotteregion highlighted the cultural gulf between the twonations.

We loaned Ms Newsom slides of the small Englishtown of Ashburton, in South Devon, to use in herpresentation (see Figure 6.4). The images showed thecompact form of the historic town in its landscape,

with clear edges between the urban areas and the sur-rounding countryside. We apologized for the slightlyfaded quality of the slides, as they were 25-years old,but assured our friend that they were still accurate, aswe often revisit the town (where the English authorlived in the late 1970s). Our American colleague wasastonished that development could be organized insuch a way as to preserve this natural beauty andhistoric character over a quarter of a century. Weexplained that the local and regional plans that regu-late development directed new building to take placeon infill sites and reclaimed land from other, defunctuses. New greenfield expansion was not permitted asthe town was not designated as a high growth area.Other, nearby towns in the region fulfilled that role,with some new peripheral development beingallowed in each of those communities. Ashburton’seconomy depends on tourism and farming, so thelandscape is a prime economic resource, as is thecharming historic character of the town itself. A free-way bypasses the town taking all through traffic awayfrom the medieval center, but no development isallowed at the interchanges. All commerce is kept inthe center of town, to ensure a vibrant urban area,and to allow new subdivisions to sprawl into the pre-cious landscape, and stores and gas stations to clutterthe highway would be unthinkable to the town’scitizens and to business and civic leaders. Such devel-opment would compromise the economic prosperityof the town. Conservation is good for business.


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Figure 6.4 Ashburton, Devon, UK. The physicalexpansion of the town is strictly limited to preservethe working farmland around its edges. A modestnew development of townhomes is just visible in themiddle of the photograph (a white gable and twolong parallel roofs) fitting in between adjacentbuildings and backing up to the fields.


American readers will remember that the Britishplanning system operates on the principle that pri-vate ownership of land does not automatically conveydevelopment rights. These rights are conferred oncertain properties according to the provisions of thecommunally agreed development plans, and thedemocratically open process of plan developmentand revision enables all viewpoints to be heard andpriorities agreed upon. In the case of many commu-nities in South Devon, the agreed priorities haveeverything to do with conserving the natural beautyof the area for environmental and economic benefit.

Ironically, the rural county outside Charlottewhere Mary Newsom gave her talk also containsmuch beautiful scenery and productive farmlandsprinkled with pleasant small towns. But new free-ways are bringing this rural idyll within easy com-muting reach of Charlotte, and developers are liningup greenfield sites for conventional suburban devel-opment. Local politicians are getting ready to com-pete for new strip centers and gas stations andbig-box stores to boost their tax revenues to meet thefinancial costs of new schools, water and sewer lines,and police and fire protection services for the newresidential subdivisions that will inevitably appear.Many of the qualities that make the area so delightfulare headed for extinction as development paves overthe landscape, substituting rural beauty with urbanmediocrity.

The county authorities are unprepared to dealwith these formidable challenges and have few publicpolicy tools to allow them much control over the pat-terns of development other than assisting non-profitland conservation organizations to purchase somesmall parcels of land that are most threatened by newbuilding. In contrast to places like Ashburton, smalltowns in the countryside outside Charlotte have littlechance of retaining their residual historic character,or of protecting their rural heritage in any meaning-ful way. Without some unforeseen civic miracle, theyare doomed to be smothered in sprawl.

The natural reaction to this gloomy future is topreserve as much open space as possible, and in theminds of many Americans, citizens and elected offi-cials alike, there is a false assumption that preservingopen space is a panacea for sprawl. This is far fromthe case, for in many instances preserved open spacesexist as unconnected pockets surrounded by develop-ment. Saving open space is too often a reactive ges-ture to stop development, rather than the enactmentof a coherent rural vision. Preserving open spacemust be part of such a comprehensive conservation

vision for a protected or enhanced countryside, andthis rural vision must be complemented by an equiv-alent urban vision. We can’t make better towns andcities just by preserving woodlands and meadows. Weare delighted when citizens and their elected officialswant to preserve farmland, or protect natural habitat.But we are dismayed when those same folks demon-strate no corresponding passion about urban areas.Our case studies try to remedy that omission by pre-senting a compelling vision of urbanity to comple-ment preserved countryside.

These visions of urbanity usually coalesce aroundsome sort of urban village, the idea that keeps crop-ping up throughout this book. The regeneration ofcity centers is one congruency between British andAmerican urbanism in the early years of the twenty-first century, and the urban village is the second.While the physical settings of British and Americancities are markedly dissimilar, except for their reviv-ing central areas, the urban village concept hasassumed considerable relevance in both countries(Darley et al., 1991; Aldous, 1992; Sucher, 1995).This type of development satisfies European objec-tives of sustainability as well as American lifestyle anddemographic trends; as we’ve already noted, it’sbecoming the strategy of choice in the USA for rede-veloping out-of-date shopping centers as mixed-usecenters, and for building new mixed-use ‘town cen-tres’ in the far flung suburbs.

These same lifestyle-related demographics are alsopresent in Europe, where the same quest for active,trendy urban living emerged in the 1990s as a power-ful ally of environmental goals for sustainable urban-ism, which increasingly became a matter of publicpolicy in Europe during the 1990s. Sustainabilityisn’t totally absent from the American agenda (wit-ness Peter Calthorpe’s original Pedestrian Pockets ofthe late 1980s and the subsequent emphasis ontransit-oriented development) but movements towardhigher goals of urban sustainability and energy effi-ciency remain objectives of dedicated professionalsrather than a matter of public policy.

A key study in the quest for a usable definition ofsustainable urban form came from Australia in 1989,where two planners, Peter Newman and JeffreyKenworthy compared the use of energy by urbanAustralians, Americans and Europeans (Hall, 2002:p. 414). Not surpisingly, Americans used mostenergy, the Australians came in second and theEuropeans were the most frugal of the three studygroups. The researchers related this energy use to thespatial character of cities and the availability of public


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transport, and concluded that the compactness ofEuropean cities combined with the high standardof public transport accounted for the lower figures ofenergy consumption. From this conclusion came theoft-repeated wisdom that the most sustainable formof urban development was one that restricted thegeographical spread to a defined area and then servedthis area with good public transportation. The corol-lary to this was that cities and neighborhoods shouldbe denser, and have a mixture of uses within walkingdistance. Bingo! The urban village was born.

The twin typologies of New Urbanism, Calthorpe’sTransit-Oriented Development (TOD) and Duanyand Plater-Zyberk’s Traditional NeighborhoodDevelopment (TND), were paralleled in Britain bythe urban villages promoted by the Urban VillagesGroup (Aldous, 1992, 1995). Explicit connectionswere drawn in America to traditional urban types ofthe small town and streetcar suburb, as well as toEbenezer Howard’s Garden City and the Anglo-American Garden Suburb. In the UK, British markettowns and their architecture substituted forAmerican models, but the other sources were thesame. It appeared as if avant-garde architect-plannerson both sides of the Atlantic had reinvented thewheel (Hall, 2002: p. 415).

The demographic shifts evident in Britain andAmerica that help generate the need for ‘new’solutions like the urban village are most easily cate-gorized as a move away from conventional nuclearfamilies into more and smaller households.Especially notable in both countries is the growth insingle person households. Adults of all ages are liv-ing alone with the compensatory expectation of aricher and more sociable public life. In America thisdemand is being partly met by the market-drivendistribution of these new households in all threelocations noted earlier, the city center, revitalizedsuburban centers in the older suburbs, and new sub-urban centers at the metropolitan periphery. InBritain, government policy since the late 1990s hasexplicitly required that the majority of such newdevelopment take place on existing, reconditionedbrownfield sites to minimize suburban extensionsinto the green belts around cities. While this makesgood sense in terms of sustainable city form, thisformula also had more pragmatic roots. It waspartly a victory for the powerful countryside lobbyin the UK, and the policy helps to assuage deepresentment by rural communities at the thought ofnewcomers encroaching on their countrysideamenities and way of life.

In practice, the British Labour government hasbacktracked on some of its goals for sustainable urbangrowth, simply because there were not enough brown-field sites available to handle the population explosion,estimated in 1996 at an extra 4.4 million householdsin England over a 25 year period (Hall, 2002: p 418).New expansions of urban areas are accordinglyplanned around London and in the south-east of thecountry, where the situation is most acute. A govern-ment statement in February 2003 specified extensionsto the city of Milton Keynes (300 000 new homes),development along the corridor of the M11 motorwaybetween London and Cambridge (250 000–500 000new homes) and 70 000 new homes in the county ofKent, including the Thames Gateway project, a50-mile development corridor along the River Thamesrelated to the Channel Tunnel high-speed rail link(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk-news/england/2727399.stm).

Despite these compromises, the British govern-ment’s overall policy for more sustainable urban formretains the concept of higher density, active urbanplaces, with more house types that suit the multitudeof smaller, childless households in the populationprojections. American readers will note the great dif-ference to their country: British government agenciesact strategically in the long-term interest of the com-munity as a whole, as opposed to the American sys-tem of allowing the ‘free’ market, acting for theshort-term profit of a few, to establish where andwhen this new development will take place. InAmerica, the biggest environmental challenge is thehurdle of creating national or regional policies forsustainable growth that are enforceable, and not justa wish list of concepts with no mechanisms forimplementing them. Such a regulatory framework isa concept that flies in the face of profound culturalbeliefs about the sanctity of private property rights,and few people in America believe it’s even a remotepossibility. Moves in a few states, like New Jersey andMaryland to support growth with public resources inexisting urban areas rather than greenfield sites aregood steps in this direction, but even these policiescan’t stop development in places that may cause harmto a community’s long-term environmental and cul-tural sustainability.

The second most difficult design and developmentchallenge for America’s urban areas is to find a waythat the new and reviving urban villages do notbecome isolated middle-class playgrounds supportinga lifestyle unavailable to the poorer sections of society.This is a very real problem in a market-driven


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development process, where the lower economicpotential of poorer communities cannot provide thereturn on investment most developers desire in theirfinancial equations for higher-density mixed-useurban villages. This effectively puts whole sections ofcities off-limits to this kind of development, and evenwhen poorer communities have the infrastructure(albeit decayed) and are in a good location near thecity center, new development in their neighborhoodstend to displace low wage earners and renters.

These are the people who have to move as propertyis purchased house by house by middle-class gentri-fiers, or by developers who are scooping out territoryahead of the market mainstream. It doesn’t take large-scale development projects to cause this exodus.Overall, the city benefits by this process of gentrifica-tion, but without social policies and financial subsi-dies that support enough existing residents to stay inplace and benefit from the improvements in theirneighborhoods, poorer working-class areas will sim-ply transform into tomorrow’s cool new venues forthe bourgeoisie. This gentrification has a lot of ben-efits, but this urban improvement shouldn’t come atthe expense of the urban poor.

This issue of social equity applies to new develop-ments as well. Few local governments in America prac-tice what is called ‘inclusionary zoning,’ whereby acertain proportion of units in a new housing develop-ment are ‘set aside’ as affordable for lower income homebuyers. American conservatives oppose this concept asyet another instance of social engineering and interfer-ence by government in private development. It takes abrave and progressive local government to enact andcarry through such a policy, to ensure that a wider rangeof income groups shares the benefits of growth and well-designed new neighborhoods. One such Americantown is Davidson, North Carolina, where the zoningordinance requires 12.5 percent of all new dwellings tobe affordable to individuals and families earning only60–80 percent of the national median income.

In our work with towns and cities in North andSouth Carolina, we try wherever possible to bringgood design within reach of all sections of those com-munities. There is no national or state policy to bringthis about, so it happens only as a result of detailedwork with each community, incorporating the ‘setaside’ provisions for affordable housing in the zoningcode and establishing uniform design guidelines sothat lower-cost homes share the design and aestheticcharacter of their more expensive counterparts. Weworked with the town of Davidson on its progressive

zoning ordinance, and with the City of Greenville,S.C., to upgrade a run-down and poor, African-American neighborhood south of downtown withoutdisplacing existing residents. This latter project formsthe case study examined in Chapter 10. These are suc-cessful projects, but they need to be emulated (andimproved upon) in towns and cities all across America.

URBAN DESIGN TECHNIQUES

In this section we want to outline a vocabulary ofurban design techniques that will build on these basicconcepts described in Chapter 4, and enable non-design professionals, elected officials and citizens toenter into a more effective and deeper dialogue withdesigners. We also aim to sharpen the awareness oftrained designers about important issues of spatialenclosure, scale and proportion, and building façadedesign. The evidence of our cities shows that theselessons have not always been well understood duringthe last several decades.

The decision on whether or not to recap andextend some of the ideas we have previously discussedin Chapter 4 was resolved for us one day in the earlyspring of 2003. One of the authors was sitting in adesign review for architecture graduate students ata multi-university symposium held in Charlotte, anda visiting student was explaining his final thesis work.It was a promising project involving the redevelop-ment of a part of Charleston, South Carolina, thatwas being reclaimed for the city by the demolition ofan urban expressway. But despite the student’searnestness to do the right thing for the city and itsinhabitants, the scheme was very poor, comprisingout-of-date concepts of raised walkways above streets,with isolated single-use buildings disposed likeabstract shapes in a first-year basic design exercise. Inshort it was the antithesis of everything good aboutCharleston and a reprise of all the mistakes of urbanrenewal from the 1950s and 1960s.

Of most concern to the author was not a weak stu-dent project, but the fact that this unfortunate youngman had been led seriously astray by teachers andexperienced professionals who should know better.The fact that such (well-intentioned but disastrous)urban vandalism continues to be taught in reputableAmerican colleges of architecture in the early years ofthe twenty-first century demonstrated to us just howmuch education the architectural profession stillneeds! Hence our decision to go over once moresome key points about urban design.


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Figure 6.5 Diagram of sun angles in urban space. This infill development in Asheville, NC, around an historicchurch benefits from careful study of sun penetration and shading of public space. (Illustration courtesy ofShook Kelly, architects)



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We also think it’s worth reprising some of the keyattributes of urban design to clarify them in the mindof the reader, especially if that reader isn’t a designprofessional. As educators, we know firsthand thedifficulty even architects and planners have in visual-izing and designing the voids of urban space ratherthan the solid form of objects. All too often urbanspace is the residual area left over between buildings,rather than a positive entity in its own right thataffects the buildings around it.

Urban designers use a vocabulary of straightforwardtechniques to design and define space, and we have dis-cussed several of them in Chapter 4, but here we wantto expand on three of them a little more. The first, andmost important, objective is to create spatial enclosure,designing public space as a series of ‘urban rooms’ forpedestrians – and, when appropriate, for vehicles also.Second, and intimately related to spatial enclosure isthe architectural design of the building façades thatcombine to create the walls of these urban rooms, bethey plazas or streets. Third is a set of concepts for con-trolling the car, so that neighborhoods and districts areconveniently accessible but not overrun by vehicles.Some designers would put this first in the hierarchy ofissues to resolve, for if the cars aren’t handled efficientlyand conveniently, all other efforts at making urbanplaces for people are likely to be unsuccessful. But weput people first. It’s a matter of principle.

Spatial Enclosure

Spatial enclosure is a function of two main factors, theproportions of the space – the height of the buildingsrelative to the width of the space – and the architecturalscale and character of the building façades that form thewalls to the urban room. We set out some simple rulesof thumb for spatial proportions in Chapter 4 (2 : 1and 1 : 1 for intimate pedestrian space; 1 : 3 for morerelaxed enclosure, up to a maximum of 1 : 6 for spaceswith people and cars), but climatic factors can affectdecisions on urban proportions differently in Britainand America. In Britain, it is normal to orientate out-door public space to receive as much sun as possible. Inthe southern states of America it is necessary to createshade to seek relief from the harsh summer sun andtemperatures regularly above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32degrees Centigrade). Charlotte is located at 35 degreesnorth of the equator on a Mediterranean latitude, levelwith Malta and Cyprus, as opposed to London atapproximately 52 degrees north, the same as NovaScotia in Canada.

Calculating the shading of space by buildings withgraphic sun studies – projecting sun angles into thespace for different times of year – is always a goodidea (see Figure 6.5). Better still is studying the spacein three-dimensional model form on a heliodon,where actual shadows can be observed in modelform, or with special computer programs. We alsoadvise wind tunnel studies for key public spaces if atall possible. These are harder to achieve in practice,and impossible in a charrette format, but manywindswept plazas have defeated the efforts of urbandesigners to create activity because of increased windspeeds due to the untested massing and arrangementof buildings and spaces.

Like any room, a public square or the linear spaceof a street has points of entry and exit, and views toand from the space. The more points of entry andexit – such as building entrances – the more livelythe space will be. Major openings in the enclosingwalls of an urban space by streets will reduce thefeeling of enclosure, and accordingly these largeopenings should be limited. The sense of enclosureis heightened if views into the space can be termi-nated by buildings, rather than the viewer’s lineof sight passing straight through the space (seeFigures 6.6 and 6.7). Congruently, views out of thespace to other parts of the city enable the user ofthe space to feel connected to a larger urban area. Ifthere are no views out (perhaps the entry wasachieved by means of a curved street so that theview back is limited) then the sense of enclosure isheightened. However, this must be balanced with apotential sense of being isolated and shut off fromthe rest of the urban scene.

The character of these views into and out of anypublic space are important in forming a sense ofplace and urban character, but equally necessary isattention to the architectural, landscape and artisticelements within the space. Many historic squarescontain public art, often in the form of statues ofkings, dukes, generals and other male worthies, andpublic art of all types can play an important role inestablishing the personality of a public space. Urbandesign should be intimately responsive to this dimen-sion of community identity and sense of place.Artwork may be freestanding, like a statue or a foun-tain, or it may be integrated into its surroundings asan architectural element. Urban spaces always benefitmore from the inclusion of public art at the designstage, rather than as an add-on element afterwards(see Figure 6.8).


The use of trees within an urban setting will varydepending on the location of the space. In general,American cities use more trees in plazas and alongstreets than British or European equivalents. In partthis is cultural; Americans are historically suspicious ofcities and urbanity in general (refer back to Chapter 5for a discussion on this point) and prefer to soften theurban ambience of a public square with greenery. Inpart, certainly in the American South, this preferencefor a large number of trees in urban settings is climatic;trees play a vital role in providing much-needed sum-mer shade (see Figure 6.9). Europeans tend to distin-guish squares and plazas as ‘hardscape’ areas distinctfrom urban parks, which are green oases in the city.

It is not easy to imagine a public square in Arezzo, orthe Piazza Navona in Rome dotted with trees. In thesesituations, the edges of the buildings, lined with steps,arcades or outdoor cafés with umbrellas provide suffi-cient softening and scale to the formality and hardnessof the pedestrian environment (see Figure 6.10).

William H. Whyte’s classic analysis of The Social Lifeof Small Urban Spaces (1980) explains the basic princi-ples of plaza design with elegant simplicity. This slim


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Figure 6.8 Victoria Square, Birmingham, UK.Public art and fountains are integral elements of thisimportant and attractive and well-used publicsquare.

Figure 6.9 Urban square in Savannah, Georgia. Oneof twenty-one surviving squares from JamesOglethorpe’s original 1735 town plan, this delightfulmini-park epitomizes the urban shade generated bythe native evergreen live oak trees in the hot andhumid American South. The lush planting, however,was a Victorian development. Originally the squareswere hard surfaced for everyday urban uses,including drilling the town’s militia.

Figures 6.6 and 6.7 Ashburton ‘Bull Ring,’ Devon. These two views of the same urban space illustrate themarkedly different spatial character derived from open and closed views. The open view, on the left, pulls theviewer onwards, while the closed view, on the right, suggests a destination. The name ‘Bull Ring’ owes its originto the cruel practice of baiting bulls (and bears) during the medieval fairs held in this location.

6.6 6.7


volume is a massive indictment of blank walls, bareconcrete paving and barren open space and provides acompendium of good details about intimate scale, mul-tiple places to sit, and habitable edges as places to meetand watch the passing urban theater. Ultimately, thedesign of the edges of the space and its location aremore important than whether it has trees or not.

British attitudes to nature in the city, predictably,fall somewhere between the American and Europeanextremes. On the one hand, a public space likeCovent Garden (see Figure 6.11) follows continentalEuropean precedent – not surprisingly as Inigo Jonesdesigned it in 1631 based on an Italian model, thepiazza at Livorno. On the other hand, the greensquares of London, although originally hardscaped,now integrate nature into the city in a way that is farmore comfortable to American sensibilities (seeFigure 6.12).

Historically, American cities have included fewurban squares in their plans, although Philadelphiaand Savannah (see Figure 6.9) are two notable excep-tions. Whereas Italian cities, for example, are bestknown for their public piazzas, London by its tree-filled urban squares, the iconic American urbanspace, as we have noted before, is the street. Thecommercial typology is the classic ‘Main Street’ linedwith stores, wide sidewalks and on-street parking (seeFigure 6.13). Its residential equivalent is ‘Elm Street’(or a similar tree name) which can be found in the

older residential quarters of almost every Americantown (see Figure 6.14). This focus on streets as theprimary type of public space in America partlyexplains the emphasis on proper street design typicalof New Urbanism, for without a street design thatencourages and enhances walking in residentialneighborhoods and mixed-use commercial districts,


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Figure 6.11 Covent Garden, London, Inigo Jones1631; market buildings by Charles Fowler, 1832.This refurbished space is now the most European(and lively) of London’s public squares, witharcaded edges, 18-hour-a-day activity and acomplete lack of greenery (except for importedChristmas trees).

Figure 6.12 St. James’ Square, London. Although thishandsome square is now surrounded mainly bymodern offices and nineteenth-century residences,there are traces of some early dwellings built on thissite in the 1670s, and a couple of notable Georgiantown houses still remain. The square itself is a typicalLondon oasis, intimate, public and green.

Figure 6.10 Piazza Grande,Arezzo,Tuscany; Loggiaby Giorgio Vasari, 1511–74. Like many European plazas,the Piazza Grande functions as the urban living roomfor the community, the setting for informal gatheringand large communal events like the antique market.


few Smart Growth objectives can be achieved.Figure 10.13 illustrates a typical street design for acommercial street that balances pedestrian prioritywith car parking and circulation.

Building Façades

The second element in our design vocabulary is thedesign of the building façades that enclose and defineurban space to create the sensation of an outdoorroom. This is especially crucial at the ground floorpedestrian level. Here the entrances into the build-ings should be obvious and they should be accesseddirectly from the public space, be it a sidewalk alonga street or a plaza. The edges of an urban space shouldconsist wherever possible of active uses such as retail,cafés and restaurants and high-density housing withentrances directly off the public space, as illustratedin Figure 6.15. These uses provide the pedestriantraffic that energizes the space and renders it safe andattractive. Arcades and colonnades are especially use-ful design devices for the edges of public space. Theyprovide a sheltered intermediate zone that furtherprotects and enhances activities along the edges ofpublic spaces (see Figure 6.16).

For residential buildings, this intermediate zone isbest created by the use of porches or stoops, raisedsemi-public spaces that create a threshold betweenthe public realm of the street or square and the pri-vate realm of the home. These spaces (and the lowestresidential floors that they provide access to) shouldbe elevated at least three feet above the public areasoutside the dwelling where pedestrians walk close by(see Figure 6.17). This safeguards visual privacywithin the dwelling.


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Figure 6.14 Residential street in Dilworth,Charlotte,NC.Many streets in American ‘streetcar suburbs’devolved to slum conditions in the 1960s and 1970s as residents moved out to new houses in the new suburbs. Urban pioneers reclaimed theseolder neighborhoods during the late 1970s and bythe end of the 1990s houses on streets like thisexample were selling for several hundred thousanddollars as inner-city living became desirable once again. Pedestrian-friendly streets like this nowform one of the public space models for NewUrbanist designs.

Figure 6.15 Newberry Street, Boston. What were once the front gardens of mass-producedtown homes in this Boston neighborhood havebecome thriving places of recreation andcommerce, creating one of the most dynamic andenjoyable streets in North America. (Photo byAdrian Walters)

Figure 6.13 Main Street, Salisbury, NC. The iconicAmerican space of Main Street has declined instature and character since the 1950s with thedevelopment of suburban shopping centers.However, the renewed interest in urban living sincethe 1990s has stimulated downtown refurbishmentand two of these buildings (far left and far right) inthis small North Carolina town now boastapartments above active stores.


We always maintain that new buildings should bedesigned with close reference to their context. Thisdoes not mean a historicist approach, attaching his-torical elements like columns and pediments tobuilding façades in an attempt to ‘blend in,’ butrather one that is sensitive to the underlying rhythmsin the surrounding urban and natural conditions. Inpractice we have found it useful to examine thecityscape by means of 10 design elements that canreveal the orchestration of the context. Working inharmony with these contextual factors can establish adeeper level of visual connection between new build-ings and existing contexts than can ever be achievedby simply copying façade details. New projects donot necessarily have to address all 10 criteria, but theyshould rarely disrupt these contextual patterns.

The 10 design elements to look for in the context surrounding any new project in an urbanlocation are:

1. Building Silhouette: The pitch and scale ofrooflines [Figure 6.18. Mint Street housing].

2. Spacing between Building Façades: Gaps ornotches between primary façades [Figure 6.19.Dilworth Crescent].

3. Setback from the Property Line: Consistency ofspacing [Figure 6.20. Dilworth ‘Victorians’].

4. Proportion of Windows, Bays and Doorways:Vertical and horizontal integration of elementsacross façade [Figure 6.21. The Radcliffe].


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Figure 6.16 The Loggia, Piazza Grande, Arezzo.Arcades and colonnades provide a handsome andsheltered setting for casual dining and socialinteraction. These half-indoor, half-outdoor spacesare valuable urban design tools for creating livelyurban places.

Figure 6.17 Residential stoops at 400, North ChurchStreet, Charlotte, NC, FMK architects, 1997. The stepstumbling to the street from the elevated first floorapartments serve to connect the public and privaterealms, while the difference in level maintains thenecessary detachment for private living spaces. Theporches and steps provide visual interest to thestreetscape, while the ground floor walls maskprivate car parking.

Figure 6.18 Townhouses, Mint Street, Charlotte, NC,1998. The repetitive rooflines are dramatic, and bringa sense of appropriate scale to the row of houseswithout being fussy and over-ornamental.


5. Proportion of Solid to Void: Permeability offaçade created by the ratio of windows and doorsto solid walls [Figure 6.22. Atherton Heights].

6. Location and Treatment of Entryways: Rhythms,scale and spacing [Figure 6.23. 5th and Poplar].

7. Exterior Materials: Range of materials of adja-cent buildings [Figure 6.24. Hearst Plaza].

8. Building Scale: Compatible size and configura-tion [Figure 6.25. Infill housing, London].

9. Shadow Patterns: Visual interest created by pro-jections and setbacks [Figure 6.26. 400 N.Church Street].

10. Landscaping: Defines space and ties buildingstogether [Figure 6.27. Gateway Village plaza].

Large buildings create special problems for the urbandesigner, but if their massing and façades are handledproperly, buildings bigger than those in the surround-ing context can be successfully integrated into the townscape. The key is to break down the bulk ofthe new building into a composition of vertical andhorizontal elements. A rhythm of vertical bays isespecially useful in this regard. The design of build-ing façades usually means creating more verticalrhythms rather than horizontal ones, and articulatingthe façade vertically (by projecting or inset bays,design detail or color) creates the sense of humanscale we want in the streetscape – especially whenviewed in perspective (see Figure 6.28).


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Figure 6.20 Houses on Park Avenue, Dilworth,Charlotte, NC, late 1980s. These modernreproductions of Victorian houses fit into theneighborhood by maintaining a consistent setbackfrom the street.

Figure 6.21 Radcliffe on the Green, Charlotte, NC,FMK architects, 2002. This block of luxury downtownhousing above offices and restaurants createscomplex rhythms and relationships to integrate awide range of architectural elements across thefaçade.

Figure 6.19 Dilworth Crescent, Charlotte, NC, 1992.The setbacks between each townhouse effectivelyscreen garage doors from view and establish aseparate architectural identity for each house in theterrace.


Our work in practice has taught us that some kindof vertical articulation needs to happen approxi-mately every 60 feet along a façade to create thisdesired scale and human reference. The streetscapesin older towns and cities that so many people admirefor their urban character and beauty follow this pat-tern: they were usually constructed as a series of indi-vidual buildings on relatively narrow and deep lotsthat were similar in size, setting up a repetitiverhythm of entrances and building mass. The build-ings could differ in detailed respects but the ensemble


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Figure 6.24 Hearst Plaza,Charlotte city centre,ShookKelley architects,2003.This plaza has been inserted intothe existing city fabric as a new public urban space atthe foot of a large office tower.The walls of the newlow-rise buildings enclosing the space provide adynamic contrast with the older architecture withoutoverpowering the scale of the existing buildings.

Figure 6.25 Infill housing,Victoria, London.This infill housing from the late 1980s/early 1990smanages to insert a new, larger building into itscontext by carefully matching the ground floorproportions and cornice heights.

Figure 6.23 Fifth and Poplar apartments, Charlottecity centre, LS3P architects, 2003 The projectingentryways to the ground floor dwellings of thisperimeter block contrast with recessed balconies onthe floor above to create a lively street scene whileprotecting residential privacy.

Figure 6.22 Atherton Heights, Dilworth, Charlotte,NC, David Furman, architect, 1998. This low costhousing organizes the proportions of its façade bytying together different sized openings withpatterned brickwork on a predominantly solid wall.


was broadly harmonious in aggregate. This does notmean that designers should force a series of falsefaçades onto large buildings (far from it!) but that thebuilding wall should be carefully articulated. Thissense of balance between order and variation is moreeasily achieved through vertical proportions andrhythms than through horizontal, and even whenurban areas are built in large increments, like thesquares and terraces of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century London, the use of repetitive vertical porchesprojecting from a uniform façade serves to communi-cate scale and human presence (see Figure 6.29).

This London example offers a multitude of build-ing entrances, but in situations where entrances areless frequent, every attempt should be made to locatethem no further than 150 feet apart. This enablespedestrians to move in and out of the buildings atseveral points, thus generating the activity that helpsto energize an area, and also humanizes an otherwise


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Figure 6.27 Gateway Village, Charlotte, NC, DudaPaine architects; Cole Jenest and Stone, landscapearchitects, 2001–02. Innovative fountain andlandscape design enrich and unify the main publicspace between office buildings to right and left, andapartments in the distance.

Figure 6.28 Gateway Village / Trade Streetcondominiums, Charlotte, NC, David Furmanarchitect, 2001. The dominant vertical rhythms of thestreet façade are enhanced by the pedestrian’sperspective, giving a sense of urban compactionand activity. In the distance is the Bank of Americatower by Cesar Pelli (1992).

Figure 6.26 Urban housing, 400, North Church Street,Charlotte, NC, FMK architects, 1997. The repetitiverhythms of projections and recessions in this façadecreate multiple shadow patterns and sources ofvisual interest.


long and potentially bland façade. Figure 6.30 illus-trates how the designers of an apartment building inAtlanta have organized the entrances to acknowledgethe powerful rhythms of the older apartment houseacross the street. Note that we recommend subtlearticulations to create vertical rhythms. It is not nec-essary to push and pull the plan into fancy geome-tries to achieve this effect. In fact, the more simple

and regular the plan, the more effective are thesmaller scale design moves. Small scale elements suchas pilasters, cornices, string courses (a row of brickslaid vertically), lintels, projecting window sills,drainage pipes and awnings are all useful devices toachieve the necessary articulation (see Figure 6.31).

Controlling the Car

Despite all the good ideas and techniques discussedearlier, none of these efforts at placemaking will workeffectively if private cars dominate spaces used bypedestrians. In America, almost everybody dependson automobiles for almost every aspect of daily andfamily life, and while light rail transit is changingsome patterns of personal mobility, no developmentcan succeed in the marketplace if it doesn’t design forthe car. This is one major difference from Europeancities: in those locations, despite increasing use of carsin urban areas, large percentages of people still orga-nize their daily lives around convenient public tran-sit, and private cars are effectively banned from largeparts of towns and cities (see Figure 6.32). Two cities,London and Oslo, now charge motorists for usingthe streets of the city center, a controversial practicethat has worked far better than expected to reducecongestion. But in America the car still rules, and allurban design is constrained by designing facilities foraccommodating the private automobile. This meansdesigning the parking so that it is convenient butunobtrusive.


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Figure 6.30 Eleventh Street, Atlanta, Georgia. Withinthe constraints of cheap modern construction, thenew apartments on the left use projectingentrances, balconies, cornice lines and roofoverhangs to harmonize with the bold architectureof the 1920s apartments on the right-hand side ofthe street.

Figure 6.31 Gateway Village, Charlotte, NC, DudaPaine, architects, 2001, detail. The façade of thislarge office building is enriched by the subtle detailsof the brick and tile cladding, where smallprojections and recessions combine with changes ofmaterial to break down the surface into a complexgrid of regulating lines.

Figure 6.29 Nineteenth-century terrace inBelgravia, London. This view illustrates the power ofrepetition. Flat façades, so typical of nineteenth-century developers’ architecture, reduceconstruction costs, but their potential boredom isrelieved by the bold projection of entrance porches. Although identical, their vertical rhythmssatisfy the eye and break the terrace down intoidentifiable units.


There are two types of car parking – on-street andon site. From the 1950s through the 1980s, mostAmerican design and planning practice was based ontwo objectives: eliminating on-street parking as animpediment to free-flowing traffic, and creating oflarge car parks in front of buildings to maximize cus-tomer convenience. Parking lots were hugely over-sized for the convenience of one-time Christmascrowds; no consideration was given to the aestheticeffects of these huge areas of asphalt, or to their envi-ronmental consequences of polluted surface waterrun-off into streams, or of their complete obliterationof any environmental qualities that were pleasant tothe pedestrian (see Figure 6.33).

It wasn’t until the 1990s that New Urbanismoffered Americans the opportunity to relearn whatmost Europeans in their older, more compact citiesnever quite forgot (although there are plenty of casesin Britain and elsewhere of selective amnesia, wherecar-dominated planning oppresses the pedestrian).The best urban places are structured around humanbeings, not their cars, and while vehicle access andparking should be ample and convenient, the mostattractive and prosperous places in urban America arenow those where cars on site are subservient to pedes-trians. Car parking is still an essential componenthowever; only in the densest of American cities like

Boston and New York where there is good publictransit, is it feasible to build developments withoutintegral parking. Elsewhere, in lower density cities,we are always working out the car parking plan whilepursuing our townscape aims and larger urban designobjectives for any particular development.

In conventional suburbia, each separate userequires its own parking provision. When drivingand parking patterns are analyzed, figures show ittakes five parking spaces to accommodate each vehiclein a community on a daily basis. There is one athome, one at work, and three others scattered aroundat stores, health clubs, at the doctor’s office, parks,schools, churches and so forth. This means that eachcar requires 1600 square feet (148.6 square meters) ofconcrete or asphalt just for parking (Schmitz: p. 18).It is imperative to reduce this figure, by sharing park-ing between uses, by linking parking lots within theblock for easier access, and by providing on-streetparking.

We try to provide on-street parking in every possiblelocation. This doesn’t do a whole lot to solve the numer-ical problems of the parking requirements, but carsparked along streets provide protection for the pedes-trian from moving traffic. They slow down the speed ofvehicles and, importantly, they signify activity. Peopleare parked there for a reason, popping into to the store,


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Figure 6.32 Town center, Kingston-upon-Thames,London. Many European cities have pedestrianizedtheir main shopping streets to great effect, whereasAmerican efforts to do the same have failedmiserably. The key factor is the availability of efficientpublic transit, used by all socio-economic groups,that reduces the need for every trip to be taken inprivate automobiles.

Figure 6.33 Parking lot, South Boulevard, Charlotte,NC. The standard American formula of large parkinglots in front of stores created spaces for cars butnowhere that a normal human being could ever findhospitable. When the retail businesses fail, there is noother reason to be in these spaces, and the cycle ofdecline increases.


going to a meeting in the office or visiting friends. Thepotential availability of finding on-street parking in adevelopment is a vital psychological factor in the suc-cess of street level retail space. All drivers hope that theyare going to be lucky and slip into a spot just as it opensup. For the majority who are unsuccessful in this quest,off-street parking must be immediately and easily acces-sible from the street but at the same time screened bybuildings (see Figure 10.12). Nothing harms pedestrianstreet life more than having to walk directly past largeparking lots or parking decks. Car parks and parkingdecks should ideally be placed in the interior of theblock, but if a deck has a street frontage, the groundlevel should include retail or office spaces to promotepedestrian use. Any street façade of a parking deckshould always be clad in high quality materials andgiven some proportional articulation – usually verticalbays – to fit into the rhythm of the streetscape (seeFigure 6.34).

While designing for adequate and convenientparking is an almost universal preoccupation, it’s noexaggeration to say that in America, the parkingprovision drives the design. The other complicationis the cost of parking structures. In American terms, asurface level parking space costs about $1000–$1500at 2003 prices. The equivalent space in a deck costsbetween $10 000 and 15 000, and in an under-ground structure over $20 000. These costs provide

another reason to reduce parking areas by sharingspaces between uses. Ideally, customers or workersshould arrive by car, park once, and then be able toreach their other destinations in the area on foot orby transit within a walkable, mixed-use environment.In this way, separate parking spaces for each differentuse are replaced by one or two centralized facilities.

Even with these economies, parking costs are hardfor most developments to bear, and the developmenteconomics of high-density, mixed-use infill schemesare often balanced on a knife-edge if there is no pub-lic financing as part of the deal. The climate ofAmerican political and public opinion often makes itdifficult for a city to inject public tax dollars into adevelopment project for facilities such as parkingstructures. This is often viewed by politicians and thepublic as an unnecessary subsidy to private compa-nies, and a negative sign that ‘the market’ won’t sup-port such a development in its ‘pure,’ private form.

Public funding of major downtown developmentssuch as sports stadiums and museums is increasinglycommon in American cities, but these blockbusterprojects often have more to do with a city’s image-making agenda rather than a truly Smart Growthvision. There is some residual reluctance on the partof many US cities to initiate or partner in more pro-gressive development, such as high-density mixed-use developments – despite the desire offorward-looking sectors of the private developmentindustry for such partnerships. This hesitancy meansthat American cities are not as proactive as theirEuropean counterparts in directing growth in waysthat suit their long-term interests, preferring to allowcity form to follow market forces. This factor, and itsconsequent result of ad hoc sprawl, remain two ofthe more structural differences between Americanand European urbanism.

In this confusing and fluctuating American politi-cal context, the opportunities for design and plan-ning professionals to have profound influence on theform of communities are limited. For this reason it’sall the more important to pursue Smart Growthobjectives with a sharpened sense of urban designthat can promote three-dimensional thinking. Just asimportant as these objectives are the means of achiev-ing them, and in practice we have found the charretteprocess by far the best method of providing a vigor-ous democratic forum for the production of detailedmaster plans and implementation strategies. There-fore, before presenting the case studies, we describethe concept of the urban design master plan and ourcharrette process in some detail.


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Figure 6.34 Seventh Street parking deck, Charlotte,NC. This parking deck, located on a new light rail linethrough the city center, features a grocery store andtwo restaurants on its lower floor. Its walls areenlivened by public art.


MASTER PLANS AND MASTER-PLANNING: THE CHARRETTE PROCESS

The urban design and Smart Growth planning con-cepts described earlier are most usefully broughttogether by the creation of ‘urbanistic’ master plansthat focus on three-dimensional urban form instead oftwo-dimensional plan diagrams that indicate land useonly. This is one of the key messages of the wholebook: three dimensions are better than two. These plansare public documents that must be understood easily.Clear and attractive graphics that deal with form andspace as well as use facilitate the production of theplans and their implementation (see Plates 10 and 11).Moreover, this three-dimensional infrastructure ofform and space allows long-term flexibility of use andoperation; it maps out the physical future of the com-munity in ways that enable change to be monitoredeffectively over time.

A strong urban form – a robust and connected pat-tern of public and private spaces defined by coherentbuilding masses – can provide an armature for resolv-ing many potentially conflicting concerns of commu-nity design. These issues include the impacts ofchanges in technology, social structures, economics,uses, architectural styles, and development practices.The detail study inherent in the kind of urban designmaster plans illustrated in Plate 11 establishes thephysical framework for growth and change, and aguide for public policy and investment strategies.This practice is reinforced when the master plan andits detail design vignettes are encoded by means of aregulating plan, a design-based zoning ordinance,urban design guidelines or general developmentguidelines.

The reason for encoding detailed communitydesign proposals into regulatory form allows commu-nities to mediate potentially major changes in pat-terns of use within an urban framework of buildingforms and spaces that is clear and communallyunderstood. In particular, the design-based zoningcodes ensure a typological fit between the new build-ings and spaces and the existing urban fabric. Thisallows for more continuous and less disruptivepatterns of human occupation; new buildings, andconversions of old ones, are subject to physical stan-dards of scale and arrangement that are clearlydepicted.

The master plan therefore provides a detailedvision of the conceptual ‘build-out’ of the plan areaunder the relevant market conditions. The plan, likethe one illustrated in Plate 21, lays out major roads,

public squares and parks, local streets and greenways;it sets out the infrastructure of public transit; it plansresidential subdivisions by drawing all the individualhouse lots; it locates all major buildings, and itdefines areas for environmental protection or land-scape conservation. In our practice we do this on verylarge colored drawings, often larger than 6 feet(2 meters) square, combined with perspective views,dimensioned sections through streets, and any otherspecific details that might be appropriate to each planarea (see Plate 12). We work this way even on large-scale regional projects, (for example, the 60 squaremile area described in the first case study inChapter 7). At this scale this level of detail is necessarily illustrative of key development types andprojects rather than comprehensive.

We know that no master plan we produce duringa charrette will ever be built exactly as we suggest,even though our recommendations are always basedon developmental realities. However, we specificallywork at this level of detail for three reasons:

● First, clear, detailed design of specific places estab-lishes a lucid pictorial image of the proposals muchmore effectively than any two-dimensional coloredmap of generic land uses can ever do. The extra lev-els of specific information enable the communityto understand what is being proposed and to sharethe vision more easily.

● Second, the projection of the future at this level ofdetail enables the community to handle future alter-natives and changes in a realistic and rational man-ner. The impact of new buildings and patterns of usecan be evaluated visually in three dimensions to sup-plement and modify conventional planning abstrac-tions of traffic flow and trip generation statistics.

● Third, we design the master plan area in detail tosee what makes sense under various scenarios, andgenerally select one set of proposals as the mostappropriate for our final recommendations. We dohowever, often include alternative design and devel-opment proposals for important or controversialsites as noted in the second case study in Chapter 8.

Accordingly, the urban design master plan works outand illustrates this high level of detail not to establishthe exact template for future development, but to putfirmly in place the potential character of new build-ings and spaces, with clear guidelines for the futureimplementation, and variation, of the plan by others.Changes are much easier to deal with if there is ayardstick against which to measure new alternatives.Clear plans, three-dimensional illustrations and


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graphic zoning regulations provide this clear standardfor comparison and judgment much more effectivelythan the conventional method of abstract plans andlegal language.

Hand-in-hand with the detailed master plan go thevarious sets of regulating documents. These most usu-ally comprise a Regulating Plan – a diagram of zoningclassifications derived from the master plan detail, and aZoning Code specific to the plan area under study thatwill enable the plan’s recommendations to be imple-mented with consistency and predictability. The code,samples of which are included in Appendix III, and dis-cussed in detail in Chapter 10, sets out in graphic detailthe legally enforceable design and development stan-dards. British readers will recall the discussion inChapter 5 about this disconnection in conventionalAmerican planning between creating a community planand not changing the existing zoning to comply withthe new plan. This fusion of the master plan and zoningcodes derived from the design concepts of the plan isspecifically intended to bridge this American gapbetween plan formulation and development control.

The product of our charrettes thus always includesspecific new zoning regulations, urban design guide-lines or development guidelines to ensure that newdevelopment complies with the plan. These docu-ments are described schematically at the end of thecharrette, and worked up into fully detailed docu-ments in the subsequent weeks. So far, over a periodof several years, no public body has declined the newzoning provisions or guidelines as part of the overallplan. We believe this is partly because the visual detailof the master plan enables local elected officials tounderstand more fully the implications of the pro-posal, and thus feel more comfortable than usualabout changing the zoning classification on privateproperty. The local officials also know that the own-ers of property in contentious or difficult locationshave usually been sought out during the charretteprocess to participate in the discussions about thefuture of their land and their community.

At the level below the legally enforceable RegulatingPlan and Zoning Code come the advisory UrbanDesign Guidelines that establish the specific levels ofdesign deemed appropriate for the community. Thesecover a wide range of matters concerning the function-ality and aesthetic character of the shared public realm,and can be broken down into four main categories:

1. The Criteria for Mixed-Use Centers. These definethe content of mixed-use centers at various scalesand relate them to their urban context.

2. Site Design Issues. These comprise the placementand arrangement of buildings to define andenclose public space; the relationship of newbuildings to their context; vehicle circulation,parking provision and preferred layouts; the inte-gration of public transit, pedestrian and bicycleamenities; techniques for environmental protec-tion; and provisions for public art.

3. Street Design Standards. These include functionalcross sections for a pedestrian-friendly connectedstreet network and principles of proportion forappropriate spatial enclosure.

4. Building Design Recommendations. This sectiondiscusses building massing, scale, façade treat-ment, the relationship of buildings to publicstreets, the placement and character of buildingentrances and the organization of service functionssuch as deliveries and rubbish collection. Some ofthese guiding principles – 10 elements of contex-tual design, for example – were discussed and illus-trated earlier in this chapter, and serve to illustratean important point. The design guidelines do notmandate building style; they concentrate on princi-ples and techniques derived from good practice.

These guidelines are advisory only, but they’respecific in their articulation of good practice to befollowed. As in Britain, they are used by Americanplanners to lead developers and their architects,engineers and surveyors toward the communallyagreed standards of community design.

At a more general level, Development Guidelines areintended, as the name suggests, to guide the develop-ment of property according to standards of good prac-tice for Smart Growth. Development guidelines areeven less prescriptive than urban design guidelines, butthey do define the key typologies that are the buildingblocks of the master plan and illustrate criteria andrecommendations for good sustainable design practice.

These factors comprise:

1. The different typologies of neighborhoods anddistricts within the plan area, for example, tradi-tional neighborhoods, employment districts andvarious scales of mixed-use centers. These providemodels of walkable developments that can defineand reinforce a sense of place within a community.

2. Typologies of open space, from undisturbedstream buffers and watersheds to urban parks andplazas. These open space guidelines aim to protectthe natural habitat and to improve the humanhabitat with spaces that satisfy the daily needs ofsocial interaction.


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3. Criteria for a sustainable transportation network.These include a connectivity index, to ensure ade-quate street connections in every neighborhood,general street design principles and the integra-tion of public transit. Also very important is thedelineation of regional connectors and corridors,which can range from highways, boulevards, andrail lines to rivers, parkways and greenways.

4. Recommendations for site and building design.This section covers some of the same ground as theUrban Design Guidelines, having to do with designelements that promote contextual site planning andarchitectural design. Our two basic premises arethat all buildings should reinforce a sense of place;and the preservation and renewal of historic build-ings, districts and landscapes affirms the continuityand evolution of civic life. A third topic forAmerican practice is that buildings should complywith the current US Green Building Council’sLEED (Leadership in Energy and EnvironmentalDesign) standard for reduced energy use.

Typical extracts from our General DevelopmentGuidelines and Urban Design Guidelines areincluded as Appendices IV and V, respectively. Bothsets of guidelines establish a clear framework thatassists designers and developers to understandthe goals and criteria of public policy, and to enablethe decisions of elected and officials and city staff tobe consistent for different projects. We structure theprovisions and the wording specifically to influencefuture zoning codes; much of the text of the guide-lines uses ‘suggestive’ language such as ‘should and‘may,’ but this terminology can easily be replacedwith ‘required’ language such as ‘shall’ and ‘must.’

We write these standards and guidelines to com-plement the master plans, and to guide developmentas it may extend beyond the original scope and time-frame of the plan itself. The guidelines are detailedbecause the master plan is detailed, and for one fur-ther reason: buildings often outlive their originaluses. An old industrial structure, for example, canbecome new offices, shops and restaurants, live–workunits or trendy apartments, and the blending of oldand new adds to the character of the building and theneighborhood. Buildings are more stable benchmarksof community and catalysts of urban quality than thetransient uses that fill them. Therefore we place moreemphasis on getting the arrangement of buildingsand spaces right rather than fixing the patterns of useby geographic location. What we deem a suitable useat the present time may, and probably will change

over the next decade or two. In this situation of flux,we want to create a physical environment that willhandle change and retain its basic quality beyond thenext investment cycle of five to ten years.

To this end, most buildings in a neighborhood ordistrict will be ‘background’ buildings, providing thebackdrop to public life rather than seizing centerstage for themselves. We know from experience thatdesigning ‘backdrop’ buildings is every bit as diffi-cult, and satisfying, as creating landmark structures,but the mythology of the architect as form-givinghero is hard to overcome. In the absence of enlight-ened design humility from architects, urban designregulations are a necessary fact of life.

Within this regulatory framework, architecturalinvention is welcomed at the level of detail, but theoverall form and massing of buildings should complywith the specifics of the community guidelines (seeFigure 5.10). The only exceptions to this premise arespecial civic and community buildings, like churches,town halls and museums. Here architectural inven-tion can have a free rein; if there are enough compe-tent background buildings to establish a coherentcontext, the occasional bold and innovative structurefor a special purpose can become a defining landmarkin the community. Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museumin Berlin is a case in point.

However, idiosyncratic buildings should still respectthe public spaces within which they sit, for ultimatelythe quality and integrity of public space are moreimportant than any individual building. Whileunique, innovative and eccentric structures canenhance a neighborhood, these need to be in theminority, counterpoints to the general continuum ofthe urban fabric. We have found from experiencethat it’s usually the less talented architects that com-plain the loudest about restrictions on their ‘designfreedom.’ We have no doubt that the best architectscan interpret our regulations creatively, while wehope to stop the worst from foisting their poordesigns on the public realm.

Charrettes

These master plans and their subsequent codes andguidelines are produced most effectively using thecharrette format – intensive design workshops usu-ally lasting four, six or eight days. The term ‘charrette’is derived from the French word for the ‘little cart’used to collect the final architectural drawingsprepared by students at the nineteenth centuryParisian École des Beaux Arts. The students worked


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in different locations around the city, usually in theateliers of their professors, and when they heard thesound of the little cart’s iron-rimmed wheels echoingon the cobblestone streets, they knew their designtime was almost up. The sound and the imminentarrival of the cart induced frantic, last-minute effortsby the students to complete the drawings. The termhas since evolved to mean any fast-paced designactivity which is brought to a conclusion at a fixedtime.

But a word of warning! The term ‘charrette’ is mis-used extensively by planners who tend to call allmanner of public meetings, even those of only a fewhours duration, a ‘charrette’. A true charrette, bycontrast, lasts at least a few days, and is defined byreaching a definite conclusion, marked by the pro-duction of a complete set of drawings. The charrettesthat produced all but two of the case studies, lastedbetween four and eight days. This emphasis on theproduction of definitive detail drawings in a shorttimeframe also distinguishes our charrette processfrom the British Action Planning format described insuch excellent publications as The CommunityPlanning Handbook (Wates, 2000). The way we organ-ize a charrette shares some characteristics of the‘Design Fest’ described by Wates, but we structurethe event to include aspects of several other methodsoutlined as alternative and parallel activities underthe British model.

The concentrated focus and definitive end productof a true charrette is invaluable, and provides a muchbetter method than the slow drip feed of communitymeetings once a week for several months. Theselengthy enterprises, though worthy, drag the processout, lose momentum and end up being a burden on allinvolved. By contrast, an eight- or nine-person designteam, working 12–14 hours a day for four days, canrack up the equivalent man-hours for one single plan-ner laboring on the problem all day, every day for threemonths. And the brainpower increases exponentially!

With this level of intensity, and by working out indesign detail the most awkward and hotly debatedproblems, we get as close as we can to common agree-ment about contentious issues. But not everyone isgoing to be happy. Our aim is not necessarily consen-sus; in every development or redevelopment scenariothere are going to be some winners and some losers.Our main objective is always to minimize the disad-vantages to individuals and groups within the com-munity while capitalizing on the potential for overallcivic improvement. Therefore one of the main fea-tures of the charrette process, as we illustrate further

in Chapters 7–11, is the synchronous process ofdebate, design and demonstration.

The charrette also has an important educationalfunction in this regard. Many revered urban placesacross the western world were created by order of aking, duke, Pope or some other autocratic ruler.Creating good design in a democracy is much harder,for while everybody’s opinion is valued, not all citi-zens may be equally informed, or fully understandthe true circumstances concerning a community. Theopen forum of the charrette, with all its drawings andplans, provides a good, condensed learning opportu-nity for citizens about important issues affecting theircommunity.

Our case studies illustrate what is achievable byusing design charrettes to stimulate public involve-ment, and we would restate our conviction thatdemocratic debate is vital in all types of designprocesses about making urban places. Design done insecret, carried out behind closed doors by expertswho are happy in their conviction that they knowbest, has proved a recipe for much bad urbanism,from ubiquitous and faceless urban renewal schemesin cities worldwide to London’s high-profile CanaryWharf in the Isle of Dogs (see Figure 5.3). In ourprocess, the only work not carried out in public arethose tasks required as preparation for a charrette,such as economic analyses of existing developmentand statistical projections about future growth, anenvironmental analysis of a fragile area of landscape,or the collation of demographic data. Before we start,our charrette team also works with each municipalityto produce full and accurate mapping of the area to alarge scale, showing all roads and streets, large andsmall structures, topography, tree mass, and propertyboundaries.

Even when being fully committed to public partici-pation, it’s easy to overly romanticize the positiverole of the public in these processes. In our experi-ence, several people come to these public events tocomplain, and in a few extreme cases to stop theprocess from even taking place. These folk are fromthe ranks of the NIMBYs and BANANAs (BuildAbsolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything)brigades; they come to talk, not to listen and least ofall to hear. Many have made up their mind aboutissues usually on the basis of half-truths, myths anddownright falsehoods circulating about the particu-lar project in question. Often public opinion is indirect opposition to good planning and design sense,and we work to overcome these obstacles ofignorance.


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Several key Smart Growth principles are almostguaranteed to generate opposition from communitygroups and neighborhood associations. As we havenoted earlier, these usually involve higher-densitymixed-use and infill developments that introducenew buildings, new residents and visitors into anexisting neighborhood. Citizen groups often pay lipservice to such Smart Growth ideas in general, butmaintain that they’re not right for their particulararea. It’s a well-known paradox in American socialattitudes that citizens complain loudly against sprawland the loss of open space, and equally loudly aboutthe higher-density development that is the mosteffective solution to the problem (see Plate 9).

Nevertheless, a good professional must strive togarner public input, and as noted earlier, a lot of thiswork involves public education. The best way to edu-cate the public is in public – to allow them to see thedesign process in action, and learn how variables arebalanced, priorities assessed, and the various criteriaestablished. Our working method allows the publicto watch us at work, and to give daily, even hourlyfeedback on the ideas taking shape. At its best, thefloodlight of public design dialogue can illuminatemany murky corners of private prejudice and misun-derstanding, and provide opportunities for a morehonest and productive debate. In the majority ofinstances some accord can be reached, but we’venever been able to please all participants.

But we try, and to this end we have four guidingprinciples for every charrette.

1. Involve everyone from the start.2. Work concurrently and cross-functionally.3. Work in short feedback loops.4. Work in detail.

First, we get all the points of view into the open forvigorous discussion so that elected officials, planningand design professionals and concerned citizens canunderstand the full scope of the problem. Anyonewho might have an opinion or be affected by the planshould be involved from the very beginning. Wearrange specific consultation times with variousstakeholder groups, while design activity is runningconstantly in the background, accessible to all on theother side of the room. By making people roll uptheir sleeves and work with the design team, theprocess gains mutual authorship and benefits from ashared vision.

Second, we operate with a multi-disciplinarydesign team that usually includes architects, urbandesigners, planners, landscape architects, traffic plan-

ners, and real estate experts. Sometimes we add otherenvironmental specialists if the task demands it, andwe particularly welcome the advice of local artists,who often have a unique perspective to contribute.During the charrette all these specialists become gen-eralists, assimilating each other’s expertise and work-ing across professional boundaries on problems andopportunities that arise as the charrette progresses.

Third, we work quickly, getting tentative solutionsto problems pinned up on the wall for discussion assoon as possible, often after only a few hours.Members of the public need to be able to proposeideas and see them designed briskly for their reviewand comment by others. We hold pin-up sessionsevery evening to gather public input on the preferreddirection(s) for development based upon what weheard during the day.

Fourth, working in detail has all the advantageswe’ve mentioned previously. Only by designing to alevel of detail that includes building types, urbanblocks and public spaces as well as the big pictureissues of circulation, transportation land use, land-scape preservation and other major public ameni-ties can opportunities be revealed and fatal flawsreduced or eliminated. This level of detail is achiev-able in the compressed timeframe because of ourtypological framework. We bring with us to theprocess development and spatial typologies that webelieve have very wide applicability. This generalbase of information enables us to move quicklyinto site specific detail. We introduced the fourtypological categories earlier in Chapter 4: they areTraditional Neighborhoods, Mixed-Use Centers,Districts and Corridors.

Traditional Neighborhoods

The traditional neighborhoods typology comprises acompact residential area with a variety of housingtypes and some supporting service and civic uses likesmall shops, libraries and churches. It is designed toaccommodate pedestrians and public transit as wellas travel by car, and like most New Urbanist design-ers, and New York sociologist Clarence Perry beforeus, we base the size of neighborhoods on the 1/4-milemeasurement as the distance the typical adult canwalk from center to edge in approximately five min-utes. Completing the circle with this radius creates anarea of approximately 125 acres (50 hectares) andcomprises about 1000 homes at an average density of8 dwellings per acre (52 persons per hectare). Thisfigure anticipates a range of dwelling types from


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some single-family houses on medium-sized lots(1/3-acre), a larger proportion of single-familydwellings on smaller lots (1/4–1/8-acre), plus town-homes and apartments, and computes to an averagepopulation of about 2600 residents. These are densi-ties similar to those of typical European cities notedin Chapter 5, and thus mark a significant break withcurrent American practice. Figures 3.2 and 3.3 illus-trate the typologically similar neighborhood designconcepts of Clarence Perry from the 1920s andDuany and Plater-Zyberk from the 1990s, and it’sinteresting to note that Perry envisioned 5000 resi-dents living in his neighborhood, nearly twice asmany as our contemporary total.

However, this increase in density is not such aradical shift as it might first appear. As twenty-firstcentury demographics in the USA move rapidlytowards more, smaller households, developers’ organ-izations expect the demand for homes on smaller lotsto increase. Surveys of American homebuyers haveindicated that residents are as satisfied with housingin developments averaging six or seven units per acre(39–45 persons per hectare) as they are with densitiesof three or four dwellings per acre (19–26 personsper hectare) if the smaller lots are balanced bygood amenities and public spaces (Ewing, inSchmitz: p. 11).

Smaller lot size also helps in the important questfor dwellings that are more affordable not only tolower paid workers but also to the middle class, whoare increasingly being priced out of markets in severalparts of America. In some parts of California,for example, the average cost of a new home is

$500 000 (!) and only 27 percent of Californianscan afford a median-priced home (O’Connell andJohnson: p. 32).

Studies of housing affordability across the USAhave shown how market-rate housing stimulatescommercial and service sector employment as retail,offices and other urban services follow rooftops, andthese new commercial enterprises offer jobs which, inpart, are filled by workers from low and moderateincome households. In other words, the wealthiermiddle classes need working-class people to servicetheir needs. Ensuring adequate workforce housing inthe right place – to avoid long trips between homeand workplace – requires special effort, and closecooperation between communities and specializeddevelopers. It’s one of our bedrock principles that acomplete community encompasses a variety ofhousehold types at various levels of income. Planningnew development to include such less expensivehousing from the outset will enhance the ability ofpublic and non-profit agencies to provide such hous-ing at an orderly and necessary pace, and decentaffordable housing can enhance the livability andprofitability of market-rate housing in the commu-nity (see Figure 6.35). We recommend that between10 and 15 percent of all new housing in neighbor-hoods should be affordable under the criteria ofthe US Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment, that is, it’s accessible to people earning80 percent of the national median income. As incen-tives to developers to construct this housing, we fur-ther recommend that the ‘affordable’ units not becounted in the density calculations for the project,


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Figure 6.35 Affordable housing, Davidson,NC, John Burgess, architect, 2000. Allaffordable housing should utilize the samearchitectural styles and attention to detail astypical market-rate housing in the sameneighborhood.


effectively providing the developer with a substantialdensity bonus.

In the USA there is often pressure from existingcommunities to lower densities and include a greaterproportion of larger lot single-family homes, on themistaken belief that higher densities bring crime andother problems. However, if one accedes to this pres-sure, the critical advantage of having enough peoplein a walkable area to support local services like smallbusinesses and public transit is lost, and social equityis sacrificed on the altar of prejudice. Pursuing lowerdensities at the expense of community services anddiversity of housing opportunities quickly ends upwith developments that are simply another versionof sprawl. No structural environmental or socio-economic problems are solved. One of the advantagesof the charrette process is that several of these doubtsand fears about density can be quelled by illustratingthe design detail of such new developments.

Developments larger than 125 acres (50 hectares)should be divided into separate, walkable neighbor-hoods interconnected by a street network that bal-ances the needs of the automobile, the transit rider,the bicyclist and the pedestrian. This connectivity isessential for improved access, and neighborhoodsshould eventually form contiguous developmentrather than separated pods. In this way facilities canbe more easily shared, spreading value among adja-cent neighborhoods, reducing traffic on arterialroads, and lessening the pressure for continual widen-ing. As these neighborhoods cohere, they create thenew structure of towns and villages (see Figure 6.36).Natural landscapes should also be extended throughadjacent developments, creating linear habitats forwildlife, and protecting scenic features and views forthe benefit of many people.

To this end, each neighborhood should contain aminimum of 10 percent open space and possibly asmuch as 50 percent if circumstances permit. Thislatter figure is particularly appropriate in areas oflandscape beauty or environmental sensitivity, whereopen land can be permanently preserved by means ofconservation easements (with potential tax advan-tages) or dedicated public open space as shown inFigure 2.16. Some additional details about neighbor-hood design are included in the first case studyillustrated in Chapter 7.

Mixed-Use Centers

Mixed-Use Centers are areas of concentrated activityinvolving multiple uses – living, working, learning,

playing, eating, shopping and so on. – designed toaccommodate pedestrians and transit use in additionto auto travel. Centers can be of several differentscales from high urban in the central city to rural inoutlying areas, but the three most usual scales outsidethe urban core are: urban village center, neighborhoodcenter and rural village center. (It seems nearly everydevelopment type has to have the term ‘village’appended to it in the early years of the twenty-firstcentury. In America the word is often used to attach aromantic gloss to urban development and to amelio-rate consumer concerns about the density and urban-ity of high-intensity mixed-use development. Thereare few precedents for using the more European termof ‘quarter.’ ‘Urban village’ is something of an oxy-moron, but it’s become the accepted term in develop-ment parlance, so we’ll accept it and move on!)

Urban Village Centers Urban Village Centers aremixed-use activity centers scaled to serve a trade areawith a radius between five to fifteen miles. Thisarea comprises 50–75 residential neighborhoods, or40 000–60 000 homes using a slightly lower averagedensity figure of 800 homes per neighborhood forconventional suburbia rather than the figure of 1000 for New Urbanist traditional neighborhoods.


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1/4 m

ile

Figure 6.36 Traditional neighborhood combinationdiagram. Each neighborhood can combine to forma larger structure of streets and open spaces.Individual site characteristics will engender localvariations within this unified structure. (Drawingcourtesy of Duany Plater-Zyberk and Company).


Typically they have a core area between 30 acres(12 hectares) and 125 acres (50 hectares). Thirtyacres approximates to the area contained within a1/8-mile walking radius, and 125 acres fits inside acircle with 1/4-mile radius. These centers includeretail or other commercial uses totalling between 150 000–300 000 square feet (13 940–27 820 squaremeters), and shopfronts are built to the street withoffices or apartments above. Parking is provided on-street and behind the buildings, possibly in decksin larger developments. Residential densities arenormally between 7–50 dwellings per acre (45–325persons per hectare) except in transit-oriented centerswhere the minimum density should be 16 dwellingsper acre (104 persons per hectare). Urban open spaceshould be designed as ‘urban rooms’ – squares, greensor small parks – with their edges defined by build-ings. The oft-cited Birkdale Village in Huntersville(see Plates 4, 5, 6 and 7) illustrates a prototypicalurban village at this scale.

Neighborhood Centers Neighborhood Centers aremixed-use activity centers scaled to serve a trade areawith a radius less than three miles. The core area istypically between 8 and 30 acres (3–12 hectares) anda retail component is sized between 15 000-150 000square meter (1394–13 940 square meters). Smallerneighborhood centers typically offer ‘convenience’scale retail shops with no large anchor tenants, and

require a minimum of four to five neighborhoods(about 3200–4000 homes at the slightly lower den-sity figure) for viable support. Larger neighborhoodcenters typically include a full-service supermarket orgrocery store and serve no less than six neighborhoods(roughly 4800 homes). Parking is provided on-streetand behind the buildings, usually in surface car parks.As with the larger centers, residential densities arenormally between 7 and 50 dwellings per acre(45–325 persons per hectare) except in transit-ori-ented centers where the minimum density shouldagain be 16 dwellings per acre (104 persons perhectare). Urban open space, as always, should bedesigned as ‘urban rooms’ – squares, greens or smallparks – with their edges defined by buildings. Whilevertical mixed-use (offices or housing over retail) isencouraged, it is likely that the different uses in aneighborhood center will be mixed horizontally, thatis, located on adjacent parcels of land within thedevelopment. Figure 6.37 illustrates a typical small-scale urban village.

Rural Village Centers Rural Village Centers comprisemixed-use activity centers in rural settings, consistingof scattered, small buildings – typically less than6000 square feet (557 square meters) each – withretail and other commercial components totaling notmore than 25 000 square feet (2323 square meters).The buildings, like those illustrated in Plate 13, aremost usefully clustered around a central publicspace or prominent intersection to create a focus forcommunity events such as a farmers market. Thisspace should be informal in layout and generally notexceed one acre in size. If appropriate, new housingat between two to six dwellings per acre (13–39 per-sons per hectare) should be constructed in the vicin-ity of rural village centers.

Districts

Districts generally comprise a special, single use likelarge industrial facilities and airports, which, becauseof their technical requirements and impacts, muststand apart from the urban fabric. They shouldhowever be connected to the network of other cityelements. This category also includes large officeand research campuses, which may evolve over timeinto more pedestrian-friendly setting. The NorthCarolina State Centennial Campus in Raleigh (seeFigure 6.38) shows how this might be achieved.

To achieve this greater integration into a walkableand transit-supportive environment, offices and light


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Figure 6.37 Rosedale Commons, Huntersville, NC.This lower density development mixes useshorizontally in adjacent buildings rather thanvertically within the same structure. Although notideal, this kind of development is easier to build andfinance than the more complex vertical mixing ofuses. To function properly, the various uses – housing,offices and shops – must be linked together bypedestrian-friendly streets and urban spaces.


industrial buildings should be placed close to thepublic street, or at a minimum, they should reducethe amount of parking in front of the primaryentrance. Figure 6.39 depicts a transit-supportivearrangement of large office buildings that achievesthis goal and creates a formal pedestrian plazaentrance to the buildings. New buildings should bedesigned with pedestrian-friendly building façades(even for light industrial buildings, there is usually anoffice area that can accomplish this goal) and pedes-trian entrances should be easily visible and accessiblefrom the street and potential future transit stops. Inaddition, buildings should be aligned on a networkof streets that include sidewalks and street trees.Where practical, other uses should be planned atstreet intersections to define these spaces and createpedestrian destinations in these locations.

Corridors

Corridors are regional connectors of neighborhoods,centers and districts: they range from freeways,boulevards and rail lines to streams and greenways,and the character and location of these corridors isdetermined by the intensities of their use. Freewaysand busy freight rail corridors should remain tangen-tial to neighborhoods and towns; at the local levelthey are barriers, not connectors. Light rail and buscorridors can be incorporated into boulevards at theedges of neighborhoods or provide access to the cen-

ter of neighborhoods at pedestrian-friendly stops.Watercourses can function as boundaries for citiesand towns, and streams can enter and connect neigh-borhoods through greenways.

During charrettes, these four typologies – tradi-tional neighborhoods, mixed-use centers, districts,and corridors – form the basis of many detaileddesign decisions. Using them, we can quickly evalu-ate alternatives, and at the end of the charretteprocess, we can demonstrate the advantages of thepreferred design by clearly communicating its pur-pose, content and appearance to the audience by ref-erence not only to our drawings, but photographs ofother examples of the relevant typologies. To seethese ideas manifest in buildings and developmentsalready completed is a very persuasive argument, par-ticularly for elected officials whose job it will be toimplement the plan’s recommendations, sometimesin the face of citizen opposition. We maintain amassive digital image bank for this purpose.

All the drawings from the charrette, which are alldone by hand, are digitized on the spot – by scanningor by means of digital photography for the largedrawings – for inclusion into a closing PowerPointpresentation and for posting on the community’s website the following day. Most of the drawings includedin the following chapters where produced during the charrettes, and indicate the level of design


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Figure 6.39 Transit-supportive office typology, TheLawrence Group, 2002. The arrangement of typicallarge office buildings can be improved by screeningthe parking and creating entrance courtyards closeto the street that can be used by transit vehicles andpedestrians. (Illustration courtesy of The LawrenceGroup)

Figure 6.38 North Carolina State University‘Centennial Campus, Raleigh, NC.’ Instead offollowing the standard suburban office park formula,this research campus of a large university has beenplanned around a more pedestrian-orientatednetwork of streets and spaces and linked to the mainuniversity by regular transit service.


investigation and production it’s possible to achievein a properly organized event. The specifics of thezoning codes and other regulations are developedusually within 60 days subsequent to the charrette.During that time the design content of the masterplan is encoded and any other relevant circumstancesare covered by reference to appropriate urban designstandards or development guidelines.

The visual power of the charrette – its capacity toproduce compelling graphics that capture the public’simagination – has helped it become the dominantmethodology of New Urbanist architects and plan-ners. Creating visual images in two and three dimen-sions is the most effective way we know to get to avery important issue in the making of public space –the role of public debate in forming public places.We have discussed at some length the importance ofpublic space for a free and democratic society, but theinvolvement of the public in that space should not besimply as users, but also as makers. Urban design isfundamentally a language of democracy, and itconnects individuals to the larger worlds of theirneighborhood, town, city and region.

This connection to democratic action furtherreinforces the lineage of public design charrettes.They are direct descendants of the anarchist philoso-phy of radical thinkers like Peter Kropotkin(1842–1921), who argued that the built form oftowns and cities should be derived from the work oftheir citizens. This same anarchist ideology lies at theroot of many major movements in modern planning,including Ebenezer Howard’s Garden Cities, PatrickGeddes’ rehabilitation strategies, The AmericanRegional Planning Association, F.L.Wright’sBroadacre City and the work of John Turner in SouthAmerica during the 1950s and 1960s. The activismof people like Brian Anson and Colin Ward in theUnited Kingdom, and the intellectual pattern lan-guages and urban design methods described by the

Anglo-America mathematician-architect ChristopherAlexander, have continued this paradigm in the1970s through the 1990s.

The full glare of public and media scrutiny –sometimes hostile – make charrettes exhausting fordesigners. It’s commonplace to have to explain con-cepts over and over again to individuals and interestgroups who don’t stay within the allotted workshopschedule. But it’s imperative never to turn awaymembers of the public; a friendly conversation withsomeone may turn them into an ally. To this end wealways have at least one member of the team specifi-cally on watch for newcomers, and whose role is toinvolve them creatively in the process. Equally so, anoffhand remark can create an opponent, and we tryhard to avoid unscripted comments, or disparagingremarks. It’s much easier to change a drawing than totake back something we’ve said.

Within these caveats, our experience shows thatmost people who involve themselves in the charretteprocess begin to understand the relevant issues morefully – and people who came simply to complain canbecome constructive participants on complex plan-ning, traffic, environmental or whatever kinds ofproblems are under discussion. With good publicinvolvement, in a four–to-eight day period, the designteam can analyze the most important issues, create aplanning framework for the area under discussion,develop the master plan with buildings, streets andopen spaces, and depict specific design details in threedimensions for key areas. This combination producesa document that establishes and illustrates a holisticvision combined with implementation strategies asthe basis for future political action. This might sounda grand claim, but it works. We do it in practice, as domany other professionals in Britain and America. Thefollowing chapters illustrate the results of this processat five scales of operation – the region, the city, thetown, the neighborhood and the urban block.


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IVPreamble to case studies

PART

PREAMBLE TO CASE STUDIES

Design professionals in Britain will recognize most, ifnot all the design and planning concepts contained inthese American case studies, and this commonalityhighlights a paradox of working within the two dif-ferent cultures. The design concepts are nearly identi-cal, but the political systems within which Americanand British professionals work vary considerably.

We saw in Chapter 5 some of the important andsubstantial differences between American zoningtechniques of ‘growth management’ and English pro-cedures of ‘development control.’ British readers willthus notice important differences in the implementa-tion strategies and tactics of these American plans.All these projects have been initiated by Americanlocal governments, which work within the systemdescribed in Chapter 5 that separates planning forthe future from development control in the present.With frustrating frequency, the plans produced byAmerican towns and cities are simply regarded as‘vision documents’ or ‘road maps’ to guide futuredecisions, without any regulatory teeth. There areplenty of good ideas and good intentions, but norequirement that private development proposals andpublic decisions follow the approved plans. As withany road map, the plan is subservient to the driver,who is free to change destination or direction at anytime. In Britain, by contrast, government policyrequires that all decisions on development must fol-low the provisions of the appropriate publiclyadopted plan with only very limited exceptions.

The following case studies differ from muchconventional American practice, because they tryto bridge the problematic divide between plan-ning and zoning. As we discussed in Chapter 6,detailed, design-based zoning codes for these pro-jects are almost always included in our planningand design process, irrespective of scale, and thesezoning ordinances are prepared as part of the master-planning package to give the plan legal weight. Thisis important because in American law the designplans themselves lack legal authority, other than ful-filling a statutory requirement to have a community plan on file as the benchmark for other regulatoryinstruments.

Integrating design-based zoning regulations withthe master plan that’s developed and approved in thefull light of public debate and scrutiny means thatthese changes to local zoning laws can be adoptedwhen the plan is approved, or very shortly thereafter.This goes a long way toward healing the Americanbreach between planning and zoning; under this sys-tem, the community’s development plan that estab-lishes the future vision is directly linked with thezoning ordinance that regulates the build-out ofthe plan over time. However, there is still no legalrequirement for American elected officials to followthe plan and zoning they’ve so carefully constructed.On an ad hoc basis, governments can rezone parcelsof land against the provisions of their plans at anytime in the future if a developer or other interestgroup can persuade them to do so. This lack of civicbackbone brings the plans into public disrepute, but


in only a couple of our projects has this unfortunatecircumstance occurred. We include one example inthe case studies where firmer action was needed toreinforce the importance of maintaining the integrityof adopted community plans in the face of develop-ment pressure and bureaucratic inertia.

One of the most compelling attributes of theCharter of the New Urbanism is its common commit-ment to good urban design and planning at a widevariety of different scales, from the region to an indi-vidual urban block. Accordingly, we have organizedour own work to reflect this hierarchy and commonal-ity. Like many designers, we believe passionately thatwhat we plan should relate to the physical qualities ofthe particular place, be it an area of 60 square milescovering several political jurisdictions or a single towncenter site of 10 acres. We want our work to stand as acritical practice, countering the throwaway attitudesof American culture – making haste and makingwaste. Our work tries to re-imbue our sites, whetherthey be cities or suburbs, with a sense of history, tocreate memories for the future where none existed.

Each case study begins with a project descriptionand identification of the key issues and goals. This isfollowed by a brief summary of the particular char-rette process and the explanation of the full masterplan, replete with its recommendations and illustra-tive drawings. Our intent is to demonstrate the levelof design detail that can be achieved in charrettes, andin consequence, the sophisticated level of planningattainable with this process. Nearly all the drawingsillustrated were produced during the charrette; theyhave not been touched up or redrawn for publication.(Where graphics were produced or modified after thecharrette, usually for the project report, we have noted

these accordingly.) Unless otherwise noted on theplans, north is orientated to the top of the page.

Each master plan is complemented by variousstrategies for implementation and development con-trol. In larger projects, these usually take the formof development and design guidelines and zoningrecommendations; smaller scale projects typicallyinclude studies of economic viability, an evaluationof public funding strategies, project timetables, andof course design-based zoning codes keyed to themaster plan. Finally, we present a short, critical evalu-ation of the case study, highlighting its successes anddisappointments. All five case studies have been nec-essarily abridged from their full complexity concern-ing fine scale project locations and details in order torender them accessible to the general reader.

One final point of clarification: up to this point wehave used the personal pronoun ‘we’ to indicate thetwo authors. Henceforth, in all the case studies withthe exception of Chapter 11, ‘we’ means the designteam of the Lawrence Group, architects, and townplanners, who carried out this work for the relevantpublic authorities. Accordingly, the ‘voice’ and styleof writing changes slightly as we move inside oururban design practice and retell some stories of com-munity planning by design. Describing these casestudies involves recapitulating past events, describingthings and places that exist, recounting values andbeliefs held in the present, and projecting implemen-tation into the future. This shifting between tensescan be confusing to the reader, and so we have nego-tiated this obstacle using the simple criterion of whatsounds clearest rather than absolute academic consis-tency. We trust our colleagues will forgive us thisvernacular preference.


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PROJECT AND CONTEXT DESCRIPTION

The acronym CORE stands for ‘Center of theRegion Enterprise,’ a collaborative planning effortinvolving 12 different local governments and quasi-public authorities covering an area of 60 square milesapproximately in the geographic center of the state ofNorth Carolina. It is close to, or includes withinits boundaries, several important focal points: thecenter of state government – the city of Raleigh(named after Sir Walter); a center of technologicalinnovation – the Research Triangle Park (RTP); andan international transportation center – the Raleigh-Durham International Airport.

The larger region that surrounds the CORE is gen-erally known as ‘The Research Triangle,’ so namedbecause it’s defined by a geographic area whose threecardinal points comprise the great research universitiesof the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill;North Carolina State University, and Duke University.Within this region, the study area is bisected from eastto west by Interstate 40, the main transportationartery, and by the anticipated regional rail systembeing designed by the Triangle Transit Authority(TTA) that will travel through it from north to south.

The study area straddles the ridge line between twoof North Carolina’s major, but environmentally fragileriver basins – the Neuse and the Cape Fear – andis also home to one of the state’s most notable greenspaces, Umstead State Park, a fine wildlife preserveand environmental resource. Within this context,the CORE boundaries define a place where the bor-ders of six municipalities meet: Cary, Durham City,Morrisville, Raleigh, Durham County and Wake

County (See Plate 14). Although at the center ofthe region, the project area is on the edge of mostcommunities and, because of this multi-jurisdictionalnexus, the area has not received as much care andstudy as it deserves. This has led to several seriousplanning and environmental problems.

The prevailing themes we were asked to address inthe charrette, in April 2002, were the mismatchbetween jobs, homes and services, and the relatedchallenges to mobility caused by this disparity. The60 square mile area supports more than 90 000 jobsbut only 8200 homes, most of them in the town ofCary to the south. Local planners forecast that overthe next 10 to 20 years, 35 percent more jobs and fourtimes more residents will locate in this area. The day-time population of the study area swells to a thousandpercent during working hours, resulting in heavy con-gestion caused by peak hour commuter traffic. This iscomprised largely of employees traveling betweenhomes outside the study area to jobs in the RTP andother key employment nodes such as airport.

Because most workers leave the area at the end ofthe day, taking their purchasing power elsewhere, res-idents who do live in the CORE area have few servicesavailable locally, requiring them to drive to otherlocations. This lack of convenient restaurants andshops also means that daytime employees who wishto run errands or eat lunch somewhere other thanthe office cafeteria often must travel long distances bycar, thereby increasing frustration, congestion andautomobile emissions.

Despite these current problems, the RTP hasbeen an enormous boon to the area, both withinits boundaries and throughout the region. Since its

7The region

Case Study 1: CORE, North Carolina



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founding in 1959, the RTP has acted as a magneticforce for brainpower and innovation in biotechnology,communications, and related research. The entireregion has benefited from substantial investments inland and buildings inside and outside the Park by awide range of companies and their support services.Firms that moved to RTP in the early days foundeasy access (by car and plane) to a beautiful, park-likecampus setting within a region with a highly edu-cated work force.

Yet this success, combined with insufficientcollaborative planning in the region as a whole, hasspawned the unforeseen current problems of conges-tion and pollution. In the 1970s and 1980s it wassimply assumed that building more and bigger roadswould solve future problems. But now, with extensivefreeways in place and congestion getting worse, it hasdawned on all parties that the achievements of thepast could soon become a liability as the quality oflife in the region declines. It has become clear thatyesterday’s models of development cannot answer allof today’s and tomorrow’s needs; a more sustainablemodel is needed.

However, it’s not as easy as simply allowingresidential development in the RTP. This wouldn’tnecessarily improve overall sustainability. Even ifhousing were permitted in the research office area(which it isn’t at present, kept at bay by restrictivecovenants and concerns about security), the longdistances and gated entrances from public streets tomany of the research buildings are barriers to pedes-trian activity. In order for housing to pass the sus-tainability test, it must be sited in neighborhoodsthat promote walking and alternative transportationchoices as means of reducing automobile use. Funda-mental changes in the design of many sites and build-ings in the RTP would be needed.

At the time of the study, there were minimal trans-portation alternatives in the project area. A regional railsystem was in the final engineering stages and somebus services were provided, but planners have found itdifficult to serve the sprawling, disconnected suburbanoffice campuses and low-density residential develop-ment with public transit. This is because of the dis-tances employees must walk from bus stops at thestreet to the front doors of offices sometimes locatedhundreds of yards away. There are sidewalks and multi-use paths within many research and office campuses,but few extend beyond the employment centers to res-idential developments and retail services.

The market and locations for housing in the areaare also constrained by a number of factors including

airport noise contours, freeway rights-of-way andincompatible zoning. In addressing this housingchallenge, we recognized it was important to focusnot just on the amount of housing, but its diversity aswell, providing affordable homes for the wide rangeof people who work in the CORE area.

Additionally, the current design of most develop-ment outside the RTP discourages pedestrians. Eventhe nearby hotels, retail centers and the higher den-sity residential developments that do exist have beendeveloped with minimal sidewalks, substantial build-ing setbacks covered by expansive parking lots, andlong distances between buildings. Taken together,these factors make it unpleasant, dangerous orimpossible to walk to many potential destinations.This means that cars are used for every trip for everypurpose, often burdening the interstate system withlocal traffic that exacerbates congestion. On apositive note, however, the beginnings of a regionalgreenway system are evident along stream corridorsand other public open spaces. The team recognized itwould be important to connect these corridors toemployment centers, retail services, community facil-ities and housing so they could be used for conve-nient access to a variety of places and not just forrecreational activities.

Over and above physical improvements and newplans, the region needs a better collaborative structureto address common planning concerns and develop-ment impacts in the CORE area. This is a commonchallenge throughout the United States, but here theconfluence of six political jurisdictions, two trans-portation planning organizations, one regional publictransit authority (the TTA), two quasi-public organi-zations with substantial decision-making authority(the RTP and the Airport), together with one advisoryplanning body for the overall area (the Triangle JCouncil of Governments – the commissioning bodyof the CORE study) makes addressing this challengeparticularly important.

Several development decisions taken by variousmunicipalities have caused problems for neighboringcommunities. For example, land-use decisions thatappeared sensible to individual local authorities donot necessarily make sense when looked at systemati-cally in terms of the overall region. A good example isthe large amount of land zoned for office and indus-trial use by nearly every jurisdiction in the COREarea. These large areas zoned for single uses appear toeach jurisdiction as opportunities to build their taxbase and take advantage of their proximity to the airport and RTP. However, the cumulative result is a


CHAPTER SEVEN ● THE REGION

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60 square mile area devoted to employment with nothought given to convenient and affordable housingfor workers. The net effect of these disparate policiesis a workforce that must commute increasingly longdistances, giving rise to the troubling congestion andpollution at the heart of the region’s problems.

KEY ISSUES AND GOALS

The key issues facing the design team during thecharrette could therefore be summarized as follows:

1. The CORE area had an imbalance betweenemployment, homes and services.

2. There were few housing opportunities in the RTP.

3. The thoroughfare system was heavily congested.4. There were minimal transportation alternatives to

the car.5. The existing patterns of development were heavily

auto-dependent.6. To meet the future challenges of economic devel-

opment the CORE area needed a stronger physi-cal identity, and a sense of place.

7. The region needed a stronger collaborative plan-ning structure to address common concerns anddevelopment impacts.

In turn these issues led to the statement of two maingoals for the overall project.

1. Short-term goal: Demonstrate how local govern-ments, regional organizations and the privatesector could collaborate to match new patterns ofdevelopment more efficiently with the publicinfrastructure and its planned extensions.

2. Long-term goal: Plant the seeds of commitmentamong local governments, regional organizations,and land development interests to produce apattern of development that is more balanced andsustainable.

THE CHARRETTE

The CORE project had three phases:

1. An introductory period of citizens’ meetings todefine key issues.

2. Focus group interviews, a market study and thefour-day design charrette.

3. Production of the Planning and Design CharretteReport and a General Development GuidelinesManual.

The pre-charrette meetings, carried out by plannersin the region over a period of several weeks, high-lighted some of the key issues and goals noted aboveand laid the groundwork for the main element ofthe process, the four-day charrette in April 2002. Theopening presentation at the charrette included thefindings from these background interviews and meet-ings and our team’s overview of market conditionsand trends. Then town planners, urban designers,architects, transportation planners and real estatemarket analysts worked for four days, and somenights with hundreds of residents, property owners,elected and appointed officials, local and regionalagency staff, developers and business leaders to iden-tify opportunities for the CORE area over the nextgeneration (See Figure 7.1). The charrette tackled thekey issues by addressing the following questions:

1. Was the current development pattern in the studyarea a sustainable model? If not, what changeswould need to be made?

2. Were there other models of development such astraditional neighborhoods, transit-oriented employ-ment centers, transit-oriented village centers andneighborhood centers that could be incorporated infuture planning decisions?

3. Could these other models have enough impact toaffect the required change?

It was clear to most charrette participants that conven-tional land-use planning strategies were not effectivein dealing with the challenges facing the region.Accordingly, instead of conventional categories of landuse, we introduced four new development typologiesinto the debate to structure the master plan: theNeighborhood, the Mixed-use Center, the District andthe Corridor. (These four typologies were defined indetail in Chapter 6.) We wanted to shift the thinkingof the CORE partners away from the hackneyedplanning of large, single-use housing subdivisions,office parks, apartment complexes and shoppingcenters, and instead base all future planning on theseinterlinked components that comprise the buildingblocks of a sustainable city. During the charrette, thesespatial and development typologies formed the basis ofplanning and design discussions, and the results culmi-nated in the production of the overall master plan.

THE MASTER PLAN

The CORE charrette concluded with a full digital pre-sentation of the strategies and solutions generated by



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the many participants. We presented the master plan infour main graphic components dealing with the mainenvironmental, mobility and development patterns ofthe area – Green Infrastructure, Transit InfrastructureStreet Infrastructure and Mixed-use Activity Centers –plus another two sections, Neighborhoods and Districtsthat featured urban design recommendations for proto-typical developments. These are discussed in the nextsection.

Green Infrastructure (see Plate 15)

As part of our development of the Corridor typology,we made two main recommendations regarding envi-ronmental issues.

Recommendation 1: Develop a detailed green spacenetwork that links and completes entire corridors andprotected open spaces.

We stressed that a ‘green’ network must be estab-lished as a complement and alternative to the regionaltransportation network of roads and planned rail lines.This network should consist of a combination of thefollowing green elements:

● Greenway trails: Conventional multi-use paths alongcreeks and floodplains.

● Multi-use paths: Pathways for pedestrians and bicy-clists that run parallel to main roads or rail lines ata safe distance.

● Green streets: Sidewalks and bicycle lanes along well-landscaped streets in Mixed-use Centers, Districtsand Neighborhoods.

● Public parks: Areas with universal access for passiveor active recreation that are owned and maintainedby a public authority.

● Conservation areas: Open spaces that are protectedby contracts, deeds or covenants that protect sensi-tive environmental features.

This network of linked green spaces would createa valuable local and regional amenity, and it shouldbe designed to allow greenways to cross under majornew or expanded highways and rail lines. Thesecrossings should be wide and high enough to permitpassage of pedestrians, bicyclists and wildlife, andshould be included as the road or rail corridors aredesigned and built.

Recommendation 2: Coordinate stream buffer standardsacross jurisdictional boundaries. Buffer widths forundisturbed vegetation along the banks of streamsvary widely among the participating jurisdictions inthe CORE, from as little as 35 feet to 100 feet (10.6to 130.5 meters). Coordinated standards should beestablished at the high end of the scale to ensure clearand consistent protection of the local ecosystem.

Transit Infrastructure (see Plate 16)

This section comprised the second element of ourCorridor typology, for as the core area continues tourbanize, public transportation must play a moreimportant role in providing mobility choices forresidents as well as workers. The regional transit


6:30 p.m. Sponsor reception7:00–9:00 p.m. Opening presentation

8:30 a.m. Developers’ and focus area owners’ plans and advice10:00 a.m. All interested participants 1:00 p.m. All interested participants5:30–6:00 p.m. Pin-up sesssion/update

7:00 – 9:00 p.m. Closing presentation

8:00 a.m. Closing presentation summary

Monday, April 8

Charrette ScheduleApril 2002

Wednesday, April 10

Thursday, April 11

Friday, April 12

Tuesday, April 9

8:30 a.m. Water resources and environment focus10:00 a.m. Transportation focus – roads11:00 a.m. Transportation focus – transit1:00 p.m. Open space, trails and parks focus2:30 p.m. Community facilities focus 5:30–6.00 p.m. Pin-up session/update7:00–9.00 p.m. Participatory design

Figure 7.1 CORE Charrette Schedule. Meetings are prearranged with key individuals and groups, but design work begins on the first morning and continues all day, each day, with a public discussion of eachday’s design ideas at 5.30 pm.



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corridors currently comprise the planned TTA PhaseI commuter rail project through the study area, afuture connector branching off west to the universitytown of Chapel Hill, and a long-term futurenorth–south corridor running along a freight rail linethat parallels the western boundary of the study area.

We proposed one major addition to this transitsystem, shown in purple in Plate 16. Other recom-mendations regarding types of development that aremore supportive of transit are included in the sec-tions on Mixed-use Centers, Neighborhoods andDistricts below.

Main Transit Recommendation

Create a transit loop for the CORE that connects theTTA Phase 1 corridor with the RTP and the airport.

To complement the first phase of the commuterrail line, we mapped a new high-frequency circulatingservice that would cover a large portion of the COREstudy area, connecting many of our proposed mixed-use centers with RTP office campuses and the airport.The success this loop would depend on high-densitydevelopment in the proposed mixed-use centers aswell as convenient connections at the commuter trainstations.

Many leaders in the Triangle expressed the beliefthat in order for the commuter rail system to be suc-cessful, it had to be connected to the airport, otherwisebusiness customers wouldn’t use the train. Yet, transitstudies of journeys to and from airports across the U.S.by bus and train have indicated that most trips weremade not by people who were travelling somewhereelse, but by people who worked at the airport. Whilethe number of business travellers using transit mightbe expected to rise in the coming years, this mixed rid-ership reinforced our concern that the CORE loopmust connect not only the airport, but all the newmixed-use activity centers and the RTP. To succeed,the transit service must serve as wide a spectrum ofcustomers as possible to maximize its ridership.

Our CORE transit loop intersected the rail line atthe already planned RTP North/IBM Station and at anew North Morrisville Station proposed in our plan.We also proposed an additional connection to thefuture transit line to Chapel Hill – located at theRTP Service Center just west of the Triangle MetroCenter. In the long term, we envisioned this loop asa ‘fixed guideway system’ such as rapid bus, streetcaror light rail, but the service could begin as more con-ventional bus service and expand as future demandmakes more advanced technologies financially

feasible. As real estate and infrastructure developmentprojects move forward, a corridor for the CORE loopmust be preserved.

Street Infrastructure

In this third subset of the Corridor typology, weconsidered all types of streets and roads, from free-ways to local neighborhood streets. This hierarchy isshown in red in Plate 16.

We recommended four actions:

1. Eliminate a portion of planned freeway thatdumped traffic into the center of Morrisville for noapparent reason.

2. Improve east-west connections by extending threelocal main roads to form a more coherent networkfor the study area.

3. Create greater connectivity of neighborhood streets.4. Establish design criteria for streets that include

pedestrian and bicycle facilities.

Of most interest to the reader will be the connec-tivity index and the street designs. One of the funda-mental principles of New Urbanist design is that allneighborhood streets be multifunctional, that is, safeand attractive for pedestrians and cyclists as well asfor cars, and that they connect to form a networkwith multiple choices of routes. This connectivityspreads out traffic more evenly and reduces conges-tion, but this pattern contrasts markedly with mostnew development in the CORE area, which has beendesigned with few points of access, often with onlyone way in or out. This is true of office and industrialparks as well as residential neighborhoods.

It’s hard to overstate the importance of connectingstreets into a network. Mobility for vehicles, bicyclists,and pedestrians increases and costs of civic services(public transit, school buses, police, fire and ambu-lance services) are decreased by having more conve-nient choices of routes around any neighborhood ordistrict. This same flexibility increases the efficiency ofthese emergency services as they’re able to respondfaster to emergencies. Street connectivity can evenlead to improved water pressure and easier mainte-nance of the underground pipes by looping linesthrough a development rather than creating dead endsin cul-de-sacs.

In projects covering a smaller area, we normallyplan out the entire street network, but here weamended the larger regional framework of arterials,established guidelines for the street pattern in themultiuse centers, and set our performance standards



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for all future neighborhood street connectivity. Inthis way a connected network of streets will grow instep with new development.

We based our connectivity index on one alreadyimplemented in the study area by the town of Cary.This index measures the number of ‘links’ (defined asstreet intersections and cul-de-sac dead ends) and thenumber of ‘nodes’ (segments of streets between links,and street stubs that end at property lines for futureconnections) (see Figure 7.2). In this figure, linksare represented by black circles and nodes by stars. Inthe diagram there are 11 links and 9 nodes. Dividingthe number of links by the number of nodes resultsin a connectivity index of 1.22.

A perfect grid has a connectivity index of 2.5.Most conventional cul-de-sac subdivisions yield anaverage connectivity index of only 1.0. We recom-mended a connectivity index of at least 1.4–1.5,though variations could be granted in a few caseswhere severe topographic conditions make connec-tions very difficult and expensive. In these situations,cul-de-sacs may be used, but these dead-end streets

must be strictly limited to preserve the integrity andperformance of the connected street system.

The connectivity of streets is not the only impor-tant issue in their design. The correct design detailsto accommodate pedestrians and cyclists are also verynecessary for the network to be attractive andfunction well. Though the RTP and several of themunicipalities in the area have installed sidewalksand bicycle paths, or have recently begun requiringthem, such facilities are noticeably absent on many ofthe area’s local streets and thoroughfares. This omis-sion is compounded by the fact that even wheresidewalks and bicycle facilities exist, there are oftengaps between segments, significant barriers to theiruse (such as major thoroughfares, or wide intersec-tions on roads without islands for pedestrian refuge)or pedestrian-unfriendly developments that discour-age walking and cycling.

To help remedy these deficiencies, we recom-mended that new streets and improvements to exist-ing streets should, at a minimum, have five-foot widesidewalks on both sides to permit two adults to walkcomfortably next to one another. Collector streetsand thoroughfares should also be retrofitted withwide outside lanes for cyclists. Alternatively, multiusepaths at least 10-feet wide that can be safely used byboth pedestrians and bicyclists should be constructedalongside roadways. Figure 7.3 illustrates an appro-priate design for a multiuse path in cross section. Inaddition to pedestrian and bicycle facilities along

Figure 7.2 Connectivity Index Diagram. Streetconnectivity is vital for efficient and sustainableneighborhood design, and is measured by the rationof ‘links’ to ‘nodes’. Links are represented by blackcircles and nodes by stars. This example gives aconnectivity index of 1.22 (dividing 11 links by 9nodes). This is barely sufficient. An index ratio of 1.4 or 1.5 is much preferred. For example, if the two cul-de-sacs were eliminated and the streetsextended in a ‘north–east’ direction to connect toadjacent streets, the number of nodes (stars), wouldnot increase, but there would be two extra links(circles) created between the new intersections.This would give a connectivity index of 1.44 (13 links divided by 9 nodes).

6�

EP

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10�

10�

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Figure 7.3 Cross-section of a Multi-use Path. Wheresidewalks adjacent to busy roads are not formed bybuildings, multiuse paths can provide valuableconnections for cyclists and pedestrians.


streets, we recommended that selected greenway cor-ridors could also provide bicycling commuter routes.

Mixed-use Activity Centers(see Plate 17)

We made several detailed recommendations regard-ing the location and design of mixed-use activitycenters throughout the study area, but we establishedone overall principle: The Center of the Region shouldbe anchored by a series of neighborhoods and villages,each with a defineable, coherent mixed-use core at theappropriate scale.

This recommendation marked a significant shiftfrom the current development pattern of single-useoffice parks, apartment complexes and large-lot singlefamily subdivisions, and as such it was one of the mostimportant components of the plan. It is inherentlymore sustainable to build the region around a series ofneighborhood or village centers linked by a transporta-tion network that promotes walking, bicycling, andpublic transit as alternatives to driving everywhere. Thisnew typology provides opportunities to live, work, playand shop without long commutes, and supports a widerrange of lifestyles and different types of households.

These mixed-use centers comprise the most impor-tant urban building blocks of the whole plan, pro-viding focal points of activity and neighborhoodstructure throughout the study area. Plate 17 indicatesthe location of each of the 10 proposed centers, and weillustrate three of them – the Triangle Metro Center,the North Morrisville Neighborhood Center and theRTP Service Center – in more detail, each differing inscale and character. As stressed earlier in this chapterand elsewhere, each type of center typically includessome residential development and also has direct,pedestrian connections to surrounding neighbor-hoods. This residential element is essential. Goodrestaurants, for example, will never survive by depend-ing on lunchtime traffic alone; they must attract thedinner crowd as well. Therefore, wherever it’s practical,residential development needs to accompany newretail and office development to provide both a day-time and night-time market. The amount of officedevelopment in each center, and its residential mix,depend on its particular location and character.

Triangle Metro Center (see Plate 18 and Figure 7.4)

We made one major recommendation for thiskey site, positioned at a future commuter rail station

at the edge of the RTP: The Triangle Metro Centershould be developed as a transit-oriented development(TOD).

This area around the transit station planned at thesouth end of the RTP has great potential for privatedevelopment. The Triangle Transit Authority hasenvisaged this location as a main transfer point forpassengers to change between trains and local buses,and we indicated how our amendments to the designof a previously proposed Triangle Metro Center pro-ject next to the station could build on this level ofactivity by creating the hub of a new high-densityurban village (see Figure 7.4). The original project,which predated the charrette, proposed significantinvestment in offices, shops and housing, and we wereable to complement this effort by creating an urbanneighborhood on two large tracts of open property tothe south (see Plate 18). The land immediately to thenorth of the Center is part of an existing large officecampus, and unavailable for development, althoughat some future date connections between the researchbuildings and the Center could be provided.

On the land to the south, we were able to create anurban neighborhood that provided a variety of hous-ing types for employees in the RTP and surroundingoffice developments. Our design concept in Plate 18shows development around the station area stretch-ing for approximately 3/4-mile, but the intensityof development tapers off beyond the five-minutewalk (1/4-mile). Within 1/4-mile of the station we


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Figure 7.4 Aerial perspective of Metro Center.We were able to refine and develop a project thatwas already in the planning stages to maximize itspotential as a catalyst for adjacent transit-friendlyand sustainable development.


illustrated higher density residential development inthe form of three- and four-story apartments. On theeast side of the tracks we redesigned an existing retailcenter along an adjacent major north–south street asa three- and four-story mixed-use development ofoffices and shops, with the potential also for somelive-work unit and adjacent high-density apartments.A new street beneath the tracks improves connectiv-ity and leads to a new civic building, possibly aYMCA fitness facility or a small school, indicated inpurple in Plate 18.

Between 1/4-mile and 1/2-mile from the stationarea, we scaled down development to a mix of town-homes and narrow-lot, single-family homes. We laidout the remaining property beyond the 1/2-mileradius with similar development, backing it up toand screening it from revitalized small commercialbuildings fronting adjacent streets. This develop-ment pattern provides the necessary variety of hous-ing options for a successful urban village, whilerespecting the topography and natural features onthe site, in particular the creek that traverses the site.By enhancing the required environmental buffersalong the creek, we created a small linear park for theneighborhood and the Center. It’s important to notethat houses front onto this park, providing visualsecurity. It is rarely a good idea to back houses up topublic green space, unless it is a publicly maintainedgreenway or a large area. The lessons about buildingsfacing onto public space that were discussed inChapter 4 apply here. This park would also make anexcellent corridor for a greenway that could tie trailsin the RTP to the train station area.

North Morrisville Neighborhood Center (see Plate 19)

Morrisville is the only town wholly within the studyarea. It has suffered from being under the flight pathto and from the Raleigh-Durham InternationalAirport as well as being sandwiched directly betweenthe wealthy community of Cary to the south and theRTP to the north. As a consequence of airport noise,development has been limited, and the town has hadto cope with a lot of commuting traffic. Overall,Morrisville has not been able to turn its location nextto the major employment center of the RTP to itsadvantage, and we saw this new regional plan asproviding the town with the vision and means toovercome these difficulties.

The area is complex. Morrisville’s jurisdictionincludes the future extension of a regional interstate

highway, the TTA rail corridor and the 65 DNL(average day/night noise level) contour line from theairport. The town is home to the small but historicAfrican-American community of Shiloh, which is leftundeveloped just to the west of the five-minute walkradius from the train station shown in Plate 19.

This area’s proximity to major employment centersand new road and rail connections suggests that rede-velopment is very likely over the next 10–20 years. Tostructure this growth, we recommended that: A newNeighborhood Center should be created in the northMorrisville area that includes a new transit station forcommuter rail and the CORE transit loop.

Where our new transit loop crosses the proposedrail line is an excellent location for another TOD thatwould create a focal point and hierarchy to the devel-opment in the southern part of the study area. Thelocation of this new multimodal station would enablethe southern portion of the RTP to be served effi-ciently with high-quality, secure transit service fromthe employers’ front doors or parking areas to the air-port and to other destinations on the commuter railline, including downtown Raleigh and N.C. StateUniversity. This would require a new grade-separatedbridge for extending a new major road across the railcorridor, as the route for buses or streetcars on thetransit loop. The transit station is located, as always,at the center of the five and 10-minute walking radii.

The southeastern portion of this new urbanvillage falls within the airport noise contour thatrestricts residential development due to decibellevels, and so we designed this area as a mixed-commercial Village Center based around offices andsome neighborhood retail (blue and red buildingsin Plate 19). We located residential development(shown in yellow and orange) to the north of thisarea (beyond the 65 dB noise contour) as well as onthe west side of the area.

The land squeezed between the north–south roadand rail corridors provided the opportunity forhigher density housing close to the transit stationwith apartments and townhomes. These have smallerfootprints than commercial buildings and can takebetter advantage of the narrow sites. Because of theownership pattern and larger tracts of land on thewest side of the tracks, we laid out the residentialdevelopment there as a medium-density traditionalneighborhood with a predominately single-familycharacter, though we included some townhomes andcondominiums (not more than 30 percent of thetotal number of units) in order to maintain thedensity figures best suited for the TOD.


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A general rule of TOD design requires the highestdensities of the development be located within 1/4-mile of the station platform, but here we madean exception due to the lopsided nature of the area,constrained in the eastern and southern quadrants bythe airport noise contour that largely eliminated resi-dential development in those locations. We thereforeallowed higher density residential development tostretch further north adjacent to the main road andrail line, and we took advantage of a new linear parkopportunity to the northwest, where an existingcreek could be enhanced and framed with townhomes. The increased density of the townhomeswould be needed to pay for the two-single frontagestreets that run along the park’s edges.

RTP Service Center (see Figure 7.5 and Plate 20)

This is our third example of a mixed-use activity cen-ter, and illustrates a smaller scale intervention into theloose suburban form of the study area. The dispersedcampus development pattern of the RTP presentedonly a few opportunities to inject mixed-use develop-ment close to the large office and research buildings.One such opportunity was the Triangle Metro Centerdescribed earlier. Another is the RTP Service Centernear a large hotel, the Governor’s Inn, a location thatwas intended to provide retail and support services forthe initial tenants of the RTP. The RTP has grown sig-nificantly since this local site was first planned, and it

presented us with an opportunity to upgrade theService Center to promote new development thatwould meet the changing needs of RTP employees.

Our recommendation therefore was: Redevelopthe RTP Service Center as a small scale mixed-useNeighborhood Center, providing an improved ‘frontdoor’ for the Governor’s Inn.

Our simple concept for redevelopment is shown inPlate 20, illustrating new multistorey, mixed-use build-ings for retail, restaurants and offices. The buildingsscreen their parking and front directly onto the mainroad to create an improved streetscape together witha new formalized front lawn and visual gateway to theGovernor’s Inn (compare to Figure 7.5). One or moreof the office buildings could easily be replaced by apart-ments if the market conditions were favorable. Ourproposed CORE transit loop would cross through thisarea with a stop that could serve the Governor’s Inn,the new mixed-use buildings, and some existing officebuildings to the west of the Service Center.

Neighborhoods

On smaller projects we normally design each neigh-borhood, laying out streets and major buildings, andplotting the lots as indicated on the two Mixed-useCenter plans (Plates 18 and 19), but in this 60 squaremile area, such detail was not possible in a four-dayperiod. Accordingly, we made the following sevengeneral recommendations regarding residential devel-opment in the CORE area following the typology of

Figure 7.5 RTP Service Center, as existing. This photo-collage illustrates an undistinguished collection ofbuildings with no spatial cohesion or sense of place. Compare with Plate 20.


traditional neighborhood design introduced duringthe charrette.

1. New neighborhoods should be developed using theTraditional Neighborhood typology.This typology was described in detail in Chapter 6.The following recommendations add detail to themain attributes previously noted.

2. The design of new buildings should be responsive toregional building typologies, climate and traditionscommon throughout the Triangle.Architects and builders should be encouraged todesign structures that are compatible with thecharacter of the communities in which they arelocated. Durable materials such as brick, stone,clapboard, cementacious fiberboard, and cedarshingles should be considered in lieu of vinyl andexterior insulated finishing systems (EIFS). Forresidential buildings, porches and stoops shouldform the predominant architectural motif of thefaçade, providing good climatic modification anda useful transition space from the public realm ofthe street to the private interior of the home (seeFigure 7.6).

3. Buildings should be close to the street to encouragesocial interaction and pedestrian scale.Locating buildings close to the street as shown inFigures 7.6 through 7.8 encourages contact betweenneighbors, and the street is also self-policed by residents observing the public space from theirporches or front rooms. It also improves the over-all aesthetics of the street by minimizing the visi-bility of car parking (the garages are recessed) andhighlighting the architectural design. In addition,siting the home closer to the front of the lot creates a more useable rear yard. As an example, atypical suburban home has a 35-foot (10.6 meters)front yard setback and a 30-foot (9.1 meters) rearyard setback. By moving the home forward towithin 10–15 feet (3–4.5 meters) of the sidewalk,15–20 feet (4.5–6 meters) of private backyard canbe gained, providing enough space on even amodestly sized lot for amenities like a small pool.

4. A mix of housing types should be integrated into thedesign of all new neighborhoods (Figures 7.7 and 7.8)As we noted in Chapter 6, it’s one of our corebeliefs that a complete community encompassesa variety of household types at various levels ofincome. Figure 7.7 illustrates how medium-densitytownhomes can be designed to fit elegantly withadjacent single-family homes and other uses, andthus reduce the stigma often associated with


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Figure 7.6 Houses with Porches, Davidson, NC. Thesenew houses, although a bit too traditional for theauthors’ tastes, provide an excellent illustration of therich streetscape and semi-public social spacesprovided by generous front porches located withintalking distance of the sidewalk.

Figure 7.7 Townhomes, Baxter, Fort Mill, SC. Thesetownhomes use the same design motifs, albeit verytraditional, of adjacent single-family homes, allowingthem to blend seamlessly with their more expensiveneighbors and achieving some measure ofresidential diversity.


provides the outline program for its design anduse. ‘Green space’ or ‘open space’ are vague andindefinite terms, and often lead to poor design.

Parks, playgrounds, squares and gardens aredesigned for daily use and enjoyment. These kindsof ‘domesticated’ public open space are distinctfrom those areas that are environmentally significantand must be protected in their pristine state. Theyare also significantly different from the open spacethat has been grudgingly provided in conventionalsprawl development, which has often been definedonly in quantitative terms, as a function of popula-tion or land area. In many subdivisions developershave simply designated leftover or otherwise unus-able land as open space irrespective of its location.

To improve this sorry state of affairs and to betruly public, parks, squares and other types of openspace should be lined by the front façades of build-ings and by public streets (see Figures 2.16 and4.7). Safety in public open spaces is provided bythe visual supervision of people on their porches,at their windows, or walking, jogging and driving.

7. The jurisdictions in the CORE area should adopta compatible set of standards for TraditionalNeighborhood Development (TND).To eliminate confusion in the marketplace and toencourage more Traditional Neighborhood Devel-opment, we suggested that a common TND ordi-nance should be adopted by all CORE partners.Approvals for TNDs should also be streamlined topermit them by right with administrative approval


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lower-cost housing. To this end, we maintainedour standard recommendation that approximately15 percent of all new housing should be affordableunder the criteria of the US Department ofHousing and Urban Development (HUD). Apartfrom providing a range of different types of smaller,less expensive housing, it will always be necessary tofind creative ways of funding such developments tokeep housing affordable over time. Some mecha-nisms for achieving this are discussed in more detailin a subsequent case study in Chapter 10.

5. Reduce the impact of parking and garages in all siteplanning.Particularly on smaller lots, the garage and relatedparking areas tend to dominate the streetscape ifnot considered in the initial design. Residentialdesign should emphasize indoor and outdoor liv-ing spaces and de-emphasize car storage. To thatend, no garage should extend beyond the frontageline of the house and should be designed as a sec-ondary volume. Figures 7.6 and 7.7 illustrate thistechnique for single-family houses and town-homes, and indicate how different types can beintegrated together by hiding the parking areasfrom the street by insetting the garages or servic-ing them from a rear alley.

Multi-family developments in particular needto consider carefully the design of parking areas.Lots of cars on asphalt in front of the buildingscan render this housing type incompatible withother residential uses. For apartments and condo-miniums, off-street parking should not be visiblefrom the street. It should be screened by thebuildings which must face and define the street’spublic space as shown in Figure 7.8. For commer-cial buildings, parking should be to the side orrear of all buildings. While on-street parkingshould be provided wherever possible, off-streetparking in front of the building should be gener-ally discouraged. Encouraging the use of sharedparking can reduce the size of parking areas andminimize the impact on the environment.

6. All neighborhoods should provide public, useableopen spaces.Neighborhoods should include small parks withintheir curtilage, generally no more than a five-minute walk from any dwelling. Instead of theamorphous term ‘open space,’ we have found thatit’s always a good idea to name the open spacefor what it is – ball fields, parks, squares, plazas,community gardens or playgrounds. Namingidentifies the purpose of the open space, and

Figure 7.8 Apartment Building, Davidson, NC.Theseapartments screen their parking at the rear andprovide good definition to the public space of thestreet. It is important that some entrances into thebuilding are accessible directly from the sidewalk.These connect the private spaces of the buildingvisually and socially to the public space of the street.


Office developments have conventionally beendesigned with isolation, rather than integrationin mind. This makes them nearly impossible toserve with transit. Because the foundation ofevery successful transit network is its local busroutes, neither the commuter rail nor our newtransit loop will work efficiently without localbuses carrying passengers to and from the sta-tions and office buildings where thousands ofpeople work. It’s thus very important to encour-age office workers to use transit by making it easyand convenient. The office design typologyshown in Figure 6.39 depicts a much more tran-sit-friendly arrangement that moves the buildingsand their entrances closer to the street and createsa formal pedestrian plaza. We urged the RTPmanagement to encourage larger employers withexpansion plans to pursue designs like this toencourage higher use of transit.

IMPLEMENTATION

As part of our recommendations for implementingthe master plan, we developed a matrix of all recom-mendations prioritized for levels of urgency, andidentifying the parties responsible for taking action.The full details of this matrix are too detailed for thisabbreviated case study, but typical extracts are shownin Table 7.1.

We determined priorities by considering the fol-lowing factors:

● The relative severity of the problem.● The availability of personnel and financial

resources necessary to implement the specificproposals.

● The interdependence of the various implementa-tion tasks, in particular, the degree to which imple-menting one item depended on the successfulcompletion of another item.

In view of the above factors, we felt we could notput forward a precise timetable for every recom-mendation, but listed the levels of priority as follows:

High: Short time frame (6 months – 1 year).Resources should be immediately allocated to addressthese tasks.Medium: Tasks should be completed in a 1–5-yeartime frame as resources allow.Low: No urgency required. Task may be completedwhen resources and timing allow.


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by planning staff if the design criteria are met. Thisavoids a lengthy, drawn out debate by elected offi-cials about policy that has already been decided.Additional consideration should be given torestructuring various fees and requirements (impactfees, development fees, etc.) as incentives for TND.Street design standards should be common acrossthe different jurisdictions within the CORE area.The recommendations of the Institute of Trans-portation Engineers in Traffic Engineering forNeoTraditional Neighborhood Design (1994) and theTND Guidelines, adopted by the North CarolinaDepartment of Transportation in August 2000, areexcellent resources for street design standards andshould be locally adopted by each jurisdiction andincorporated into their TND Ordinance (ITE,1994; NCDOT, 2000).

Districts

As noted in Chapter 6, districts are relatively low-density areas with a dominant single use designedprimarily for automobile access. Though the RTPcurrently employs 42 000 people, there are 48 000additional jobs outside its boundary but within therest of the CORE area. Much of this developmenthas occurred in sprawling flex-warehouse buildings,though multi-tenant office buildings are also preva-lent. Many of these facilities outside the Park havetraditionally housed back-office operations of RTPcompanies including call centers, distribution, andsales. Numerous service providers for RTP companieshave also found a place in these areas with the prox-imity to the Park at a much lower lease rate.

In this context, we made three principle recom-mendations:

1. While Office and Industrial Districts generallyemphasize a special, single use they should follow theprinciples of neighborhood design when possible.These criteria were outlined in Chapter 6.

2. Encourage more mixed-use development in areas cur-rently zoned for office and industrial development.According to our market study, the CORE area isover-zoned for office and industrial uses. Manyopportunities exist to inject housing of all formsand types throughout this area and these should beencouraged. We included housing in nearly all thedetailed designs produced during the charrette.

3. Develop new transit-supportive types of office devel-opment to provide workers with more transportationchoices.



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Studies and plans

Recommendations and Implementation tasks Priority Responsible party

R11 Investigate the feasibility of a demand response/point-deviation Medium TTA, RTPtransit system for the RTP and surrounding employment areas

Develop a plan for providing CORE area-wide transit servicesthat connects the RTP, TTA commuter rail system, and the Airportusing a system of high frequency circulator buses

R12 Evaluate terminating the Durham Freeway at I-540 and High CAMPO, DCHC providing any access road from Davis Drive MPO, NC DOT,

Morrisville

Work with NCDOT, the MPOs, and RTP to explore this alternative for the extension of the Durham Freeway

R13 Extend Airport Boulevard to Davis Drive Medium CAMPO, DCHC MPO, NC DOT,Cary, Morrisville

Develop and adopt an alignment and cross-section for theextension of Airport Blvd to Davis Drive with a grade separation at the TTA corridor

R14 Extend McCrimmon Parkway across the rail line toward Medium CAMPO, DCHC the Airport MPO, NC DOT,

Cary, MorrisvilleDevelop and adopt an alignment and cross-section consistentwith a neighborhood center

R15 Extend Evans Road parallel to NC 54 and reconnect to Medium CAMPO, DCHCNC 54 beyond I-540 MPO, NC DOT,

Develop and adopt an alignment and cross-section for the Cary, Morrisvilleextension of Evans Rood to NC 54

R17 Complete the collector street plan for the CORE area High CAMPO, DCHC MPO, NC DOT,Durham, Raleigh, Cary, Morrisville,

Develop and adopt a collector street plan for the portion of the TJCOGCORE south of I-540 and adopt the collector street planpreviously proposed for the area north of I-540

R29 Study the feasibility of creating an intermodal transit station and Medium Morrisville, Neighborhood Center in the north Morrisville/Shiloh area CAMPO, TTA

Develop a schematic development plan for this area that includesdetailed street, block, open space, and building type patterns foradoption as an amendment to the Town’s Comprehensive Plan.Complete the Preliminary Engineering for the traffic operationsand transportation improvements necessary in this area

Table 7.1 Implementation Matrix (Extract). Master plans are incomplete without clear implementation strategiesthat identify project content, priority and responsible parties.


The other main component of the implementationstrategies comprised a detailed document setting outGeneral Development Guidelines to be used by allparties in the CORE to rewrite their own regulationsaround the common themes of the master plan. Inthis instance, we made these development guidelinesnearly as detailed as a full set of urban design guide-lines to make up for the fact that new zoning codeswere not part of this contract. (These two types ofguidelines are discussed in Chapter 6.) The multi-jurisdictional complexity of this project made uniformzoning codes politically impossible, although a moremodest example of common design-based codingacross three municipalities is included in Chapter 11.A typical extract from the General DevelopmentGuidelines is illustrated in Appendix IV.

CONCLUSIONS

At the conclusion of the process, we evaluated thecharrette results against the three important ques-tions identified at the beginning of the project. Thefirst question asked: Is the current development patternin the study area a sustainable model? If not, to whatdegree will changes need to be made?

Our clear response was no, the pattern is not sustain-able. While the RTP continues to provide economicdevelopment to the region, the lack of balance in thestudy area between the various components of daily life– homes, jobs, shops, schools, churches and parks – willseriously hinder the chances of long-term community,economic and environmental sustainability. Changeneeds to occur, and for this to happen, a shift in devel-opment practices is needed. There is enough land andplenty of opportunities in the study area for new devel-opment to take place in strategic locations, but this willtake some significant intervention in planning policiesand the marketplace before such a change occurs.

We argued that change needed to begin immedi-ately, but it would also need to be strategic andcarefully managed. To British eyes, solutions mightseem simple. We know the right kinds of policies anddesign standards that are needed; just go ahead andmake the shift. For example, a regional planningauthority could require all future development to bebuilt in appropriate locations following the establishedtypologies of mixed-use centers, traditional neighbor-hoods, districts and corridors that are consistent withUK practice. Unfortunately, in this American contextthere is no single authority with any mandate to initiateand monitor such bold changes in the face of resistance

and inertia from the private sector and divided localgovernments. The regional planning organizationcalled the Triangle J Council of Governments, is onlyan advisory body, and the six municipalities do nothave much history of effective collaboration. In trueAmerican fashion, their relationship has been competi-tive, not collaborative. Without some dynamic top-down leadership, for which there is little precedent andless expectation, this collaboration is going to be slowin coming. Even if the public bodies did coalescearound a single set of policies, requiring higher stan-dards could be counterproductive, creating antagonismamongst private developers who would (the plannersfear) turn their attentions elsewhere, taking money andenergy out of the region. We think this fear is over-stated, but it is very real in the minds of public officials.

The private sector is unlikely to initiate this kind ofstructural change on its own. Developers and theirlenders are inherently conservative, evaluating futureactions and risks based on what has worked in thepast. In other words, under a somewhat pessimisticscenario, the market will likely keep churning out yes-terday’s developments until the regional system breaksdown and business energy transfers to another place.The best way to break this cycle, and to affect changein a dramatic manner, would be to focus on a fewearly model developments, probably created by pub-lic–private partnerships. The urban village at theTriangle Metro Center (see Plate 18) is an obviousplace to start, linking large offices as the basis of theurban village with transit and new housing. Most ofthe pieces of the puzzle are included in this oneproject, which already has some momentum. Themost effective way of changing the attitudes of publicofficials and private developers is for them to seeworking examples of these more sustainable types ofdevelopment, and to see them succeeding economi-cally on the ground, in the region.

Our second question asked: Are there other modelsof development such as traditional neighborhoods,transit-oriented employment centers, transit-orientedvillage centers and neighborhood centers that can beincorporated in future planning decisions?

This question answers itself. Yes, these are the bestmodels for promoting sustainable communities. Inparticular, properly designed village and neighbor-hood centers are inherently transit-supportive, andshould therefore be planned and developed early,irrespective of the current modes of transit that canserve them, or even if no transit is currently available.As the market matures and urbanizes, transit canserve these centers efficiently when it’s practical to do


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so with little need of retrofitting for rights of way.Ways to promote these changes were discussed in theanswer to question 1.

The third question inquired: Given the existing levelof public and private investment, can these other modelshave enough impact to affect the required change?

There is no doubt that the money invested in andearmarked for the suburban pattern of large separatedsingle-use developments, coupled with new freewaysto serve this dispersed pattern represents a substantialcommitment to the status quo. However, the plannedcommuter rail lines in the region will begin to changepeople’s perceptions, and this more sustainable trans-portation option is the vital catalyst for new patternsof development.

It would only take three or four traditional neigh-borhoods with their accompanying neighborhood orvillage centers to make a significant difference to thisarea. Following the criteria for neighborhood design setout in Chapter 6, four new neighborhoods could housethe next 10 000 residents in a more sustainable pattern

1 neighborhood � 125 acres (50 ha) � 8 dwellingsper acre (average) � 2.6 personsper dwelling � 4 � 10 400residents

These compact patterns of development would takeup only a small proportion of the available land inthe CORE, allowing for several times this amount ofresidential growth, while still enhancing theframework of regional green space for environmentalpurposes.

CRITICAL EVALUATION OF CASE STUDY

This 2002 contract was the largest project we haveattempted using the charrette format, and it proved tous that the method works for a big site area just aseffectively as it does for a small one. There was onemain difference: for the first time we didn’t plan outthe entire study area and depict it graphically. Instead,our conceptual strategy for sustainable development –more compact development around mixed-use cen-ters as the foci for new and existing neighborhoodsand districts – allowed us to concentrate on key sitesas illustrations backed up by detailed performancespecifications for the remaining land area.

A secondary difference was the lack of a definitivenew zoning ordinance to regulate future develop-ment. At smaller scales of project with a single

municipality, this is our normal way of working,making as sure as we can that the conventional gap inAmerican planning between development plans andzoning controls is eradicated, or at least minimized.Three of the subsequent case studies illustrate thisprocess, but here, with the participation to varyingdegrees of six different municipalities plus the otherquasi-public organizations there was no opportunityfor such a document to be produced; in fact it wascontractually excluded from our scope of services.It was not politically viable for each different, andquite fiercely independent jurisdiction to accept theoverlay of common regulations.

Accordingly, with the CORE project, we had to besatisfied with recommending particular types andexamples of zoning for transit-supportive and sus-tainable development that the partnering cities andcounties could adopt individually, at their own pace.The implementation of these recommendations istherefore likely to be inconsistent and patchy. Asnoted above under ‘Implementation,’ the one overar-ching document we did produce subsequent to thecharrette was a manual of General DevelopmentGuidelines for all municipalities in the CORE regionto use as a model for amending their own regulations.We packed the guidelines with more detail than nor-mal to make up in part for the lack of clear new zon-ing regulations, turning them into a ‘lite’ version ofurban design guidelines in all but name. Detailed aes-thetic guidance was omitted, but site planning strate-gies, public space design, and environmentalpractices were highlighted. If followed closely, theseguidelines would lead development along a clear pathtoward greater long-term sustainability. The obviousproblem is that these are only guidelines that recom-mend; they are not regulations that require. Onceagain, implementation might not be consistent acrossthe different jurisdictions initially. But it’s a start.

The obvious and positive lesson to be learned fromthis multi-jurisdictional exercise is simply that itbrought all the regional parties together in a focuseddebate about vital issues of community planning anddesign. The format encouraged a level of interactionthat was above the norm for the parties themselvesand the general public. By designing prototypicaldevelopments in detail, we were able to allow the par-ticipants to see the real-life implications of variousoptions and decisions, and the exciting opportunitiesfor action. Most participants were converted to thecharrette process and detailed design as an effectivecommunity planning tool. The feedback we receivedfrom the project was that this charrette has become



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the model for future collaborative planning efforts inthe CORE. At this scale of working, consensusaround a common process is as important as agree-ment on the detailed proposals.

We were very pleased at this new level of collabora-tion and the success of the charrette format, as therewas some skepticism among the parties at the outset.We were expressly forbidden to use the word‘charrette’; perhaps this was considered to be a strangeand suspicious foreign term. In all the project docu-mentation the word ‘workshop’ was used exclusively,

and only in this text have we changed workshop to‘charrette’ for consistency.

From our perspective the downside of the COREproject is obvious. The large scope over multiple juris-dictions meant that we were not able to exert as muchinfluence over future development as we usually areable to with a smaller compass. This was frustrating inan area where much change is needed. We feel we havelaid the groundwork for others to carry forward, butwe’re not entirely sure the challenges will be met withequal vigor by all participants.


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For this case study carried out in 2000, we stay in thecentral region of North Carolina and focus on thecity of Raleigh, the state capital. The site for thisSmall Area Plan lies just a couple miles east of theprevious CORE project, and comprises approxi-mately four square miles, bounded on the west, northand east sides by freeways, and on the south by a localarterial street that connects directly with the city cen-ter, four miles to the east. This southern edge of theproject area also includes the proposed TriangleTransit Authority’s (TTAs) future commuter rail line,the same one that was featured in the previous casestudy. The line is used for freight and Amtrak, andwill continue to be so, but two passenger rail stationson the new commuter tracks are planned within thisstudy area. The western edge of the site marks theborder between Raleigh and its neighbor, the city ofCary (see Figure 8.1).

The study area includes a wide variety of uses.These range from large recreational facilities (theEntertainment and Sports Arena, the NC StateUniversity football stadium, an equestrian complex,and the State Fairground) to a corporate office park,large educational institutions (a local high school andthe NC State School of Veterinary Medicine) andsmall residential neighborhoods plus a smattering oflocal businesses. Large undeveloped areas that areripe for development exist within the plan area; how-ever, these same properties include landscapes andenvironmental systems that have been damaged byprevious suburban construction and need environ-ment protection.

The two sports facilities and the Fairground bringtens, even hundreds of thousands of visitors and fans to

the site at various times of the year. These intermittentuses put a strain on the transportation infrastructure,and on the quality of life of residents and workers in theadjacent neighborhoods and office parks. In addition,the overall project area serves as a gateway to Raleighfrom many points west including Cary, the ResearchTriangle, Durham, Chapel Hill and beyond. Its accessto interstate freeways is excellent, but the current trans-portation system surrounding the site depends almostexclusively on large, limited access thoroughfares.These roads move a high volume of regional traffic

8The City

Case Study 2: City of Raleigh, NC,Arena Small Area Plan

Figure 8.1 West Raleigh Location Map. Theeast–west dimension of the master plan area is alittle over three miles, and the north–south distancejust over a mile on average.


through this area between downtown Raleigh and theResearch Triangle. As a result, the infrastructure isheavily dependent upon a few connecting highways toserve both regional and local traffic. There is not a verygood network of local streets, and the planned exten-sion of a north–south highway across the site linkingpopulous areas to the south with a shopping mall to thenorth will increase regional traffic around and throughthe site. Planned street improvements and extensionsalong the southern boundary will help to relieve thestress on that east–west corridor and create a newsouthern edge for the study area.

The main objective of the Small Area Plan was toprovide a coherent framework for development thatachieved three things:

1. Resolved the dichotomies of large-scale and small-scale uses;

2. Avoided the kind of uncoordinated piecemealdevelopment of the type that had taken place todate; and

3. Established a balance between development andenvironmental protection.

A parallel requirement was to prepare a set of urbandesign guidelines that would orchestrate developmentin the future mixed-use centers proposed in the plan,and that would be extended to cover all such villageand neighborhood centers within the city of Raleigh.


Within this overarching objective, we established fourmain issues to be examined by the plan. These were:

1. Achieving a balance between development andenvironmental protection;

2. Improving the transportation infrastructurethrough the site and capitalizing on the proposednew commuter rail service;

3. Creating new types of transit-oriented develop-ment (TOD) around the rail stations that illus-trated principles of good urban design anddevelopment economics;

4. Resolving the difficult relationships of scalebetween the major state and civic operations andadjacent new and existing neighborhoods.

Development and EnvironmentalProtection

In general terms, the study area poses a classicdichotomy between the conservation of natural

landscape for water quality protection and openspace amenity on the one hand, and the pattern ofsuburban growth that has spread haphazardlythroughout the area on the other. These issues arerelevant across the site in general, but they come intosharp focus in the northwest corner of the site, wherea large 159-acre (63.6 hecteres) tract of rolling andwooded land owned by the state of North Carolinawas actively listed for sale at the time of the charrette.Two environmentally fragile streams that are in dan-ger of further degradation traverse this parcel of land,which needs very sensitive handling. However, it islocated at the junction of two freeways with excellentvisibility and good accessibility through nearby inter-changes, making it a prime site for development.

Transit and Transportation

One of the key strategic opportunities for this area isthe development of a commuter rail transit system.In the throes of advanced planning and preliminaryengineering at the time of the charrette in December2001, the system is anticipated to begin servicein 2008. We were convinced that the presence ofthis transportation alternative would become theprimary catalyst for development and redevelopmentthroughout the area.

This pattern of Transit-oriented Development hasbeen widely established and proven in other parts ofAmerica with similar growth and development condi-tions. Denver, Dallas, St. Louis, San Diego, Salt LakeCity and other cities have seen a tremendous responseto ‘new start’ rail systems with ridership estimatesexceeded in the first year of service. The area aroundRaleigh is no exception, and we wanted to use thisplan to support the credibility and attractiveness ofthis rail operation. The system, as we noted in the firstcase study, is planned to serve Durham, ResearchTriangle Park (RTP), Morrisville, Cary, Raleigh andother destinations with a convenient, clean and effi-cient means for travel throughout the region.

The TTA proposes to use Diesel Multiple Units(DMUs) as the mode of technology along the corri-dor, running on their own dedicated double tracks.The DMU is a lightweight, self-propelled train thatcombines the long distance capability of heavy com-muter rail, similar to Amtrak service, with the flexi-bility to stop more frequently. Stations spaced one tothree miles apart, and the system can be built for afraction of the price of light rail. This technology,used in Europe for years, is now being adapted foruse in the United States. We are strong supporters of


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commuter rail service wherever it is feasible, and webelieve in this instance that the service proposed byTTA is a logical and cost effective start to providing atrue alternative to the automobile-dependent societyin central North Carolina. We felt that by integratingdevelopment around the train stations as we did inthe CORE study, this Raleigh Small Area Plan couldestablish this typology as the preferred pattern ofdevelopment for other stops on the line.

In terms of road and street infrastructure, themain issues focused on resolving key points of trafficcongestion that would be exacerbated by the frequentpassenger trains at some crossing points, especially adja-cent to the Fairground and the School of VeterinaryMedicine toward the east end of the study area. In addi-tion it was important to create a network of connectedstreets within the study area to serve the internal needsof residents and workers without always having to relyon the major peripheral highways to move around.

New Types of Transit-OrientedDevelopment

High and medium density developments centeredaround train stations are a new phenomenon in theRaleigh region, and we wanted to use this opportu-nity (the charrette was carried out 16 months earlierthan the CORE project in Chapter 7) to explain andillustrate the potential of TODs. Accordingly, we setout the four specific design criteria that need to bemet in any TOD design:

● A centrally located transit station or transit stop;● A shopping street or streets immediately adjacent

to the station;● A network of connected streets that branch out

into the surrounding neighborhood(s); and● A variety of housing types, including multifamily.

Beyond these fairly obvious principles, importantquestions needed to be answered about the characterand development potential of the site. Will theTODs be ‘residentially-led,’ that is, designed pri-marily around different types of housing, includingdetached single-family dwellings, and with only asmall amount of service retail; or will they be‘employment-led,’ designed mainly with office build-ings supported by medium to higher density hous-ing? Answers to these questions would be predicatedon the site’s location, its context and market studiesfor the area. When a TOD is based on employmentopportunities, we utilize types of office buildings thattypically provide workspace for 40 to 80 workers on

each acre of developable land (100–200 workers perhectare). This intensity of occupation works well forsuburban and infill sites that aren’t located in the citycenter; in central urban areas the figures would behigher.

These discussions about TODs automaticallycross-reference with the typology of mixed-usecenters outlined in Chapter 6, and in addition to thecriteria listed there, TODs outside the center city canbest be classified under three headings:

● Specialized urban center – high intensity developmentwith some specialized retail or employment focus;

● Urban village center – a medium to high intensitydevelopment serving a mixed-use district and sur-rounding area;

● Neighborhood center – a medium to low intensitydevelopment serving a particular neighborhood.

The ‘urban village center’ and the ‘neighborhood cen-ter’ match the same categories of mixed-use activitycenters described in Chapter 6. The ‘rural village cen-ter’ from Chapter 6 is generally not associated withTransit-oriented Development because the densitiesinvolved are too low, and the ‘specialized urban center’is simply a higher density version of the urban villagewith the addition of some particular transit-supportivecharacteristic of use or location.

These three types generate different developmentintensities of residential density and ‘floor area ratios’(FARs). FARs measure the density of commercialspace in an equivalent way that ‘dwellings per acre’,or ‘persons per hectare’ gauge residential density. Thefloor area ratio is the total floor area of the buildingor buildings on a site divided by the gross area of theparcel of land.

For example, if a site of 40 000 square feet(3716 square meters) had an FAR of 0.5, the developercould construct 20 000 square feet (1858 squaremeters) of building. If this building area was organizedas two floors of 10 000 square feet each (929 squaremeters), 30 000 square feet (2787 square meters) of sitearea would be left open for landscaping and car park-ing. Parking standards for typical suburban officesrequire four spaces per 1000 square feet (92.9 squaremeters) at approximate 350 square feet (32.5 squaremeters) per (American) car. (This figure per carincludes an averaged allowance for driveways, circula-tion, disabled spaces, landscaping areas and so forth; itis not the actual measurement of the parking space.)Thus our 20 000 square foot office building requires 80parking spaces at 350 square feet each, giving a park-ing area of 28 000 square feet (2601 square meters).

CHAPTER EIGHT ● THE CITY

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This area fits within the 30 000 square feet available,with some space left over for pedestrian areas at buildingentrances, dumpster locations, and other miscellaneousitems. It’s also worth noting that the area for car parkingin this typical suburban example is greater than the areaof the building. If our hypothetical building had beendesigned as a single-storey structure, the building andparking would not have fitted on the site. Thus FARsare increased in key locations not only to allow moredevelopment, but to force buildings into more urban,multi-story configurations.

In employment-led TODs the parking ratiosare often drastically reduced, from four spaces per1000 square feet (92.9 square meters) to three oreven 2.5, in the expectation that many workers willarrive by train or live within walking distance.Architects and planners, and even some developerswould like to see these figures reduced further, butthe conservatism of lending organizations means thatfinance is not easily available for developments thatdo not include the conventional (i.e. suburban)amount of car parking, or something close to it.

With all this in mind, the minimum densities wedesign to for each of the different types of TOD areset out below. The ‘core’ refers to development withinthe 1/4-mile radius, and the ‘neighborhood’ that partof the site between 1/4-mile and 1/2-mile from thetrain station.

Specialized Urban Center

Core: Residential – 22 dwellings per acre(143 persons per hectare)Commercial – FAR 0.75

Neighborhood: Residential – 10 dwellings per acre(65 persons per hectare)Commercial – FAR 0.3

Village CenterCore: Residential – 15 dwellings per acre

(97 persons per hectare)Commercial – FAR 0.5

Neighborhood: Residential – 10 dwellings per acre(65 persons per hectare)Commercial – FAR 0.25

Neighborhood CenterCore: Residential – 10 dwellings per acre

(65 persons per hectare)Commercial – FAR 0.35

Neighborhood: Residential 6 dwellings per acre(39 persons per hectare)Commercial – FAR 0.15

(To put these FARs of 0.15–0.75 in perspective, atypical floor area ratio for development in midtownManhattan, New York, is between 12 and 15.)

Relationships Between the Major StateFunctions and Adjacent Smaller ScaleDevelopments

The State Fairground has been well established overmany decades, and it needs large land areas for itsactivities, ranging from agricultural shows and com-petitions to funfair rides and concerts. (The scale ofthe operation is many times that of the NeshobaCounty Fair described in Chapter 4.) There are nopermanent residential buildings, but several largecommunal structures for commercial and educa-tional purposes do exist. Indeed, one of these, theDorton Arena, dating from the 1950s is protectedas a historic structure on account of its advancedreinforced concrete shell roof design. At the time ofthe State Fairground’s original construction, the sitewas fully rural as befitted its purpose. Now it sitsuncomfortably with a variety of suburban uses thathave surrounded it on many sides. Only to the east,where the fields and campus of the N.C. StateUniversity School of Veterinary Medicine are located,does any remnant exist of the original open landscapethat once characterized this area. Other fields to thewest of the main Fairground site are used to accom-modate peak car parking demands, but these sitawkwardly next to established low-to-middle incomeresidential neighborhoods.

The adjacent large sports facilities represent typicalsuburban planning of the pre-Smart Growth era: thatis, locate a piece of open land near a freeway, con-struct a large building with all its requisite car park-ing, and make everybody drive to and from theevents. One of the main issues in this case study wasto seek alternative patterns of land use and transitthat could reduce this complete car dependency.Even with the extensive freeway network that sur-rounds the study area, the traffic congestion beforeand after major sporting events creates substantialproblems. This in turn burdens residents and workerswith considerable difficulty travelling to and fromhomes and workplace.

THE CHARRETTE

This master plan was developed during a highly inten-sive, public design charrette over a four-day period inDecember 2000 (see Figure 8.2). The charrette was


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conducted at a temporary design studio set up in bow-els of the Entertainment and Sports Arena (not aneasily accessible space for the public to find), where themultidisciplinary design team consisting of planners,urban designers, architects, landscape architects, trans-portation planners, traffic engineers and market ana-lysts conducted a series of meetings with the interestedstakeholder groups. According to our standard prac-tice, each day we developed design alternatives thatdirectly reflected the public input.

These stakeholder groups included representativesfrom the Raleigh Planning Commission, the RaleighAppearance Commission, the Raleigh Departmentof Transportation, the NC Department of Trans-portation, NC State University, NC State SurplusProperty Office, the Centennial Authority that oper-ated the arena, the TTA, environmental interestgroups, business owners and residents. The resultantplan was truly a collaborative effort balancing, tothe extent practical in a market-driven context, the

various and diverse visions and desires of the participants. The master plan maintained our commit-ment to the construction of places as one of ourfour typologies. Neighborhoods, Centers, Districts,and Corridors, where every area recognizes some levelof mixed-use, organized by a coherent, interconnected,multi-modal transportation network. This includesfacilities for transit, vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians.

Our initial analysis broke the large area down intofive sub-areas:

1. The State Fair Transit Station Neighborhood;2. The Hillsborough Street Corridor;3. The West Raleigh Transit Station Neighborhood;4. The Corporate District, comprising Corporate

Center Drive and the ‘159 acres’ (63.6 hectares)a wooded site being offered for development bythe State of North Carolina;

5. The Entertainment, Sports, and Cultural (ESC)District.


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8:00Monday – Dec.11 Tuesday – Dec.12 Wednesday – Dec.13 Thursday – Dec.14

Breakfast Breakfast Breakfast

9:00 Centennialarena authority

10:30 NC dot

Lunch

DESIGN

Lunch

DESIGN

DES

IGN

DES

IGN

Close-up studio

Dinner

Closing presentation

DESIGN

DESIGN

8:30 Fairgrounds andAgricultural Complex

9:30 NC State (SurplusProperty, Carter-Finley,Centennial Campus)

Lunch

1:00 Environmentalinterest groups lunchmeeting

3:00 Developers(Corporate Center Dr,etc.)

5:30 Pin-up sessionand project update

Dinner

7:00 NeighborhoodAssociations (Westover.Nowell Point, LincolnVille)

11:00 Team arrives andstudio set-up

12:00 Overview bylocal staff during lunchand bus tour of area(Planning,Transportation, Parks and Rec, TTA)

4:00 Market studypresentation by KarnesResearch

Dinner with PlanningCommission

Opening presentation

9:0010:0011:00

12:00

1:00

2:003:00

4:00

5:00

6:00

7:00

5:30 Pin-up sessionand project update

Dinner

Figure 8.2 Charrette Schedule. Four-day charrettes are typically the minimum period we will accept to deal with the complexity of a community master plan. Five or six days produce better results, but at around$15 000 to $20 000 a day, plus the costs of preparation and producing the subsequent reports and zoningdocuments, some municipalities opt for the shorter period.


Our detailed market analysis study of the areaindicated a very firm market for residential and officespace, with relatively weak expectations for retail devel-opment. During the charrette, we examined these fiveareas in detail, and formulated the master plan by thecohesive reassembly of these distinct subareas.

THE MASTER PLAN

The reader will see from Plate 21 that working at thissmaller scale, we were able to design everythingwithin the study area to a hypothetical build-out.This approach is one of our standard procedures toinvestigate the best use of each parcel of land, andto examine its full potential for development orenvironmental conservation. We complement thesedetailed plans with perspectives and aerial viewsto explain our design concepts to professionals andlaypersons alike.

The State Fair Transit StationNeighborhood (See Plate 22)

Current Conditions

The land around the North Carolina State Fair ishighly used during times of operation, but is other-wise very underdeveloped. The roads have no curbs,gutters or sidewalks, and small single-story buildingsare clustered around the intersections of adjacentmain streets. Two of these streets run east-west, paral-lel to the train tracks on either side, while a majornorth-south highway crosses both streets and the railline, creating a confused muddle of intersections.Some highway commercial development hasencroached around these intersections along with asignificant number of ‘flex-warehouse’ buildings. TheNC State School of Veterinary Medicine, with itslarge tract of open land, is located to the northeast ofthese important intersections.

The intersections required significant improve-ments. The efficiency of operation, measured bygrades ‘A’–‘F’ by transportation engineers, wasalready significantly impaired due to difficult dualtraffic signal requirements. This complex intersectionwas expected to receive a grade of ‘F’ in the next fewyears due to increased traffic, and when the com-muter trains begin to run at frequent intervals in2008, things would only get worse.

In addition, while the State Fairground hostsvarious events year-round, the two-week period

devoted to the State Fair itself, attracts as many as130 000 attendees per day. During this period, trafficexceeds the capacities of all the streets, and parkingwithin a mile of the Fairground is at a premium.

The TTA had planned a station to serve theState Fairground on their commuter rail system. Theproposal called for a standard 400-foot (122 meters)platform with a pedestrian tunnel under HillsboroughStreet to bring people from the train directly toa main ticket gate at the Fairground. The freight raillines directly south of the commuter tracks wouldremain in operation, but there were no plans toprovide pedestrian access across the freight linesat this location to developable land on the south sideof the tracks.

Plan Recommendations

Our master plan called for the establishment ofHillsborough Street as a true gateway into down-town Raleigh (four miles to the east), converting itto a landscaped boulevard with multi-use paths andstreet trees. The intersection of this improved streetwith Blue Ridge Road however, caused us consider-able difficulty. After much consideration and studyof alternatives, including a tunnel, we felt the severetraffic congestion at this location could best besolved by the construction of a bridge to facilitatethrough traffic, with a new access road for local dri-vers connecting to adjacent streets on the north sideof the tracks (see Figure 8.3). Connections on thesouth side could be made through the new streetnetwork that would be developed as part of the transit-oriented development on that part of the site. This rearrangement would dramatically improvemovement in the entire area. The fall of the land tothe south facilitated this bridge construction byrequiring little in the way of ramping up north ofHillsborough Street. This would enable satisfactorypedestrian connections to be made from theexpanded School of Veterinary Medicine campusto the new commuter rail station and associateddevelopments.

The current master plan for the School of Veteri-nary Medicine created approximately 2 000 000 squarefeet (185 800 square meters) of high-technology,research and development space around an expandedVeterinary Medicine Hospital. We worked very hardwith the campus architect and city and state highwayengineers to facilitate a compromise that changedthe campus plan without destroying its concept


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while configuring the specially designed new accessroad on the north side. All parties had to be flexibleto achieve the compromise solution, and final agree-ment was reached only hours before the final presenta-tion to the public. The final drawing was nearlycomplete, with only this quadrant missing, and in truecharrette tradition, the solution was drawn in andcolored with only minutes to spare! We are certain thatthe high-intensity design pressure of the charrettecontributed to this dramatic breakthrough in a disputebetween two parties who had previously adopted some-what intransigent positions about their own needs.

As part of the Triangle Transit Authority train sta-tion, we proposed a new pedestrian bridge acrossHillsborough Street and the freight line, connectingthe Dorton Arena to a new signature office buildingon a site owned by the city of Raleigh. Around thisfocus of the station and major new building, wedesigned a medium-rise (4–5 storys) mixed-useurban village to capitalize on the TOD opportunity,with direct links to downtown Raleigh and good con-nections to nearby interstate highways. This TODfell somewhere in between the ‘Specialized UrbanCenter’ and the ‘Urban Village’ typologies noted ear-lier, and we interpolated between the appropriatedensity figures for a building layout that best suitedthe site. We designed our new pedestrian bridge as agateway element to the new urban village and theFairground, particularly for those who travel to the

Fair by commuter rail. The connection of this newurban village to the Fairground and its year-roundprogram of events would also help support therestaurants and cafés so important to authenticstreet life.

Within its hybrid typology, we organized the vil-lage as an ‘employment-led TOD,’ meaning that weconcentrated on office development as the main eco-nomic generator, backed by medium to high-densityhousing in three- to four-story apartment buildingswith some small-lot single family housing at theperiphery of the site. Along the eastern boundary,this housing faces onto a wonderful arboretum oftrees and lawns operated by NC State University.

The Hillsborough Street Corridor (See Plate 23)

Current Conditions

This second sub-area is bordered by the StateFairground to the east and north, and includes openland owned by the State Fair. The area contains theWestover community that predates most of thedevelopment in this area; the neighborhood, mostlysingle-family bungalows built on a grid of streets, isone of the few residential populations in the vicinity.It enjoys a small commercial center on the adjacentmain road that consists of service stations, scatteredconvenience stores, and some small offices. A long-established hardware store serves as the neighbor-hood’s landmark. In spite of the lack of pedestrianamenities, the corridor maintains a human scale, duein large part to the placement of a number of build-ings close to the street.

A planned and funded extension of a north–southarterial road through the undeveloped land wouldopen up this area to regional traffic from the north inaddition to the current east–west patterns. This roadwould also create a view corridor through propertythat is currently forested and traversed by a numberof small streams (see Figure 8.4).


This was clearly an area in transition. The potentialfor development and redevelopment could help thisarea evolve into a true urban mixed-use corridor sur-rounded by thriving, interconnected neighborhoodswith protected green space in the form of parks andrecreation areas. The key to this transformation lay infew large parcels of land, paramount of which was the


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Figure 8.3 Axonometric View of the New RoadBridge at the Fairgrounds Station. This three-dimensional sketch was crucial in obtainingagreement between the city highway engineersand the university administrators regarding new road construction to relieve congestion at this busy intersection.


tract currently owned by the NC State Fair thatwould contain the future north–south road connec-tion. The section of this road already constructed fur-ther north on the site is hostile to pedestrians, andpods of existing development, quite understandably,back away from it in self-imposed seclusion.

It was important to change the character ofthis road as it passes through this sub-area into apedestrian-friendly boulevard with multi-use paths oneither side. Large canopy trees should be planted inthe median and between the curb and the multi-usepath. With this design, we felt it would be possible tocreate some strong and attractive connections withnew and existing neighborhoods.

In this part of the site, we also recommendedchanges to the long-term destination and alignmentof the north–south roadway. Instead of the proposedfreeway-style flyover spanning the existing east–westroads and the railway, and its traumatic extensionthrough the mature neighborhoods to the south ofthe study area, we recommended an extension southof our site only as far as an adjacent east–west arterialhighway, tunneling under a street and the rail

corridor in the process. This east-west artery takestraffic directly to the freeway at the western edge ofthe study area, thus serving the transportation needson the long-term thoroughfare plan without causingmajor harm to existing residential neighborhoods(see Figure 8.4). Open land exists in appropriate locations for this more modest alignment with aminimum of disruption to existing and proposeddevelopment.

The plan in Plate 23 shows the expansion of theadjacent single-family residential neighborhood on thewest edge of the site into the State Fair property. Ourlayout permits neighborhood connections to the thor-oughfare and to our vision of a new city park and play-ing fields that we located on either side of the newboulevard. Some of these playing fields could be usedas overflow parking during the peak weeks of the StateFair. We specified that this neighborhood expansionshould meet and exceed the current construction stan-dards of the existing community. In other words,house lots similar in size to the existing neighborhoodshould be placed along narrow, landscaped streets,containing curbs and sidewalks on both sides of thestreet, and lit by pedestrian-scaled lamps. In addition,numerous streams traverse the property, creating awonderful opportunity for recreation trails andgreenways. This preserves stands of trees serving as sig-nificant buffers from the traffic on the boulevard. Wealso recommended that these streams should be pro-tected from all development activity by a minimum of100 feet (30.5 meters) of undisturbed landscapebuffers on either side.

We designed the land between the existing east–west street and the rail line along the southern edgeof the site as a higher density residential develop-ment with traditional block sizes of 400–600 feet(122–183 meters). This layout increased the residen-tial density along the transit line at a location midwaybetween two stations, both reasonably close by. Thisnew development also contained opportunities forsmall retail or office components on the first floors ofcorner buildings.

The final piece in this section of the planning jig-saw was a linear park extending from the streams onthe State Fair property beneath the upgraded east–west boulevard, and leading ultimately to the WestRaleigh transit station described in the next section.This linear park, lined by public streets and three-storey apartments, would provide safe and conve-nient pedestrian and bicycle paths to the proposednew urban village centered around this second train


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Figure 8.4 Main Road Extensions Plan. This drawingillustrates the new highway planned by the city andstate to improve north–south connectivity. Wesuggested substantial design revisions to turn thisroad into a pedestrian-friendly boulevard to serveadjacent neighborhoods as well as moving trafficfrom other parts of the city.


station. The park space with its small stream wouldalso provide natural drainage from this urban core.

The West Raleigh Transit StationNeighborhood (See Plates 24–26)

Current Conditions

The east–west road through this third sub-area is alow-scale commercial strip corridor with office, retail,and service uses in single-storey buildings generallyset back from the road. The area north of the road isa mixture of some low-density residential neighbor-hoods and small office-flex buildings. The TTAs hadproposed to site their West Raleigh commuter railstation on land occupied by the North Carolina StateSurplus Property office and storage yard, a site withgood frontage onto adjacent roads that made it suit-able for the park and ride lot planned by the TTA asthe initial station development. However, this sub-areademonstrated to us great potential for a more intensiveurban use as a function of the new train service.

There is also a freeway interchange immediately tothe west of this subarea, providing excellent accessibil-ity by car. To take advantage of this, the area to thenorthwest has been developed as an office park, butplenty of land remains undeveloped in this quadrant.


Our master plan proposed that the West Raleightransit station area develop as a residentially-ledmixed-use urban village to balance the employment-led TOD designed for the State Fairground stationarea, but with one important amendment. We sug-gested that a distinctive aspect of this TOD could bethe presence of a regionally significant civic buildingsuch as a performing arts center. We didn’t pluck thisidea out of thin air, but recast an existing proposal bythe city of Raleigh to place such an arts center in anearby suburban location, isolated from any otheruses and accessible only by car. We believed that pro-posal was shortsighted and likely to lead to increasedtraffic congestion in a system that is already over-loaded at peak times.

As a provocative alternative, we illustrated how theperforming arts center could fit on the State SurplusProperty yard in the midst of a new urban village (seePlate 25). This site, located across the street from thetrain station, also has excellent access from nearbythoroughfares and the interstate immediately to thewest. Failing this specific proposal, we recommended

strongly that this site be reserved for some similarlyimportant civic and public building. These commu-nity facilities should be integrated into pedestrian-scaled districts that offer complimentary amenitiessuch as restaurants and public transportation. Theyshould not be strung out on a highway only accessi-ble by car. We also added slightly more office devel-opment than normal for this typology on account ofthe adjacent office park and the site’s excellent free-way access.

This special intensity of development would needseveral parking decks, financed by public–privatepartnerships, to serve the mixed-use retail, office, andresidential core, along with some park-and-ridespaces. We located the decks within the blocks adja-cent to the transit station and the main boulevardthrough the site, upgraded from its previous condi-tion as a semirural road. Other development wasaccommodated with surface parking, and if thisTOD was reduced in scale, most parking could beprovided without decks.

As designed, the proposed urban village comprisedthree and four-story mixed-use buildings on itsMain Street, the east–west boulevard that bisectedthe site, and the buildings tapered down in scaleblock by block to two-story residential developmentintegrated into the existing neighborhoods (seePlate 26). The plan in Plate 26 proposed new single-family homes backing up to existing single-familylots. It’s a good tactic wherever possible to match likewith like when bringing new development up toexisting neighborhoods. (We couldn’t manage thison the south side due to narrow strips of developableland. To the east, we transitioned to apartment build-ings around the end of the linear park that enters thestation area from the sub-area described in the previ-ous section.)

At the station, we recommended the constructionof a pedestrian bridge over the freight line and anadjacent street. This bridge connection would openup the properties on the south side of the tracks fortransit-friendly development. Just as with the StateFair Station, the bridge would be visually significantand serve as a gateway to the area. The plan alsoencouraged the placement of a conference hotel on aprominent corner two blocks west of the train stationand adjacent to the existing office park with its largecorporate users (shown in pink in Plate 24). Thiswould be one of the first buildings seen when drivinginto this area from the interstate exit immediately tothe west, and because of its prominence, the building


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should be designed to create a strong gateway byframing the street edge and providing a good pedes-trian environment. Elsewhere we planned smaller‘boutique’ office buildings with typical floorplates of6000–8000 square feet (557–743 square meters).The only exception was a large corporate buildingvisible from the interstate at the western edge of thesite with its parking tiered down into the fall of theland (Bottom left in Plate 21).

We continued the existing street from the officepark southwards across our upgraded east–westboulevard to link directly with the train station sothat office workers in the northern campus couldreach the station easily by a small shuttle bus. On ourplan, this connecting street continued to the east tolink up with the end of the linear park, which in itsturn provided bicycle and pedestrian access betweenthe station and the adjacent neighborhoods and play-ing fields described in the previous section.

The Corporate District and the‘159 acres’ (See Plates 27–30)

Current Conditions

Containing just a few large tenants, the existing cor-porate office park is a surprisingly underdevelopedbusiness campus. It is home to a large bank’s mort-gage center and a training facility for a technologycompany. The main north–south drive is constructedto a greater width than is required, with a cross sectionmeasuring an amazing 41 feet wide (12.5 meters).There are no sidewalks anywhere.

The headwaters of another stream system traversethe business park, making development on the westside of the property difficult. The stream that flowsnorth remains in relatively pristine condition, andhas not yet been damaged by the environmentaldegradation that development has caused to otherstreams in the area. At the time of the plan, late in2000, new apartments were being constructed in thenorthern part of the site in a typical suburban config-uration of buildings placed amidst parking lots. Thisdevelopment abuts the state-owned tract of 159 acres(63.6 hectares), known locally as ‘The Swine Edu-cation Unit’ on account of its previous university usefor agricultural programs in pig farming. This pub-licaly owned site has a tremendous amount of poten-tial as a corporate campus, with good interstatevisibility and access, and the state had offered theland for sale on the open market prior to the char-rette. The pristine stream noted above divides thewestern one-third of the property and another

stream, already impaired by development, crosses thenortheast corner. Environmental protection of thesestream systems was of paramount importance on thisproperty. A beautiful sylvan meadow lies at the heartof the property.


Corporate District (See Plate 27) The axis of the planfor this area was the construction of a public greenwayalong the pristine stream through the office park,bounded by streets and visually overlooked by newbuildings on both sides. This visual supervision wouldensure the safety and use of this landscaped amenity.People want to see other people using open spaces;empty open spaces are more hostile to human activitythan poorly landscaped ones. This section of thegreenway would connect the existing and proposedlarge employment uses, including the ‘159 acres,’ tothe West Raleigh train station to the south. If anunderpass could be engineered beneath the interstateimmediately to the north, the greenway could linkregionally to extensive existing forest preserves. Evenwith existing large-scale office buildings, a substantialamount of land remained undeveloped, or partiallydeveloped with only parking lots and front lawns.

To accomplish the degree of urbanism necessary toframe the stream properly, we strongly recommendedthe construction of new mixed-use buildings (smallservice retail on the ground floor, offices on the upperfloors) along the street edge of the bank mortgageoffice site. This replaced the previously approved, butunbuilt, suburban pattern of buildings scatteredamidst extensive areas of parking. No floor areawould be lost, it would simply be reconfigured into amore urban arrangement. On the west side of thestream, new office buildings could be constructedto complete the framing of the space. The height ofthe buildings, two to three storys, would be limitedby the amount of parking that could be provided.

The 159 Acres We developed three alternativesfor the 159-acre (63.6 hectare) site, as this was thefocus of intense debate during the charrette. On oneside were environmental groups who wanted to pro-tect the stream systems from further damage, and tosave some open landscape as an antidote to thecreeping suburban sprawl evident in surroundingareas. On the other were city and state officials whowished to realize the full development value of thisproperty in order to purchase other areas of openspace in the region. In preparing these options, we


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followed the findings of our detailed market analysisthat showed a strong need for residential and officespace, but relatively weak demand for retail. Thepublished master plan drawing illustrated Option Aas the preferred alternative for this area; we haddecided to take the most environmentally consciousviewpoint. However we then came under late pres-sure from civic officials to illustrate more ‘develop-ment-friendly’ alternatives. We developed OptionsB and C in time for the final presentation, but notin time to include them on the full master plandrawing.

Option A (See Plate 28; 159 acres plan A) Option Awas the most environmentally sensitive of the threeoptions. It clustered development to the west side ofthe stream in order to preserve the woodlands andbeautiful open meadow that lies within the easternportion of the property. Access was from a long singledrive that extended the street pattern proposed forthe greenway development immediately to the south,and there were no expensive stream crossings. Underthis alternative, the property could support approxi-mately 1 000 000 square feet (92 900 square meters)of development in a series of four-story buildingswith parking accommodated in one very large four-story deck with additional surface car parks. It alsoavoided putting any development near the alreadyfragile stream at the eastern edge of the site. While thisalternative preserved nearly 70 percent of the siteand gave some interstate visibility above the treetops,we were forced to admit that serving this amountof office development from one access point wasimpractical.

Option B (See Plate 29; 159 acres plan B) Option Billustrated the opposite point of view, opening thesite up for more intensive development while preserv-ing a smaller percentage of open space. This planspread the development across the site, but still pre-served part of the meadow as one end of a largeneighborhood park framed by offices, apartments,and a hotel. The main stream was also protected as agreenway within and beyond this park, but parkinglots backed up to the other stream on the easternedge, compounding its environmental problems.Parking was provided in surface lots only, but theparking was terraced into the landscape behind thebuildings. The placement and smaller size of build-ings, generally two to three-storys, was dictated byproviding cheaper but lower capacity surface parkingin lieu of expensive parking decks.

Because of the more extensive street layout (withtwo expensive stream crossings) and a direct connec-tion to the road leading to the adjacent freewayinterchange, there was a greater opportunity fora mixed-use development. This alternative illustratedopportunities for a 300-room conference hotel(in pink) fronting on the park, numerous restaurantsand specialty shops ((in red) nearest the interchange)with apartments and corporate offices lining thestreets.

Option C (See Plate 30; 159 acres plan C) Option Cwas a compromise and a blend of A and B. Itincluded nearly as much development as Option B,but kept the development activity on the southernand eastern parts of the site and maintained thenorthwestern part of the site including the main-stream corridor as open space. To address the parkingrequirements for this type of clustering, parkingdecks would be needed for the offices on the westside of the site to permit construction of two four-story, 100 000 square foot (9290 square meters)buildings. The remaining five office buildings in thiscluster were proposed as two storys, though tallerbuildings could be built with additional structuredparking.

Surface parking was provided for all the otherbuildings. If practicable, parking decks could be con-structed instead of surface parking on the east side ofthe site to minimize grading and cluster the develop-ment more tightly to preserve a larger proportion ofthe meadow, which was almost completely lost in thisalternative. The main stream however was left in itsnatural state, except for one bridge crossing at thesouthern part of the site to connect with the officedevelopment on the west side.

We made the four office buildings on the east sidefour or five storys – hence the expansive fields ofsurface parking to avoid the cost of decks while stillproviding parking at four spaces per 1000 square feet(92.9 square meters). The mixed-use buildingscomprised three blocks of ground floor shops andrestaurants with two to four stories of offices andapartments above. On-street parking was providedon all the streets along with a pedestrian-scaledstreetscape of curb and gutter, street trees and side-walks. Sidewalks in front of shops should be at least15 feet (4.6 meters) wide (see Figure 10.16), while allother locations should be 6–8 feet (1.8–2.4 meters)wide. It was also important to us to retain ‘green con-nections’ through the site and beneath the freeway tolink with the nearby forest preserves (located on the


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edge of the CORE area of the previous case study) forwalking and bicycling trails.

While there were trade-offs for each scenario, bythe conclusion of the charrette, and in the light of thestate’s firm intention to sell the site for its maximumdevelopment potential, we generally supported thedevelopment of the property under Option C withthe hope that more parking decks could enable sev-eral office buildings to be resited to preserve more ofthe original meadow as illustrated in Option B.

The Entertainment, Sports, and Cultural(ESC) District (See Plate 31)

Current Conditions

Clearly some of the most important elements of thisentire planning study were the four regional enter-tainment and sports venues located in the middle ofthe master plan. The arena, the adjacent NC StateUniversity football stadium, an equestrian complexto the south of the stadium and the extensive StateFairground together form a complex that is a state-wide destination, and where events occur nearly everyday of the year.

This sub-area of the plan comprises approximately460 acres (184 hectares) and includes thousands oftemporary and permanent parking spaces, althoughat the time of the charrette, no official parking capac-ity numbers were available. There has been an infor-mal agreement to share parking during peak eventssuch as football games and the State Fair; in addition,the arena relies heavily on the football stadium park-ing on a regular basis, and to meet their own needs,NC State University had recently purchased landadjacent to the stadium for additional parking andpractice fields. There was no comprehensive market-ing strategy for all the facilities, and with the excep-tion of some banners at the stadium and the arena,no coordinated signage or streetscape program. Theone local road that bisects the area from east to westcompletely lacks any pedestrian amenities. The tensof thousands of fans and spectators at the variousevents walk in the road or along grass verges.


Other than two key hotel and office sites near theintersection of the existing roads at the eastern edgeof the site, no substantial development opportunitieswere identified during the charrette for this fifth andlast sub-area of the Small Area Plan. One hotel couldbe a major conference facility, and both would

provide much needed accommodation in anunderserved market area. The charrette team enter-tained the idea of developing a larger shopping andrestaurant complex near the stadium that would be acitywide destination, but we decided it was not fea-sible. A development of this type would be too iso-lated in that location, not visible from the freeway,not easily accessible by transit, and would be over-whelmed by traffic and parking from the State Fair,football games, and other major events. In addition,we considered it would generate unwanted competi-tion for the potential mixed-use urban village aroundthe State Fair train station to the south.

We did, however, believe there was a great needfor general infrastructure improvements in the areaincluding coordinated lighting and streetscape ameni-ties. We recommended that the east–west street bewidened to a four-lane boulevard with a landscapedmedian, curb and gutter, street trees and eight feet(2.4 meters) wide sidewalks. This type of streetscapedesign would permit and encourage pedestrian move-ment much more safely than existing conditionsallowed.

In addition to the basic streetscape improvements,we strongly encouraged the arena, the stadium andthe State Fairground to develop a coordinated, for-mal strategy for parking. We were concerned thatno actual count of parking spaces could be readilyprovided, and that parking was creeping throughoutthe area on an ad hoc basis. This coordination couldultimately take the form of a Parking Authoritycharged with the maintenance of all the parkingavailable to the main venues and construction of anynew facilities.

We also encouraged all the venues to coordinatemarketing and events better. Their close proximityshould entice larger national and international eventsthat require such large facilities. If nothing else, thiscoordination would assist all the venues to plan traf-fic and parking properly, avoiding the annual issue ofwhether NC State will have a home football gameduring the State Fair. We also strongly suggested theimprovement of an existing lane along the east sideof the adjacent residential westover neighborhoodwith curb and gutter, street trees and wide sidewalksto permit pedestrian and shuttle bus circulation fromthe State Fair train station to the arena and footballstadium. During events, this street could be closed toautomobile traffic and opened to frequent transitshuttles. There were only a few homes in the neigh-borhood with direct access from this existing lane thatwould need some modification to accommodate these


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improvements. This could take the form of a limitedaccess rear lane along the boundaries of the properties,utilizing land within the street right-of-way.

IMPLEMENTATION

This project was unusual for us because we were notasked to produce any implementation strategies aspart of the plan other than citywide Urban DesignGuidelines that dealt in passing with the two urbantransit villages in the master plan. These guidelines,extracts of which are included in Appendix V, weresubsequently adopted by the city of Raleigh to coverall mixed-use centers within their jurisdiction afterextensive debate and several public presentations.

Subsequent to our involvement in the planningprocess, the state sold the ‘159 acres’ to a developerfrom Birmingham, Alabama, for a modified mixed-use development, somewhat similar to our Options Band C. Detailed negotiations between the city andthe developer ensued, with the master plan as thefocus of debate. City staff expressed themselves verypleased with the detail of the master plan, as itenabled discussions with the developer to get rightdown to meaningful detail, and they credited themaster plan for elevating the design of the new devel-opment above and beyond the normative suburbancommercial centre.

CONCLUSIONS

The fundamental impulse of the plan was to pulltogether several conflicting patterns of developmentinto one coherent vision that took into account mar-ket, development, and environmental realities. From allthese variables, we highlighted the importance of focus-ing urban development around the two train stationson the site. We felt we could not overstate the impor-tance of proactive planning for commuter rail transit.This important transportation choice for citizensshould give rise to Transit-oriented Developmentsaround each of the two stations that would providemodels for similar projects in the region. For transit tomaximize its impact under any Smart Growth scenario,it must transcend issues relating purely to transporta-tion and have a direct influence on adjacent land usedecisions. The initial planning by the Triangle TransitAuthority for simple park-and-ride lots at both stationsshould represent only a first stage in the active promo-tion, perhaps through public–private partnerships, of a

pair of mixed-use urban villages that would invigorateand enrich the whole plan area.

We were also concerned about the lack of a coordi-nated parking strategy between the main event orga-nizers on site. We felt such a strategy was essential,for without this, valuable and attractive land wouldbecome marginalized as low-grade fields of tempo-rary parking, unsuitable for other, more productiveuses. This would be poor stewardship of public land.

Existing neighborhoods presented another deli-cate issue. They had recently focused their commu-nity energies on withdrawing defensively from futuredevelopment, and instead we wanted to encouragethem to join in a more positive vision for the future.We accomplished some of this during the charrette aswe showed residents that their property values couldbenefit from upgrading the plan area into a showcaseof integrated mixed uses. Our drawings convincedseveral key participants that their single-family neigh-borhoods could be sensitively enlarged and connectedto a lively and attractive mix of workplaces, shops andentertainment opportunities. However, this selectivedensification could only work environmentally, andin terms of neighborhood politics, if substantial areasof the study area were maintained as compensatorypublic open space, as parks, nature trails and otheropportunities for active and passive recreation ingreen and attractive natural surroundings. The stew-ardship of the remaining natural landscape needed toextend beyond the protection of the stream buffers.Well-planned and maintained open spaces as parksand greenways are the necessary corollary to urbandensity, providing a contrast with, and clear bound-aries to the proposed new urban villages.

We argued that developing this managed gradientbetween open space and natural surrounding andurban neighborhoods and centers was the mostimportant strategic objective for this plan area as ittransformed itself from an undifferentiated suburbanmélange to an orchestrated series of urban villagesand parks.


The outcome of this project was mixed. On the posi-tive side, we were able to demonstrate to a planningauthority somewhat unfamiliar with the potentialof the charrette process just how much more couldbe achieved that with the conventional drip-feed‘one meeting a month’ planning process. Anothersubstantial achievement was the illustration of the


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opportunities for medium to high-density transit vil-lages at the train stations locations, as opposed to thepreviously rather minimal vision of simple park andride facilities put forth as the first stage by the TTA.In doing so we were able to build some bridgesbetween the transportation planners of the transitauthority and the city land use planners.

Our biggest regret with this project was not beingable to create any strategies for implementing theplan other than the urban design guidelines that onlyapplied to the proposed transit villages. With somany different players operating at so many differentscales, a prioritized list of actions could have commit-ted the parties to build on the collaborative success ofthe plan’s vision. As a result, even though the planwas adopted enthusiastically by the city of Raleigh,and received the political backing of two elected offi-cials who represented the area, it functioned purely asa vision document. The plan stood alone, with noreinforcement in the form of new design-based zon-ing codes for the project area or even recommenda-tions for changes to the existing zoning classificationsto bring them in line with the plan vision.

However, the plan withstood its first big test(more or less) with the proposed development of

the 159-acre site. Planning staff worked long andhard with the developer and the community toachieve an acceptable design, and while the devel-opment wasn’t as good as the planners themselveswould have liked, it was a lot better than averagebecause of the master plan. We can only imaginehow many further improvements could have beenachieved with design-based zoning regulations inplace. Like many American cities of its size andtype, Raleigh has talented planners but a very com-plex and unwieldy zoning code, assembled bit by bitover many years, and we sensed resistance to majorchanges in the document. There is no doubt theprocess to affect changes on a citywide basis wouldbe complex and highly politicized. However, toadopt zoning amendments keyed directly to a localplan everyone supported should not have been toodifficult. But large cities are like supertankers; theyhave a lot of momentum and can’t easily changecourse to a dramatic new heading. Smaller townsare different. They are politically more flexible andmobile, and the weakness evident in this secondcase study was avoided by the commitment tochange on the part of a smaller local authority in thethird case study, the town of Mooresville, NC.


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Mooresville is a town of approximately 20 000 people,located on the urban periphery of Charlotte, NorthCarolina. Charlotte, named for the wife of KingGeorge III, is the hub city of the largest urban regionin the Carolinas with an overall population ofsome two million people, and is located withinMecklenburg County, designated in honor ofQueen Charlotte’s birthplace in northern Germany.Mooresville sits in southern Iredell County, 30 milesnorth of central Charlotte and just over the county linethat separates Iredell from Mecklenburg. The town isthe northern terminus of a proposed commuter railline (the North Transit Corridor) linking Mooresvilleand three towns in northern Mecklenburg Countywith Charlotte city center. Interstate 77, one of themain north–south arteries in the state passes throughthe town’s incorporated area to the west of the down-town and through the project area, providing the townand the project site with good freeway access from anumber of interchanges. This transportation infra-structure will be enhanced when the proposed com-muter rail line begins operation in 2008.

The project area comprises 1200 acres (480hectares) of predominantly greenfield land locatedthree miles south of Mooresville’s downtown. Thetopography is generally flat and gently rolling withfew dramatic slopes or other features. Our masterplan provided a framework to manage the growtharound a new regional hospital (the Lake NormanRegional Medical Centre) and an aging interstateinterchange (Exit 33). The new growth fuelled bythis large hospital, the extensive suburban expansionof Charlotte around the nearby Lake Norman, andthe potential for future transit-oriented development

around a station planned near the hospital have com-bined to bring considerable pressure to bear on thisarea (see Figure 9.1).

The social heart of the project area is the small his-toric settlement of Mount Mourne, located towardthe southeast of the site, and adjacent to the existing,lightly used freight railroad that will be transformedin the near future to a commuter train service utiliz-ing the same kind of Diesel Multiple Units (DMUs)planned for the central area of North Carolina andfeatured in the first two case studies. With a postoffice, school, fire station and several churches,Mount Mourne possesses as much civic fabric asmany small towns, and thus provides a solid founda-tion for the master plan.

This plan represents the second and third phases ofa detailed study process that lasted two years withplenty of public input and participation, and whichexamined transportation, environmental, land useand zoning issues in the Mooresville area. As part ofthe first phase, before we were involved, the town hademployed a separate traffic consultant to establish anew roadway plan and redesign elements of the free-way interchange (Exit 33) on the site.

Since the completion of our first version of themaster plan in 2000 (phase two in the overallprocess), we and other consultants reworked it in2001 (phase three) following the relocation of amajor corporate headquarters to the site. The Lowescorporation (a major ‘do-it-yourself ’ and homeimprovement retail chain) was attracted to the siteby the accommodating provisions of the original planand its synchronised zoning ordinance that maderelocation of their large facility relatively straight-forward. This major new complex has affected thearea so much that a second revision of the master

9The Town

Case Study 3: Mooresville,North Carolina



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plan (phase four) has been scheduled for 2003–2004.This aims to ensure that a new wave of subsiduaryoffice development, providing space for companiesthat supply Lowes with goods and services, does notoverturn some of the founding principles of the 2000master plan.


The overall goal of the master plan was to create adevelopment scenario for the 1200 acres (480hectares) that balanced the area’s economic develop-ment potential with principles of Smart Growth,and capitalized on the site’s transportation advan-tages while maintaining an appropriate urban scale

and environmental protections. The plan thusincluded detailed provisions for residential, office,and retail buildings, public parks and areas ofpreserved landscape, and an interconnected streetnetwork.

The key issues were:

1. Establishing a distinct identity for the location.2. Creating a southern gateway into Mooresville.3. Creating a plan that blended the walkability of a

mixed-use urban village around the train stationwith vehicle accessibility from the freeway inter-change for commercial and healthcare development.

4. Ensuring housing affordability in the new neigh-borhoods.

5. Safeguarding environmental protection and openspace provision.

I-77

Hwy 21

Davidson

Hwy 115

Exit 33

Lake Norman

Mount. Mourne

Mooresville

Iredell County

Mecklenburg County

Cornelius

Hwy 73

Huntersville

North

1 2 3 miles

rail line

to CharlotteI-77

Figure 9.1 Location Map. MountMourne is located south of downtownMooresville and north of the threeMecklenburg county towns ofHuntersville, Cornelius and Davidson.These communities all embrace NewUrbanist and Smart Growth conceptsin their zoning ordinances and landuse plans (see Chapter 11).


CHAPTER NINE ● THE TOWN

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THE CHARRETTE

We held a charrette at a local church on the site forthree days in March, 2000 during which neighbors,property owners, developers, real estate agents, churchgroups and town officials expressed their views in acandid, public environment that aired a long list ofissues and opportunities. The town’s original inten-tion was to focus on the growing area at freeway Exit33, and create an attractive southern gateway into thetown, leaving Mount Mourne on the fringe of consid-eration. While not diminishing the importance of thisobjective, we quickly came to understand the impor-tance of the Mount Mourne community and its his-tory. Accordingly, our first action was to retitle theprocess ‘the Mount Mourne charrette,’ and establishthis identity for the area instead of simply calling it‘Exit 33.’ This shift of emphasis was enthusiasticallyendorsed by all participants, and created a positiveatmosphere where local people felt more ownership ofthe project. It helped turn some initial skepticism intoa collaborative attitude.

THE MASTER PLAN (See Plate 32)

Our site analysis and understanding of the localdynamics led us quickly to divide the master planinto four main geographic areas:

1. The Transit Village2. The Hospital District3. The Interstate and ‘Hospital West’4. The North Neighborhood.

Additionally, we set out policies on three specific topics:

5. Open Space Design and Environmental Protection6. Housing7. A new Development code.

The Transit Village (see Plate 33)

After a number of discussions with the CharlotteArea Transit System (CATS), Mooresville townleaders, and local residents, we determined that themost logical placement for a train station was nearthe existing Mount Mourne community where therail line runs north–south and parallel to a local mainroad, Highway 115, that connects Mooresville’sdowntown area with the neighboring town ofDavidson in Mecklenburg County to the south. Thislocation also has a good existing east–west street con-nection to the hospital area and the interstate, just

over half-a-mile to the west. This location is alsothree miles north of the Davidson station and threemiles south of the terminus in the center ofMooresville. Three miles between stations is an idealdistance for the DMU technology as it enables thetrains to reach and maintain efficient high speeds fora reasonable distance between slowing down andstarting up again at the stops.

Charlotte transit officials required this station tobe a park-and-ride facilty to serve a wide cachementarea in southern Iredell County (a 10-minute drivedefines a five-mile radius around the station). Whileagreeing with this proposal, we realized that a typicalpark-and-ride stop with its large areas of asphaltparking, would do considerable damage to the envir-onment and character of the existing Mount Mournecommunity. Accordingly, we developed the stationas a hybrid, a park-and-ride facilty combined witha pedestrian-oriented TOD.

We believed that due to its unique location, thispark-and-ride lot could mature into somethingaltogether more interesting, and we designed therequired parking area for 1000 cars on a rectangularblock structure with a green square at the center,preserving an existing grove of mature trees. Thissquare is the same dimension as a typical square inSavannah, Georgia (see Figure 6.9). Initially providingas many as 1000 surface parking spaces, as develop-ment pressure expands over time, these 400 feet �400 feet (122 meters � 122 meters) urban sizedblocks could be redeveloped with two- to three-storymixed-use buildings served by mid-block parkingdecks should the land value grow sufficiently tosupport that cost. These parking structures wouldbe sized to provide enough spaces for continuedpark-and-ride service.

Placing the station midway between the parkingareas and land available for higher density develop-ment enabled us to plan a small mixed-use urbanvillage on a grid of streets within 1/4-mile of thisproposed transit stop. As the DMU technology forcommuter rail is not as pedestrian-friendly as lightrail (it’s heavier and noisier) the immediate ‘on street’relationship between the urban village and the lightrail station cannot be replicated. Some extra safetydistances are required, and for the station to be in aseparate block from the core of the urban village isquite satisfactory in this condition. We recom-mended in this instance that the village be developedas an ‘employment-led TOD,’ with a combination ofoffice and housing rather than retail, which should belimited to smaller neighborhood service stores and


restaurants. Large, car-dependent shopping centerswould be counterproductive to the transit efficienciesgained by walk-up ridership from offices and housingand we recommended firmly that nothing larger thana neighborhood grocery store should be permitted inthis location.

Within 1/4-mile radius of the train station, an areaof 125 acres (50 hectares), we planned 635 residentialunits, workspace for over 1000 employees and apark-and-ride lot with 1000 parking spaces. Within1/2-mile of the train station, an area of 400 acres(160 hectares) these figures increased to 887 residen-tial units and workspace for nearly 3000 newemployees, not counting the existing hospital. Forthis kind of hybrid development to work, it’s impor-tant that connections between the uses are conve-nient and attractive. In this particular example, astrong pedestrian and bicycle connection needed tobe made between the station, the urban village andthe medical center. To achieve this, we redesigned theeast–west connecting street (Fairview Road) as anurban boulevard with four travel lanes, two outsideparallel parking lanes, kerb and gutter, street treesand wide sidewalks. The plan illustrated how otherstreet connections could be established as a loose gridas development expands.

Rail crossings are an important issue with the kindof high-speed commuter rail service envisaged on thisline. In principle, at-grade crossings have to be keptto a minimum, and we limited them to three withinthe plan area plus one grade-separated crossing wherean important east–west street and a creek could passunderneath the rail tracks and Highway 115. Two ofthe three at-grade crossings occur within the 1/2 mileradius of the transit village, and support easy pedes-trian and bicycle access between the new village andthe existing nucleus of Mount Mourne.

Focusing the development of the urban villagearound one of these at-grade crossings, the intersec-tion of Fairview Road and Highway 115, the naturaljunction of north–south and east–west traffic,enabled us to build on the rich heritage of the MountMourne historic settlement. The prominence of theexisting churches, school, post office and fire stationserved to anchor this village and gave it the civic ele-ments necessary to produce a viable mixed-use centerfor the southern areas of Mooresville. To support thisevolution, we found a suitable site for a local grocerystore on Highway 115, just on the edge of the five-minute walking radius from the train station.

One of the factors that makes this plan unique isthe presence of a large medical facility in its core, and

we wanted the hospital to integrate itself into thecommunity and not remain an island unto itself. Forthis to happen it was critical that new buildingsengage the streets; not only must they provide conve-nient services for hospital staff, they must also createspaces along the streets that are attractive placesto walk in their own right. Our model for this kindof environment was a street in Charlotte near a majorhospital that featured disciplined street tree plan-tings, wide sidewalks and a mixture of buildings withdifferent uses, all facing the street (see Figure 9.2).

The Hospital District (See Plate 34)

We wrote the following two paragraphs in the 2000project report:

Currently, the hospital provides a large amount ofleasable office space to its physicians and the build-ing was designed with the ability to rise an addi-tional story. Still, there is clearly a demand foroff-site medical practices and a number of othercomplimentary professional services associatedwith a hospital. In short, areas surrounding hos-pitals have the greatest potential in most marketsto be viable Class A office locations. With theadded premium of its proximity to the proposedcommuter transit station, this area has the poten-tial to be the largest employment centre in theNorth Transit Corridor.


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Figure 9.2 Morehead Street, Charlotte, NC. Thisstreet served as a model for the new and upgradedstreets in the areas around the hospital. Offices,apartments, churches, shops and medical facilitiesall line the street to create a well-balanced andattractive public realm. Parking is screened behindbuildings.


(However) the propensity to overbuild this areamust be tempered with other long-term needsincluding convenience retail (banks, restaurants,dry cleaners, convenience goods) and more impor-tantly, residential development. The failure ofmost office parks in today’s marketplace is theirdisconnection from these quality-of-life enhance-ments. The requirement that every employee owna car and commute to work serves only as animpediment to attracting employees, particularlyin this low unemployment market. The suburbanoffice market, particularly in the CharlotteRegion, is now taking steps to offer transit serviceto . . . buildings, simply to attract new employeeswho either do not own a car or are disillusionedwith the commuting traffic.

In 2001, the Lowes corporation recognized thesesame locational advantages, and with our master planin place, Mooresville was able to forge agreementsquickly for the relocation of this company’s nationalheadquarters. As a result of this major economicboost to the town, we and other consultants revisitedthe master plan in 2001, to integrate the very largefacilty (more extensive than we had imagined in ouroriginal work) into the area. Plate 35 illustrates therevised master plan.

Although the architecture of the new offices wasattractive (see Figure. 9.3) the new corporate site lay-out was not a particularly urban-friendly form.However, we were able to avoid some of the issues ofsegregated campus design that were so problematic inthe CORE study discussed in Chapter 7. We relo-cated the train station a block south of its originallocation to bring it within half-a-mile of the center ofthe new office complex, and redesigned the streetsand block pattern between the campus and the hos-pital on a more formal, urban layout, especially toprovide a new north–south street that linked thecampus with the hospital and areas to the north. Werelocated the convenience retail stores onto the newstreets that linked the corporate headquarters withthe hospital, and we reduced the amount of parkingat the station. With 8000 new employees working atthe Lowes headquarters, we felt this area wouldincreasingly become a destination as much as a pointof departure, and the master plan for the corporatecampus also included extensive car parking.

While the emphasis of property within the 1/2-mileradius of the train station was still primarily office, weincreased the residential presence in the redesignedvillage center in the form of apartments, townhomes,

and mixed-use buildings with flats above the shops.Residential development in these locations will helpto boost transit ridership and provide places foremployees to live near their workplace. We recom-mended that Mooresville be proactive in ensuringadequate affordable housing, and in this location werecommended that the town require developers tobuild a certain number of units affordable to citizensearning the equivalent of the (relatively low) medianincome for the Mooresville area. We did not specifiy anumber, but in practice 10–15 percent of the totalunits is usually a workable minimum.

Within this hospital and employment district, twochurches inside the half-mile radius from the trainstation serve both as sanctuaries of tranquility andconnections to the natural environment. One of themost significant undisturbed woodlands in this mas-ter plan area surrounds a stream that runs behind thechurches and the hospital on their north side. Weincluded this as part of a continuous greenway tra-versing the site from east to northwest, connectingthe neighborhoods to the north while at the sametime serving as a natural transition from the transitvillage to new lower density neighborhoods on thenorthern acreage of the site. We noted that to complywith watershed protection requirements, this existingvegetation should be vigorously preserved.

The Interstate and ‘Hospital West’ (see Plate 36)

Part of the traffic study that preceeded the charretteproposed the innovative idea of converting the


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Figure 9.3 The new Lowes Corporate Headquartersunder construction, 2003, Calloway Johnson Mooreand West, architects. This refreshingly contemporarydesign is free from the needless neoclassicalornamentation so beloved by other North Carolinaarchitects.


existing confused traffic pattern around Exit 33 intoa double-roundabout interchange that provided ashort-term solution to the burgeoning issue ofeast–west movement across the freeway to expandingresidential areas around the adjacent Lake Norman tothe west. We believed that the ultimate remedy forthis interchange must be a complete redesign into an‘urban diamond;’ this would be especially appropri-ate with increased traffic after the completion of thenew corporate headquarters.

Of particular importance from the earlier trafficstudy was the proposal to construct a new bridge overthe interstate on the line of an extended FairviewRoad, the main east–west street which we upgraded toa boulevard in our plan. East–west movements werealready very difficult in this area, and we endorsed asimple bridge crossing (without access ramps to thefreeway) that would extend the Hospital District overthe interstate and open up another premium officesite immediately to the west of the freeway with accessto the hospital and Exit 33 immediately the north.This was the site we had originally envisaged for acorporate headquarters. It falls within a stringentenvironmental protection zone, but a water detentionsystem that was properly disguised as a lake wouldadd an attractive landscape feature, just like the oneconstructed as part of the Lowes master plan.

The area around the west side of the freeway exitfeatured a mixture of low-intensity uses, and we laidthis segment out for small offices or light manufac-turing on an improved grid of streets, with a smalladditional amount of retail to complement an exist-ing grocery store in that location. This did notchange in our master plan revision.

The North Neighborhood (see Plate 37)

We designed the area to the north of the hospital andtransit village as a series of interconnected traditionalneighborhoods with a range of housing types, smallscale commercial uses and a series of formal andinformal open spaces. Because much of the land hadbeen cleared for farming, there were few significantstands of trees to be preserved. To make up for this,we proposed a program of disciplined tree plantingalong streets and in the new neighborhood parks torevive significant vegetation in areas that had notseen large trees in over a hundred years.

The farmland north of the stream ‘fingers’ thatbranch off the main creek is mainly flat, without majortopographic features, and so we designed the layout inthis area as a tight street grid with a variety of lot sizes,

and we laid out the open spaces as formal parks.Smaller house lots were sited around or near theseneighborhood parks as the communal open spacecompensates for smaller private gardens. The flattopography of this northen section also made it anideal place for a small elementary school and associatedplaying fields to be integrated into the neighborhood.

As part of this new street pattern we organizedeast–west streets to provide connections between thetwo existing north–south streets leading to and fromMooresville town center, and we concentrated com-mercial and higher density residential developmentalong the westernmost of this pair, Highway 21, lead-ing north into town from Exit 33. This created thetemplate for a new neighborhood mixed-use center atthe junction of this highway and the main east–westcross street to serve the population as it grows infuture years.

As a contrast to the formality and tight grid of thenorthernmost section of the residential layout, in theareas bordering the streams we used the irregulargeometries of the stream beds to create more ‘organic’parks fronted by public streets and single-familyhomes. In other locations we laid out greenways onan informal pattern. By protecting and enhancingthese stream corridors, we were able to create animportant alternative transportation network thatconnected the northern neighborhoods to the VillageCenter. Where possible, we lined these greenwayswith public streets on at least one side to ensure theirsafety and encourage their use.

In addition to these four geographic areas, wehighlighted three special topics in the master plan thatdeserved of their own particular policies. As noted ear-lier, these were: open space design and environmentalprotection; housing; and a new development code.

Open Space Design and Environmental Protection

The benefits of usable open spaces have long beentouted by environmental groups such as the SierraClub and the Natural Resources Defense Council,and even by developers’ organizations from the late1990s onward (Santos, 2003). In all towns, and evenat the neighborhood scale if possible, we believe thereshould always be a balance between natural openspace that is preserved, and ‘improved’ open spaceslike parks that are celebrated and utilized.

Accordingly, we recommended to the town ofMooresville that it consider greenways as an impor-tant part of the overall transportation network, with


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walking and biking paths extending along theirlength, and connecting residential neighborhoodswithout recourse to cars. In addition to this greenwaynetwork, we strongly recommended the preservationof as much of the existing tree canopy as possible.The majority of this area was cleared for farming inthe late nineteenth century which left clumps of treesrather than large wooded areas. It’s especially impor-tant therefore that all existing tree stands be preservedand new trees planted in both the public realm(streets and squares) and in private spaces (yards andparking lots). The 1913 example of John Nolen inMyers Park, Charlotte, illustrated in Figure 5.6,shows how disciplined planting links the public andprivate realms can turn a former cotton field into anurban forest.

Along with the establishment of a greenway systemto bind the neighborhoods to the Village Centre andthe Hospital District, it is important that both pas-sive and active recreation opportunities be providedwithin neighborhoods to serve as focal points for thecommunity. We therefore recommended the imple-mentation of rules requiring parks and playgroundsfor all new neighborhoods. The current ordinances ofthe town only required that certain open space beimproved, but fell short of making them usable withany design criteria. Our new zoning regulations (seeNew Development Code below) required all homesto be within 1/8-mile (660 feet/201 meters) of apark, playground, greenway or playing field.

The open space in this master plan serves asa ‘green’ network for the Mount Mourne area. Underthe new zoning, as property is developed according tothis master plan, developers would be required to pro-vide open space designed for the needs of the nearbyresidents. Though the ratio of open space drawnin Plate 32 is approximately 15 percent, we believethat the long-term provision of all types of usableopen space should eventually exceed 25 percent ofland area.

Because a majority of the plan area is within aprotected watershed basin, the impervious surfaceareas of individual projects are limited to a maximumof 50 percent in areas dubbed ‘Critical,’ or 74 percentof the site in the higher risk ‘Protected’ areas. Theseratios apply if engineered, stormwater detentiondevices are used in the site layout. Without the useof ponds, sand filters or other such devices, devel-opment (impervious area) would be limited to 24 percent of the total project area. These criteria givethe design of open space an important ecologicaldimension as well as social and aesthetic ones. In

combination with the protection of water supplies, it isalso important to protect the habitats and ecosystemsof the creeks and wetlands in this area. We thereforestrongly recommended that the town of Mooresvilleadopt strong Stream Buffer Policies to protect thenatural environments of plants and aquatic life.

Housing

As should be clear by now, we believe all neighbor-hoods should be diverse and provide a variety of hous-ing opportunities. Accordingly, new neighborhoodsshould be encouraged, if not required, to provide avariety of housing to avoid cookie-cutter subdivisionswith a limited range of price points. We have foundthat a ratio of 70 single-family homes to 30 multi-family homes, with the latter in the form ofduplexes/semi-detached, townhomes, condominiums,and apartments, is a mix that works in most markets.In this specific case, we recommended that the pres-sure by developers to build large apartment complexesshould be resisted except within 1/4-mile of the pro-posed transit station, or in relation to the potentialmixed-use center in the North Neighborhood area.Higher density housing in close proximity to com-mercial development provides a market for retailersand ensures a more sustainable environment forresidents and merchants alike. From the municipalviewpoint, only in these areas can this type of devel-opment be efficiently supported with services andtheir traffic impacts mitigated.

Requiring a range of housing types in all largedevelpments is an efficient way of providing affordablehousing in the appropriate ratio with market-ratedwellings. Affordable housing does not have to meanlower quality, but it usually requires intervention bya governmental or non-profit agency to ensure itsaffordability over the long term. When developers pro-vide decent quality affordable housing in a good loca-tion, the market tends to drive up the price beyondwhat is affordable. To deal with this issue, we recom-mended the formation of a non-profit housing agencyto works with the town and developers to ensure anadequate supply of affordable housing as was the casein the neighboring town of Davidson (see Figure 6.35).This is discussed further in Chapter 10.

New Development Code

Our primary recommendation for implementingthe plan was a new development code of design-based regulations keyed directly to the plan’s design


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provisions. This type of code is discussed brieflyin ‘Implementation,’ below, and in more detail inChapter 10.

IMPLEMENTATION

In order to implement many of the recommendationsof the Mooresville master plan, it was important toestablish a new regulatory framework in which appro-priate future development could occur. The currentzoning regulations were insufficient to enforce manyof the recommendations, and we therefore wrote anddrew a new design-based zoning ordinance for thetown to cover the master plan area, and which couldbe extended to other parts of town as needed. Thiszoning code was adopted by the town in 2001 shortlyafter the acceptance of the master plan.

The new code for Mooresville is very similar to theone described in detail in the next chapter, developedfor our neighborhood-scaled master plan forGreenville, South Carolina. The Mooresville versionwas an early example of the more developed formatwe now use as standard. Accordingly, we will deferdetailed explanation of design-based zoning untilChapter 10, where the more evolved effort can bestbe described (see also Appendix III for typical pagesfrom the Greenville code). Suffice it here to say thatthe whole code for Mount Mourne comprised only19 pages, of which six were full-page diagrams anddrawings.

CONCLUSIONS

From the outset, this plan was a hybrid, collagingtogether a transit-oriented urban village, a park-and-ride facility, a more conventional scenario of officedevelopment around a freeway interchange and theopportunities for large-scale residential developmenton adjacent sites. An additional complexity was thepresence of the small community of Mount Mourne.

With so much potential development activityadjacent to the existing community, we decidedfrom the outset to follow the clearly stated wishesof the existing residents and curtail any redevelop-ment within the small settlement. Instead, weconcentrated new buildings in the other threequadrants around the train station. This led to adistortion of the classic TOD model with thetransit stop in the center of an evenly developed,circumferential neighborhood. This asymmetry,

combined with the need to accommodate theextensive car parking for the train station, wereimportant factors in deciding to design the urbanvillage as an employment-led development ratherthan basing it primarily on residential uses.This decision reinforced the potential for officedevelopment around the hospital and the freewayinterchange and created a critical mass of futureemployment. Our prognosis that the MountMourne area could become the primary workplacedestination on the North Transit Corridor washandsomely fulfilled with the selection of the siteby the Lowes Corporation for its national head-quarters.

While most development within the plan areasince its adoption by the town has been offices,some new residential buildings have also beenconstructed. Figure 9.4 illustrates a development ofmodest townhomes that have been built exactlywhere we drew them on the plan near the futuresite of the train station.


This is a project with several phases, and very much awork in progress at the time of writing this book inthe late spring of 2003. This plan is a living organismthat is adapting to change in an exciting manner. Wehave revised it once, in 2001, to accommodate thespecifics of the new corporate headquarters, andexpect to do so again in 2004. At that time we will


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Figure 9.4 New Townhomes at ‘Station View.’These new homes, constructed in 2003 in locationsindicated by the master plan were the first newresidential buildings to capitalize on the location of the future commuter train station.


examine how the multitude of smaller companieswho supply Lowes with equipment and products,and who wish to relocate close to the new headquar-ters, can be accomodated without compromising theintent of the original plan concepts.

The dynamic nature of this master plan is a workingtestament to our thesis that designing communities indetail provides the best means of managing change. Inthis Mooresville example, developments of a scale notimagined in our first version of the plan have evolved,but the original detailed design enabled us to establisha spatial framework that could absorb and even directthis change. The detail indicated on the master planwent a long way to calming the fears and concerns ofMount Mourne residents in ways that conventionalcolored bubble diagrams of land uses never could. Theclarity of the plan and its new zoning was also a majorfactor affecting the decision of Lowes to relocate itsheadquarters to this site, with great economic benefitsto Mooresville and the surrounding region.

All too often, promoting development as a meansof economic growth and job creation has meant get-ting rid of the zoning provisions and environmentalcontrols that were designed, however imperfectly, toprotect American communities. These environmen-tal and community safeguards were usually seen asimpediments to economic efficiency by developersand business lobbyists. Indeed, in their typical,generic form, conventional planning and zoningpractices do often fail to facilitate development orenhance community liveability. This master plan

succeeded in both aspects by means of its detail. Itwas able to communicate clearly and effectively thedevelopment potential of property and the designcharacter of new neighborhoods, centers and dis-tricts. It was able to bridge the gap between externaldevelopment interests and the local community,groups that are usually adversarial in growth anddevelopment debates. In 2003, three years after weproduced the first version of the plan, we had thepleasure of sitting in a meeting with representativesof local business groups, traditional opponents ofgovernment planning and zoning, and hearing themaster plan praised as the town’s most effective toolin economic development.

This was one of our earliest yet most successfulmaster-planning projects. At that time we were stillrefining our charrette techniques and graphicrepetoire, and this leads to our one caveat: three daysis too short a time to undertake projects of this scopeand complexity. Although the three-day time periodenabled us to identify quickly the complexities of thisarea, it was not long enough to deal satisfactorily withall the issues, and as a principle we now never under-take charrettes of less than four days’ duration. Thisshortness of time resulted in, amongst other things,a lower quality of drawn finished product. (Comparethe plan graphics in Plates 32 and 40). Because somedrawings lacked sufficient graphic discipline, weinstituted a progressively more rigorous regime ofstandard graphic colors, conventions and techniquesfor subsequent charrettes.


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This is most usefully explained by briefly relating thehistory of the site and describing its key physicalcharacteristics of centers, edges and streets.

History

In August 2001, the City of Greenville, in partnershipwith a joint venture of local property owners, realestate agents and developers, commissioned a publicdesign charrette to create a master plan for the rede-velopment of the Haynie-Sirrine neighborhood, alow-income African-American community just onemile south of Greenville city center. The ideas of resi-dents, property owners, merchants, government agen-cies, and interested investors were aired and collectedduring an intensive six-day process.

The history the Haynie-Sirrine neighborhood is oneof transition from its original farmland, to the commer-cial use in the 1890s of the site’s mineral springs for thecure of illnesses caused by ‘improper habits of living’, toone of the first black urban communities within thecity of Greenville. Settlement began around 1900 whenthe neighborhood became home to domestic servants,blacksmiths, hostlers, factory workers, hotel maids andcooks, chauffeurs and preachers.

By the second half of the twentieth century, mostof the original springs had been culverted undernew streets and the playing field for a local highschool, and the neighborhood had stabilized into anactive black working-class community of severalhundred people. However, in the 1950s, a majorroad-widening project fractured the communityinto two halves when Church Street, the main roadthat passes through the community from southwest

to northeast on its way to the city center, was trans-formed into what the traffic engineers of the timecalled a six-lane ‘superhighway’. In the adjacentmiddle-class white neighborhoods to the south itremained only four lanes wide, and it was widenedto six lanes just for its length through the blackcommunity before reducing back to four lanes tocross a bridge over the Reedy River gorge that sepa-rates Haynie-Sirrine from downtown Greenville.For nearly 50 years this road has created a difficultand dangerous barrier to community life and acces-sibility (see Figure 10.1).

In the 1960s land immediately to the north ofthe community was developed as a standard stripshopping center, also with widened access roads. Bythe 1990s this had been abandoned, but was thenadaptively reused by county government as offices.The old strip center has been put to good use, butno improvements have been made to the physicalenvironment. Wide roads and seas of asphalt parkingstill dominate the townscape.

During the 1980s and 1990s the neighborhoodsuffered a further decline, characterized predomi-nately by substandard housing, vacant property, dete-riorating infrastructure and crime (see Figure 10.2).Yet many residents continued to make significantcontributions, not just to their neighborhood, butalso to the larger Greenville community. By theircivic activism and quest for social equity, these indi-viduals provided the foundation for the resurgence ofthe Haynie-Sirrine neighborhood. White neighbor-hoods to the south and west have retained theircharacter and value due in large measure to theproximity to downtown and we shared the residents’conviction that there was no reason why Haynie-Sirrine could not enjoy its own renaissance.

10The neighborhood

Case Study 4: Haynie-Sirrine Neighborhood, Greenville,South Carolina



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The crucial challenge was to stimulate new marketrate development in parts of the neighborhood bycapitalizing on its location while retaining affordablehousing for the existing community elsewhere onsite. Large portions of the study area were held by afew property owners who lived in the city, were thelandlords for many residents and, significantly, wereco-sponsors of the charrette. These individuals were

keen to take advantage of the increased demand forhigher density living near the town center and torealize the development value of those parts of theirproperties most suitable for this kind of up-marketdevelopment. At the same time, these property ownersmade a public commitment to the neighborhood andthe city that they would strive to maintain afford-able housing on the land within the community.

Site Analysis and Community Patterns

We analyzed the site under two main headings –‘Centers, Streets and Edges’ and ‘Building Forms andConfigurations.’

Centers, Streets and Edges

The intersection of Church Street with two east–westcross streets, Haynie and Pearl, forms the physicalcenter of the neighborhood. From this point nearlyall property is contained within a 1/4-mile radius (see Plate 39). However, from a community perspec-tive, this location is not a center at all. Because of itsextreme width and high-speed traffic, Church Streethere presents a hostile barrier to pedestrians. Instead ofbeing a place to gather, the center of the neighborhoodhad become a place to avoid. One positive attribute ofthis location is its high visibility to commuters, andbecause of this a Ramada Inn remains operational atthis key intersection. Another factor in its favor is theposition of this potential center in relation to its con-text: within one mile of the intersection of Haynie andPearl with Church Street are a number of very stableneighborhoods, Greenville’s vibrant downtown core,and the beautiful Reedy River and its greenway parks.

There is only one other crossing point of thishighway as it passes through the neighborhood,the Springer Street Tunnel, a dark, narrow dividedpassage under Church Street that connects Haynieon the west with Sirrine on the east. A minimal set ofstairs leads up from the tunnel to Church Street.There is potential here for a convenient pedestrianconnection across the neighborhood avoidingChurch Street traffic, but as Figure 10.3 illustrates,the location does not feel safe. It is gloomy withhardly enough room for one car in each lane of thetunnel, let alone a car and a pedestrian. Additionally,there are few homes along adjacent streets, creating afeeling of isolation and potential menace. There arenot enough ‘eyes on the street’ for a feeling of com-fort and safety.

Figure 10.1 Members of the design team need the help of the local police to cross Church Street,the six-lane highway that divides the Haynie-Sirrinecommunity.

Figure 10.2 Urban decay in the Haynie-Sirrineneighborhood. Despite the depressing environmentin some parts of the neighborhood, members of thecommunity remained optimistic about the area’spotential. This photograph illustrates the lack of care and maintenance by both the public andprivate sectors.


CHAPTER TEN ● THE NEIGHBORHOOD

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The northern boundary of the community is a five-minute walk from the geographic center, and ismarked by the University Ridge highway, so named inpart for Furman University that was founded in thatlocation in the late 1800s before moving to the sub-urbs, and for the ridge of land that forms the highpoint of the neighborhood. From this vantage pointone gains extensive views northward over downtownGreenville and the river in its valley below. While theugly sheds, large plastic signs and extensive surfaceparking lots render the University Ridge area unat-tractive in its current form (see Figure 10.15) thegeography has great potential for high-density mixed-use development: it is only 3/4-mile from downtownwith great views and immediate accessibility to theReedy River park. At the northeastern boundary ofthe study area, a more pedestrian-friendly environ-ment exists, with viable neighborhood retail activity.The setting would be more appealing if the shopsactually lined the street instead of being set backbehind parking, but the modest proportions andfriendly character of the buildings help to offset thatdeficiency (see Figure 10.19).

Streets in the Haynie-Sirrine neighborhood aretypically narrow and lined with beautiful, mature oaktrees that help the neighborhood stay cool, even dur-ing the hottest days of August. The ecological advan-tage augments the aesthetic effect of these enormousspecimens. Street widths serve as positive design elements, creating a ‘village feeling’ and contributingto the ‘front porch character’ of the neighborhood.The narrow width also serves as an effective traffic-calming measure (see Figure 10.4).

The western boundary of the neighborhood isformed by Augusta Street, a successful, yet congestedcommercial corridor that serves as the primary shop-ping district for the downtown area. The easternboundary shares its edge with the McDaniel Avenueneighborhood, one of the most affluent neighbor-hoods in the city.

Building Forms and Configurations

As noted earlier, in its better areas, Haynie-Sirrine canbe described as a ‘front-porch community’. Most ofthe homes in this neighborhood are placed closetogether and close to the street. During our summerstudy period, many neighbors spent time on theirporches, creating a warm and welcome feeling of com-munity (see Figure 10.5). There were other locationshowever, where people lurking on the street gave uscause for concern, and a brooding sense of menace anddespair were evident in the most run-down areas.

The ‘shotgun house’ is a common housing type inthe neighborhood, usually one-room wide and three-rooms deep, with a front porch and circulation thatpasses straight through the rooms (see Figure 10.6).Although many consider this traditional Southernhousing type obsolete, its long and narrow configura-tion allows excellent cross ventilation for the localhot, humid summers. This form of energy efficiencyshould not be underestimated when planning afford-able housing in this climate. The narrow width ofthese vernacular homes also allows a higher density,increasing affordability and contribute to a feelingof community. Unfortunately, conditions of severe

Figure 10.3 The Springer Street Tunnel. This is not aplace you would like to walk through alone.

Figure 10.4 Neighborhood Street. While the housesneed maintenance and the street needs sidewalks,several local streets like Chicora Drive (shown here)provide a potentially very decent environment.


disrepair and dereliction required that most of thesehomes in the neighborhood be replaced. How-ever, we noted in our recommendations that futuredesigners could usefully incorporate the advantagesof this vernacular type into new affordable housingdesigns.

The ‘bungalow cottage’ is another housing typewell represented in the study area. Although these

homes are wider and more substantially built thanthe shotguns, many fit into the affordable range. Mostare one-storey frame homes with low-slung rooflines,front-facing gables and wide front porches. Again,the relatively narrow width allows a higher densityappropriate for an urban village (see Figure 10.7).

The third type of housing in the neighborhood ismuch less promising. A series of single-storey brickduplexes were constructed in the 1970s along thestreets in the eastern part of the area, and thishousing type is markedly out of character with therest of the neighborhood. Its building footprint iswide; setbacks from the street are deep; it is built flaton the ground rather than with a raised ground floor,and the crude, uncovered patios contrast sharply withthe protected, cozy feeling offered by the coveredporches of the other homes in the area. Gables facethe side of the house instead of the front, and thesuburban-looking brick ranch style does not blendwell with the adjacent traditional housing types(see Figure 10.17).

There are two small, white frame churches in thecommunity, indicated in purple on the master planshown in Plate 40. These buildings are tiny in scale,traditional in shape with wood frame steeples, and theynestle neatly into the urban fabric to provide a commu-nity focus, add character, and help the neighborhoodfeel like a small village.

One other building stands out in the neighbor-hood – the football stadium for the nearby GreenvilleHigh School. Despite its large scale, this structure


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Figure 10.5 Children on the Front Porch. Localresidents described their neighborhood as a ‘frontporch’ community. Here, local children collaboratedon their homework until disturbed by the designteam.

Figure 10.6 Traditional Southern ‘Shotgun’ Houses.Although some of these houses were too decayedto be rehabilitated, others could be saved. Thismodest housing type can usefully serve as a modelfor new affordable housing in the community.

Figure 10.7 Traditional Bungalow. This commonAmerican house type is a staple of single-familyhousing in towns across the nation. Several goodexamples remained in the study area.


blends reasonably well into its context, and planswere underway to renovate the facility at the timeof the charrette. Parking and crowds can create prob-lems for local residents during game nights, and wewanted to find solutions to these challenges so theneighbors will welcome more community events atthis site.


As a result of pre-charrette discussions and a series ofsite analyses carried out during the early stages of thecharrette, we formulated five key objectives:

1. Capitalize on the market value of available prop-erty located near University Ridge for major newdevelopment. (This would provide property ownerswith a high return on their investments to offsetthe lower profitability of affordable housingdevelopments elsewhere on the project site.)

2. Upgrade and increase the stock of affordablehousing for existing residents.

3. Enhance neighborhood identity and character.4. Facilitate the expansion of the Sirrine football sta-

dium without disrupting the neighborhood scale.5. Recognize and protect historic landmarks in the

neighborhood.

THE CHARRETTE

We developed the master plan during a six-daycharrette in August 2001. We had helped orchestratea lot of local publicity prior to the event, and over350 people participated (see Figure 10.8). The teamset up its temporary design studio at the Ramada Innin the heart of the neighborhood, a location that

enabled a large number of residents and otherinterested people to contribute throughout the week.The charrette began with a walking tour of the neigh-borhood: over 25 design team members, advisorycommittee members, interested developers, city staff,residents and community police officers walkedevery street in the study area, photographing keyelements, measuring spaces, and talking to people onthe streets and porches. That evening, our openingpresentation was heard by a standing room-onlycrowd.

Throughout the week, we held numerous interviewswith interest groups including transportation plannersand engineers, developers, public safety officials,stormwater engineers, housing groups, and residents.Meetings continued throughout the day as well as inthe evening to give everyone an opportunity to join inthe public discussion. Each evening before dinner, wepinned up the day’s drawings on the wall and invited allparticipants to join the designers in a discussion of theday’s developments. The schedule was an extendedversion of the one illustrated in Figure 8.2, and asalways, we followed our key charrette principles asnoted in Chapter 6:

● Involve everyone from the start;● Work concurrently and cross-functionally;● Work in short feedback loops:● Work in detail.

Because of the publicity campaign, most residentswere aware of the charrette and frequently spoke withdesigners both at the hotel and around the neighbor-hood. On Sunday morning, a local church membereven took the time to show the team the parkingproblems of her church, a pattern repeated time andagain as interested residents articulated their needs


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Figure 10.8 Local newspaper frontpage. Active engagement with the local media is essential in any charretteprocess. We spoke extensively withnewspapers and television reporters,and were rewarded with good andsympathetic coverage (see also Figure 10.10).


and their vision for the neighborhood. This over-whelming participation from citizens, public officialsand staff was the foundation for the highly successfulcharrette. In addition, we held two more meetingsafter the charrette to give residents, property ownersand interested citizens the opportunity to learn moreabout the plans and the proposed new zoning codefor the area.

On the first day, we completed a series of analyses,including the current zoning, a survey of vacantproperty and owner-occupied housing and an assess-ment of site values and redevelopment potential (seePlate 38, Figure 10.9, and Plate 39). The currentzoning for this part of the city reflected a familiar biasagainst a coherent neighborhood structure. The zon-ing on the west side of Church Street was predomi-nately Office/Institutional, further facilitating theinflux of generic commercial development along thenorthwestern edges, where single-family homes facedlarge expanses of surface parking and dumpstersdirectly across the street. The east side was a patch-work of higher density residential classifications, setout in a manner that did little to consider the currentor historic neighborhood structure. Zoning districtsran along street lines, rather than mid-block, causingdifferent kinds of development to occur on eitherside of the street and creating badly defined publicspaces. (Wherever possible, we try to change zoningdistricts at mid-block, thus enabling a more coherentstreetscape to be achieved with similar building typesfacing each other to define the public space.)

Using a combination of market value analysis,owner-occupant/rental housing locations and mapsof vacant land, the charrette team developed anoverall assessment of the redevelopment potential ofeach parcel of property in the neighborhood, rangingfrom those that required minimal assistance to othersneeding complete redevelopment. These diagrams,which were refined during the course of the charrette,formed the basis for all development proposals putforth in the master plan In our overall assessment ofredevelopment potential, we divided all propertiesinto one of three categories:

Major Redevelopment Potential

This comprised vacant land, multiple propertiesunder common ownership or areas of excessive hous-ing blight. We also included in this category placeswhere the street infrastructure was so degraded thatany improvements were likely to reconfigure the

existing blocks into a new urban pattern. As notedearlier, we were excited by the redevelopment poten-tial of property along University Ridge (at the top ofthe diagrams in Plate 38, Figure 10.9 and Plate 39).However, as much of this land to the north wasowned by the county, it was politically off-limits fora city-sponsored charrette to ‘interfere’ with countyproperty. We were therefore forced to be modest inour recommendations for this area, focusing mainlyon the northeast segment around the football sta-dium. But in this case study we illustrate the fullmaster plan showing major redevelopment of the oldshopping mall site, revealing its potential for reclama-tion to a thriving mixed-use area (see Plate 40).

Moderate Redevelopment Potential

In this classification we placed multiple rental proper-ties under common ownership, scattered-site owner-occupied housing and areas of moderate infrastructuredegradation where infill development could occurusing the existing block structure

Minimal Redevelopment Requirement

This third section consisted of areas of predominatelyowner-occupied housing or well-maintained rental


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Figure 10.9 Vacant Land and Homeowners Map.This analysis enabled us to clarify which areas wereavailable for major redevelopment and which other parts (the pockets of homeownership) should be protected and nourished.


housing where only minor repairs were needed to thehousing and/or infrastructure.

From this analysis, we identified a large numberof properties as requiring major redevelopment orproviding superior opportunities in that regard. Yet,complete blocks of solid, stable housing that requiredonly minor building repairs or infrastructureimprovement were also identified. These areas pro-vided anchors for the final master plan, and when wepresented our final recommendations nearly 200people, mostly local residents attended the closingreception and presentation to view the plan. Thisparticipation remained high partly because we main-tained television and newspaper coverage of the char-rette during the six-day period (see Figure 10.10).

THE MASTER PLAN (See Plate 40).

Our key recommendations were as follows:

1. Concentrate the greatest intensity of use in a newneighborhood center at the intersection of ChurchStreet and Haynie Street/Pearl Avenue to createa vibrant environment for living, working, andshopping.

2. Upgrade Church Street by reducing it to a four-lane,median-divided boulevard with street trees and widesidewalks. Improve the street design of Haynie andPearl Streets to support this pedestrian activity.

3. Encourage the construction of a wide variety of hous-ing throughout the neighborhood. Ensure long-term

affordable housing using a variety of strategiesincluding public investment, land-trust, and non-profit involvement.

4. Leverage private funding with key public infrastruc-ture investments including street improvements andparking facilities.

5. Use natural features including historic springsand streams as amenities for the entire neighbor-hood to enjoy. Create public spaces including parks,greenways and plazas that are accessible to allresidents.

6. Adopt a new zoning ordinance developed directlyfrom the urban design details of the master plan.

Based on these principles we identified 19 redevelop-ment opportunities, some large, some small, and weassembled the master plan from these individualprojects. These projects together comprised 50 newsingle-family dwellings, 100 duplexes (semi-detachedhomes), 393 apartments, 52 live/work units, 178 500square feet (16586 square meters) of commercialspace and 118 900 square feet (11 047 square meters)of retail space. Over 1900 parking spaces wereprovided. We did not impose any singular grandplan vision, but sought instead to promote a collageof separate projects that could be accomplishedindividually by private property owners on their ownor in partnership with public authorities, in anincremental manner (see Plate 41).

We worked out schematic development pro-for-mas to validate the economic viability of each pro-posal, and also costed out the public expenditureassociated with the necessary infrastructure improve-ments. From these calculations we showed howapproximately $10 million of public money for streetimprovements and two parking decks (one in con-junction with a developer at the NeighborhoodCenter and the other with the city’s school system atthe football stadium) could leverage $90 million inprivate investment in redevelopment. Approximately$40 million of new development was tied to theChurch Street improvements noted later, but even ifthese crucial modifications did not take place, otherviable private development projects worth $50 mil-lion still existed in the community.

This case study illustrates a sample of these 19redevelopment opportunities at a range of economicscales. These are:

1. The Church Street Neighborhood Center, a clusterof four projects on the four quadrants of theChurch Street – Haynie/Pearl Street intersection.


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Figure 10.10 Newspaper Coverage of theCharrette. Worth its weight in gold.


2. The mixed-use development at the junction ofChurch Street with University Ridge (ChurchStreet North).

3. The development of replacement housing forthe shoddy brick duplexes and the creation ofa neighborhood park by opening up a culvertedstream (Biltmore Park).

4. New townhomes and a greenway inserted in left-over land (Springer Street East).

5. The redevelopment of the football stadium andadjacent mixed-use development (Sirrine Neigh-borhood Center). Projects (‘E’, ‘G’, ‘M’ and ‘K’ in Plate 41.)

The Church Street NeighborhoodCenter

Two factors spurred the development of this center-piece of the plan. First, was its central location at thelogical crossroads of the community where local resi-dents could meet people from outside the area. Second,this location was distinguished by the presence of thefunctioning Ramada Inn, which a developer (and co-sponsor of the charrette) proposed to upgrade and rede-velop with new conference and fitness facilities. Thedeveloper planned to support this redevelopment,together with adjacent mixed-use buildings by a park-ing deck constructed as a public–private joint venturewith the city (project ‘G’ on Plate 41).

Building off this redevelopment of the southeastquadrant of the intersection, we designed a series

of mainly three-storey mixed-use buildings, predom-inantly, housing over retail and restaurants, inter-spersed with offices.

Because of the odd block configurations createdby the diagonal alignment of Church Street, it wasdifficult to create typical building floorplates forthe intensity of development usually found in aNeighborhood Center and still fit sufficient parkingon each site. As a result, the center will need thecentralized parking deck in the Ramada Inn redevel-opment to achieve its optimum building densities.This facility will provide an opportunity to ‘parkonce and walk’ to other retail stores and restaurantsin the area. Residential apartments and townhomeswould line the structure to provide a visual screen tothe cars and an active street edge along its publicperimeter. Figure 10.12 illustrates a typical exampleof this arrangement from Charlotte. Shared park-ing arrangements with staggered peak and off-peaktiming between uses will also facilitate the success ofthis center. We also recommended that the local busroute, which currently runs down the western edge ofthe neighborhood, be re-routed to pass directlythrough the center, thus making the new activity center accessible by means other than the car.


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Figure 10.11 Site of Church Street NeighborhoodCenter, as existing (Compare with Plate 42).

Figure 10.12 Apartments screening parking deck.Park Avenue, Charlotte, NC, 2002. David Furman,Architect. The parking deck is shared with anadjacent office building and street level stores. This isa standard, but highly effective urban typology. Theonly drawback is that the apartments are singleaspect, that is, they face only one way and areaccessed off an internal corridor. The consequentlack of natural cross-ventilation means that mostclimate control has to be mechanical even underbenign external conditions.


We took care to preserve the 60-year old willowoak trees along the north side of Haynie Street withtheir capacious tree canopy. We set our new buildingsback from the street to protect the trees’ root system,and recessed the upper floors still further to makeroom for the canopy branches (see Figure 10.13).

We knew that most of this development, and theregeneration of the neighborhood’s core area, wascontingent upon the improvement of Church Street,transforming it from a hostile thoroughfare to apedestrian-friendly boulevard: the street needed tochange from a barrier into a seam that reconnectedboth sides of the neighborhood and reinvigorated thearea with pedestrian activity. The team’s preliminarytraffic analysis indicated that four lanes would be suf-ficient to carry thorough traffic, and we accordingly

recommended the following changes to the roadwayas shown in Figure 10.14.

● A landscaped median taking over the center two laneswith protected turn lanes at key locations.

● Improvements to the pedestrian environment withwide sidewalks separated from the kerb by agenerous planting strip and geometrically orderedstreet trees.

● Lighting in the median for automobiles and alongsidewalks for pedestrians.

● Buried and relocated overhead wiring within thevicinity of the Neighborhood Center. The wiring inthe remainder of the corridor should first be consoli-dated to one side and placed on decorative polesin an orderly manner, or if finances allow, buried


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Figure 10.14 Church Street Section. This section is taken at a ‘typical’ point along the length of the streetrather than at the neighborhood center in order to demonstrate the generic condition. With a street width of 130 feet (39 meters), the buildings can rarely be tall enough to create the desired spatial enclosure. Disciplined tree planting helps to break down the width and create zones of enclosure within the overall space.

Figure 10.13 Haynie Street Section. At thisurban focus, the spatial enclosure on theneighborhood streets is tightened. Here theheight-to-width ratio is approximately 1:1.5.The mature trees enhance the enclosureand sense of a central place.


underground in duct banks and conduits. All newlateral utility services from the mains into the build-ings should be underground.

We knew that the negotiations to achieve theseimprovements to a main city thoroughfare would bedifficult. The transformation involved a paradigmshift from thinking about roads as a means of mobil-ity (getting everywhere as fast as possible) to aframework of accessibility (providing connections toa range of users). We asked all parties to remembera number of key points during the discussions:

● Redesigning Church Street in this manner wouldbe a proactive reparation for the African-Americancommunity consistent with federal environmentaljustice policies that protect neighborhoods, partic-ularly minority neighborhoods, against intrusionsby large traffic projects.

● The proposed Church Street changes would benecessary to promote and retain a mix of land uses,a walkable urban environment and increasedresidential density within close proximity to down-town Greenville, one of the city’s own SmartGrowth agenda items.

● Given the large right-of-way that existed, and theexcess capacity of the six lanes, all our proposedmodifications could be accomplished withinChurch Street’s existing kerb lines, offering signifi-cant cost savings. We estimated the costs for thisproject at approximately $3 million, but this publicinvestment has the potential to leverage $40 mil-lion in new private development.

Church Street North: Mixed-useDevelopment at the Junction of Church Street and University Ridge(project ‘B’ on Plate 41)

This site, located at the southeast corner of theUniversity Ridge and Church Street intersection, isperhaps the most visible site in the entire neighbor-hood. It is located at the busiest intersection, and itsprominence on the ridge gives it an outstanding viewof the downtown skyline and the Reedy River green-way. This site also forms the gateway for pedestriansand vehicles to Sirrine Stadium to the east and theproposed new neighborhood center to the south. Inaddition to this obvious potential, nearly all the landis held in a single ownership, permitting relatively easyredevelopment.

To take maximum advantage of this location,we proposed a mid-rise block (4–5 storys in height)

including up to 73 200 square feet (6799 squaremeters) of office and/or residential condominiumsbuilt generally to the street frontage (see Figure 10.15and Plate 43). In addition, these mixed-use buildingscould accommodate up to 24 000 square feet (2230square meters) of ground-level shops. Parking wouldbe provided in a 460 space, two-level, parking struc-ture to the rear of the buildings, constructed in twotrays fitted into the fall of the land. This relativelyeconomical parking deck would be privately financedas part of the development package.

In order for ground-level offices or shops to suc-ceed in this location, improvements to both ChurchStreet and University Ridge would be necessary toenhance the pedestrian environment. We there-fore recommended that the sidewalks should be12–16 feet (3.6–4.9 meters) wide in this location cre-ating a sufficient setback from traffic, and providingspace for planting sizeable street trees. Figure 10.16illustrates a typical example of this condition. In theremainder of the block we brought the scale of build-ings down to two- and three-story residential build-ings to blend in with new duplexes and apartments onadjacent properties. As a complementary project, wearranged a small courtyard block of apartments oppo-site one of the small wood-frame churches so that anintimate urban space aligned with the churchentrance to honor the existing structure (Project ‘C’in Plate 41). The church’s parking requirements


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Figure 10.15 Church Street North as existing andproposed. This part of the site, at the ridgeoverlooking downtown Greenville has the greatestredevelopment potential for upmarket mixed-use development. (Compare with Plate 43.)


could now be solved easily by sharing the parkingdeck less than a block away.

Biltmore Park: Replacing the Duplexesand Opening the Stream (project ‘F’in Plate 41)

This project replaced ugly, substandard duplex hous-ing with a greater number of affordable townhomeunits, while capitalizing on the potential of the neigh-borhood’s natural heritage, its springs and streams.The site is located along Biltmore Avenue acrossthe street from an economically stable section ofthe neighborhood, and has direct access to SirrineStadium and the proposed enhancement of an existingsmall neighborhood center. Figure 10.17 and Plates 44and 45 illustrate this proposed improvement.

The project removed the 11 existing duplexes (22total units) and redeveloped the site with 35 town-homes. Using the topography of the site, we set outthe main row of buildings at the higher grade of exist-ing streets at the rear of the site, with a bonus roombuilt into the lower level in lieu of a retaining wall.Service access is from the rear, with front doors facingthe park with entrance off a small access drive (seePlate 45). A front porch and staircase provide primaryaccess to the main level. Figure 10.18 illustrates a sim-ilar condition found throughout Savannah where thelower level is often a rental unit and the primaryentrance on the second floor (British first floor) isreached by stairs from the street. An alternative but


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Figure 10.16 Wide Sidewalk for Outdoor Dining. Ifthe detailing is right, outdoor dining can be pleasanteven near a busy street. The street trees help toprovide spatial definition to the area and separationfrom the street.

Figure 10.17 Existing Biltmore Avenue duplexes.These badly designed buildings are only 25 yearsold, but are already slums. Their unlovely, squatdesign is a large factor in this sorry state of affairs(Compare with Plate 44).

Figure 10.18 Entrance Staircase in Savannah,Georgia. Stairs and porches to the front doors at theelevated main entrance level provide visual interestto the street as well as establishing visual privacy tothe main rooms. Compare with Figures 6.17 and 6.23.


less striking design would simply place the frontentrance on the lower level directly into the bonusroom with an internal stair.

The companion improvement to this new hous-ing created a new neighborhood park along thebanks of the existing spring-fed stream that had beentrapped in a culvert for many years. From here thewater is channelled under Sirrine Stadium andUniversity Ridge, at which point it re-emerges toflow into the Reedy River. By removing the streamfrom its pipe, a linear park can be created, therebyenhancing the values of the properties around it.The stream and related park would become a won-derful amenity shared by the townhomes and thelarger community.

Clearly the park and the recuperated stream wouldsubstantially enhance the redevelopment value of thesite, and create an incentive for the developer to assistin the restoration of the stream, but the expectedcosts for such an environmental project wouldrequire additional assistance to make it feasible. Thepublic benefits of the restoration of a natural streamchannel would include greater groundwater infiltra-tion, improving capacity as well as water quality, andof course, the creation of a wonderful public space.We calculated that simply to restore the stream todaylight and open air (without the surrounding parkimprovements) would cost approximately $170 000.If this cost was borne by the city, the private devel-oper could then develop the park as part of his pro-ject by preserving the mature trees and adding simplelandscaping and then transfer it to the city for main-tenance and upkeep. This project was important as itrepresented a redevelopment opportunity that wasnot contingent on the improvement of ChurchStreet, and could proceed independently.

Springer Street West: NewTownhomes and a GreenwayInserted in Leftover Land (project ‘Q’in Plate 41).

In most master-planning efforts a small nook orleftover parcel of land usually surfaces that could beutilized for an innovative infill project. Such a pieceof property existed along Springer Street on thewest side of the aforementioned tunnel. The lots onthe north side of the street have their primaryfrontage on Wakefield Street immediately to thenorth, and they are unusually deep. If these lots wereto be subdivided, the master plan suggested that

townhomes could be built on the Springer Street sideof these long, thin properties. Because of the minimallot depth of the proposed dwellings, parking could beprovided on-street, in combination with somegarages or carports on the lowest storey (see Plate 46).Because of the minimal land costs involved with thisresidual land, this would be a good opportunity foraffordable housing.

To improve the view of these lots and add anadditional amenity to the neighborhood, we showedthe creek on the south side of Springer Street clearedof underbrush and debris and its channel stabilized.This small park connected with a redesigned parkand community garden immediately to the west,and via an improved Springer Street Tunnel (see thesection ‘Implementation,’) to a greenway leading tothe new Biltmore Park and Sirrine Stadium. Thisgreen east–west axis across the site thus provided parkspace accessible to all residents. To complete the newSpringer Street Park we framed its southern edgeby townhomes and apartments that looked over thepark and backed up to parking lots for the adjacentNeighborhood Center. This location offered anotheropportunity for new affordable housing.

Sirrine Neighborhood Center:The redevelopment of the football stadium and adjacent mixed-use development (project ‘A’in Plate 41).

Immediately to the east of the stadium in the north-east corner of the site, a small, local neighbor-hood center contains a few thriving businesses in anarea graced with mature trees and sidewalks (seeFigure 10.19). What this location lacks are buildingsclose enough to the street to engage the pedestrianand create an urban character. Opposite these localshops is the existing parking lot in front of the sta-dium, which remains largely unused except duringFriday evening high school football games, whenevery available space within walking distance in thesurrounding neighborhood is taken over by specta-tors’ cars. In order to meet the parking objectives forSirrine Stadium, as well as provide additional devel-opment opportunities to complete the urban designof this neighborhood center, the master plan pro-posed development along the existing street edgesusing two- or three-story live-work buildings. Thesebuildings could provide significant income for theschool authorities through the sale of the land, and


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serve to screen the parking lot from pedestrians onthe street. Given the demographics of the surround-ing neighborhoods, our experience suggested therewas likely to be an underserved market for smallboutique retail/office opportunities as well as urbanresidential units (see Plate 47).

Plate 48 illustrates how the construction ofanother parking structure in two simple trays fittedinto the fall of the land allows access to both levelswithout the use of expensive ramps, and providesadditional on-site parking for Sirrine Stadium events.We estimated construction costs for this deck to be$1.6 million. The additional parking on-site, com-bined with the deck for the nearby North ChurchStreet development should help to relieve the neigh-borhood during football games and permit addi-tional activities to occur at the Stadium withoutadverse impact.

IMPLEMENTATION

As part of the follow-up to any charrette, it is vital todescribe realistic implementation strategies. Withoutthese the master plan cannot be taken seriously, andour implementation strategies for Haynie-Sirrinecovered:

● Public finance● Affordable housing strategies.● A detailed implementation project schedule● A design-based zoning ordinance tailored to the

master plan.

Public Finance

In order to implement this master plan, a numberof strategic public investments would be needed toimprove and expand the infrastructure for the neigh-borhood. These investments comprise:

● Basic Street Improvements: We estimated repairsand upgrades to the existing infrastructure to alevel consistent with the surrounding neighbor-hoods would cost approximately $552 000.

● Church Street Improvements. Approximately 45percent of the redevelopment for this neighbor-hood is dependent upon the improvement andupgrading of this thoroughfare to a true boulevard.Not only does this improvement directly impactthe neighborhood, but also its prominence asa gateway to the downtown makes this a highlyvisible aesthetic improvement for the entire city.We estimated the approximate cost for this work atnearly $3 000 000.

● Haynie Street and Pearl Avenue Streetscape Improve-ments. After the improvements have been com-pleted for Church Street, a similar streetscapingtreatment should be applied to Haynie Street andPearl Avenue at an estimated cost of $275 000.

● New Street Construction. Our master plan includednearly 2000 linear feet (609 meters) of new streets.This would cost approximately $420 000.

● New Parking Decks. The large deck to support theChurch Street Neighborhood Center would costabout $4 000 000, and the smaller one for theSirrine Stadium about $1 600 000. (The third deckto serve the commercial and residential develop-ment at the north end of Church Street would beprivately financed.)

● Biltmore Park Stream Restoration: We estimatedthis project, not including the development of thepark, would cost about $170 000.

These investments total approximately to $10 million,but as we noted earlier, they have the capacity toleverage as much as $90 million in private invest-ment. And herein lies one of the keys to financingthese necessary improvements – a Tax IncrementFinancing (TIF) district. TIF works by using thefuture tax revenues from new developments to payfor capital improvements that support and promotethem, most usually by covering the repayments onmunicipal bonds floated to finance the projects at theoutset. As part of our final charrette presentation, weillustrated that if one estimated that building out themaster plan would take 10 years, the increasing


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Figure 10.19 Sirrine neighborhood center as existing(Compare with Plate 47).


amount of taxes paid on new development duringthat period could total $6 million at the end of thedecade. The years after ‘build-out’ would each gener-ate approximately $1.5 million in taxes, amountingto $15 million over the following 10 years, adding upto a total of $21 million in tax revenues to cover theoriginal $10 million public investment.

Additional funds to help cover the initial outlaycould also be sought from TEA-21 and TEA-3 fed-eral funds (the successors to the ISTEA legislationdescribed in Chapter 5) for pedestrian-friendly trans-portation improvements.

Affordable Housing

The primary concern expressed during the entirecharrette process by the existing residents was theissue of housing affordability and their fears of beingdisplaced by gentrifying newcomers and upscaledevelopment. This was not the premise of theproposed master plan. While demolition and redevel-opment would occur in several areas, it was ourstrong intention that affordable housing shouldremain a primary component of the neighborhood.To assist this objective we offered the following threeobservations.

First, good quality design should not be sacrificedfor affordability. Our dwellings are a mirror of our-selves and are therefore linked to our individual self-esteem and community pride. We can build lessexpensively, but not at the cost of good architectureand craftsmanship. If housing is poorly designed it willalways remain ‘affordable’ because it is unloved andunlovely. Such was the case with the substandard hous-ing present in the neighborhood at the time of thecharrette. This is not the kind of affordability that nur-tures community, and simply to build new homes thatare cheap because they are badly designed and badlybuilt is a short-term, shortsighted approach. By con-trast, affordable housing should be spread throughoutthe neighborhood and should be indistinguishablefrom market-rate housing (see Figure 6.35 AffordableHousing in Davidson, NC).

Second, long-term affordability can be assuredonly through direct intervention in the marketplaceby governments and nonprofit agencies, often inpartnership. We urged the city of Greenville to makea commitment to build housing efficiently, and toparticipate in maintaining long-term affordability.This would ensure that the city’s service workers,teachers, and police officers have the opportunity tolive in the neighborhoods they serve, along with

senior citizens who can ‘age in place’. Using a varietyof techniques, including tax credits, housing vouch-ers and land trusts, new moderately priced homes canbe made affordable to people whose need is urgent.Communities can also leverage federal and state dol-lars to provide the infrastructure of streets, utilities,trees and sidewalks, thus reducing the direct cost ofthe home because these costs don’t have to be passedon to the purchaser.

Third, in addition to the usual sources of funds andaction for affordable housing such as CommunityDevelopment Block Grants and HOME funds (bothfrom the US Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment) along with volunteer organizations likeHabitat for Humanity, we specifically recommendedthat the city and its partners investigate CommunityLand Trusts (CLTs).

A land trust is a mechanism for balancing commu-nity equity and individual ownership by separating thecost of land from the resale value of a privately ownedhome. A separate entity, typically a nonprofit housingorganization, owns title to the land underneath ahouse, similar to an American condominium arrange-ment or a British leasehold. In this instance, the land isnot included in the original sale or resale cost of thehome, thereby reducing the overall housing costs by20 to 25 percent. CLTs help communities to:

● Gain local control over land and reduce absenteeownership;

● Promote resident ownership and control ofhousing;

● Keep housing affordable for future residents;● Capture the value of public investment in land for

long-term community benefit; and● Build a strong base for community action.

Community Land Trusts can acquire vacant land anddevelop housing or other structures on it; at othertimes, CLTs may acquire land and buildings together.In both cases, CLTs treat land and buildings differ-ently. The land is held permanently by the land trustso that it will benefit the community: buildings(known as improvements) can be owned by thosewho use them. When a CLT sells homes, it leases theunderlying land to the homeowners through a long-term (usually 99-year) renewable lease, which givesthe residents and their descendants the right to use theland for as long as they wish to live there. When aCLT homeowner decides to move out of his or herhome, he or she can sell it. However, the land leaserequires that the home be sold either back to the CLT


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or to another low-income household for an affordableprice. As the land value is not part of the house price,this means that the home remains affordable forthe next homeowner. The affordable housing illus-trated in Figure 6.35 was developed by this kind oforganization.

Implementation Project Schedule

As part of the charrette report, we created a detailedschedule for implementing projects in priority overa period of 10–20 years, the anticipated build-outof the whole neighborhood. The charrette was com-pleted in August 2001, just a few days before the trau-matic events of September 11, 2001, which displacedall our estimates. Like most of America, the city ofGreenville and the local community were thrown intoa state of shock, and in the economic slump exacer-bated by the attack on the World Trade Center, littlework was done on neighborhood revitalization pro-jects for several months. During that time, the devel-oper of the Ramada Inn project pulled out, putting theNeighborhood Center on hold and dealing a blow tothe heart of the scheme. Without this impetus, negoti-ations between city officials and highway engineers onthe redesign of Church Street continued slowly.

However, the master plan was adopted by the citycouncil in January 2003, and the zoning code imple-mented on a case-by-case basis. In the spring of 2003,the city authorities decided on a bold demonstrationproject to reinforce their commitment to the neigh-borhood and to the master plan. For this illustration,city officials chose the refurbishment of the SpringerStreet Tunnel, illustrated in its former dark and dankstate in Figure 10.3. Plate 49 illustrates our redesign,with a new stairway and rearranged traffic flow.

We recommended improving bicycle and pedes-trian access through the tunnel by converting oneside to one-way traffic that would yield to oncomingvehicles as befits a slow-speed neighborhood street.This left the other side exclusively for cyclists andpedestrians. We suggested that a light well be formedin the median of Church Street to allow natural lightto flood into the tunnel midway along its length.Combined with new lighting inside and around thetunnel entrances, this would go a long way to offset-ting the forbidding character of the space. SpringerStreet would be further enhanced by new wide stair-ways leading up to Church Street on either side. Thisimproves accessibility, opens up the space and pro-vides an opportunity for civic design and public artto enhance the neighborhood.

Design-based Zoning OrdinanceTailored to the Master Plan

Because the master plan is a realistic build-out studyrather than a firm development proposal, it is neces-sary to enact a new zoning code tied to the specificdesign principles of the plan in order to guide actualdevelopment projects as they are prepared. OurNeighborhood Code was written to provide for thedevelopment of property as shown in the masterplan, but it has the inherent flexibility to adapt tofuture market conditions and more site-specificstudies. In addition, the code provides predictabilityand assurance to potential investors that any futuredevelopment will be consistent with the master plan.

The Code is implemented by a new ZoningDistrict entitled ‘Haynie-Sirrine Neighborhood’ withfour sub-zones that regulate the form and intensity ofdevelopment. These four categories are defined asNeighborhood Edge (NE), Neighborhood General(NG), Neighborhood Center (NC) and UniversityRidge Village Center (URVC). These are geographicareas defined according to their urban characterrather than their use, and are mapped directly over theurban design master plan which forms the basicframe of reference for design and functional criteria(see Plate 50). This type of zoning plan is oftenreferred to as a ‘regulating plan’, so-called because itregulates development in accordance with the urbandesign master plan. Our zoning areas that classifyurban character are similar in concept to the urbanzones of the ‘transect’, an environmental orderingsystem conceptualized as a long section through anidealized landscape from rural edge to city center(DPZ, 2002: page A.4.1). Derived in the late 1990sby Duany and Plater-Zyberk, this transect in turnowes a debt to the classic valley section of Scottishgeographer Patrick Geddes (1854–1932), which setthe various sectors of urbanization in their regionalgeographic context.

The principles of design-based zoning are verysimple. The concept is based on a series of typologiesclassifying the urban variables as follows:

1. Type of urban area (e.g. Neighborhood Center,Neighborhood Edge, etc.) This urban typologydealing with overall character becomes the defin-ing zoning classification.

2. Building type (e.g. Detached House, CivicBuilding, etc.)

3. Open space types (e.g. Greenway, Park, Square, etc.)4. Street types (e.g. Boulevard, Local Street, Parkside

Drive, etc.)


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Into this framework of physical form, space andcharacter are fitted details of uses, architecturalrequirements, parking layout, environmental protec-tion, signage and so forth. The fundamentally impor-tant point here is this: Design-based zoning beginswith urban form, not with use.

The code thus begins by dividing the communityinto geographic areas, based on a simple typologicalgradient: Village Center (the most urban);Neighborhood Center; Neighborhood General; andNeighborhood Edge (least urban) (see Plate 50).These four urban typologies cover most circum-stances, but others can be added to cover more ruralsituations or higher density urban conditions as nec-essary. Each typology is characterized by a particularscale of buildings, illustrated in the simple sectiondrawings on page 238 in Appendix III. These draw-ings also identify the range of applicable uses, whichare amplified in the columns of text on page 239 inAppendix III.

The next set of governing criteria comprises a rangeof Building Types, typically Detached House,Townhouse, Apartment Building, Shopfront Building,Workplace Building and Civic Building. Each build-ing type is described and dimensioned on a single sheetwith three-dimensional diagrams, photographs, andtext (see pages 240–241 in Appendix III). Note thatwhile the Shopfront type is based on the traditionalmodel of main street stores, it also accommodateslarge-scale uses such as grocery stores with only minoramendments, and can be extended to cover ‘big-box’stores as well, disciplining them into a more urbanconfiguration. Uses are implied in the naming of thebuilding type, but they are specified in detail on themain pages of the code illustrated by the diagrams andtext on pages one and two.

The Open Space Types are defined and illustratedin a spectrum of urban to more rural conditions –Squares and Plazas to Greens, Parks and Playgrounds,to Meadows and Greenways. Street Types are illus-trated in dimensioned section and plan drawings,supplemented by a page of notes providing design andengineering standards. Other sections of the code dealwith parking placement and standards, and require-ments for commercial signs, outdoor lighting, envi-ronmental protection and landscaping (see pages242–243 in Appendix III).

The first two pages of the zoning ordinanceextracts depicted in Appendix III can be printedtogether as one large poster sized wallchart thatprovides at-a-glance information of all key topics

regarding zoning district, building type and buildinguse. This poster is the companion piece to the zoningmap or regulating plan, and these two pieces of papercontain the answers to most of the strategic questionsconcerning development opportunities in thecommunity. More detail is provided on the pagesdescribing the individual building types and the onepage parking information sheet. The completedocument, more evolved and detailed than itsMooresville equivalent outlined in Chapter 9, is stillonly 22 pages long. One point of note in the sectiondiagrams of the permitted buildings is that ancillaryaccommodation over detached garages is allowed as aright, creating a potential supply of affordable rentalapartments. This provision of small, cheap rentalunits makes a modest contribution to solvingAmerica’s affordable housing crisis, while providingextra income to the homeowner. A flat in this loca-tion could also function as a separate home for anelderly relative to remain within the family circlewhile retaining a measure of independence.

CONCLUSIONS

This master plan was constructed around a seriesof 19 different redevelopment opportunities inthe community, ranging from high-end market ratemixed-use development to affordable housing infillon scattered sites. We calculated that $10 million ofpublic investment in infrastructure could leverage$90 million in private investment, about half ofwhich was dependent on the upgrading of ChurchStreet, with the other half spread around the neigh-borhood in a variety of projects. At the core was thecreation of a lively mixed-use neighborhood centerwhere people from within and outside the commu-nity could meet in the shops, offices and housingfocused around that location.

A central component of the plan was the preser-vation of affordable housing in the area. A numberof different strategies would need to be employedto ensure long-term affordability, including publicinvestment, land trusts and non-profit housingagency involvement. Though implementation ofthe plan would primarily be market-driven, the citywould need to develop programs and incentives toensure long-term affordability. The final masterplan also included a new zoning overlay code withstandards for the design of buildings, streets andopen spaces keyed specifically to the master plan.


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This was one of our most successful charrettes, andalso one of the least typologically driven of our mas-ter plans. With the exception of some fragmentarytypologies of the perimeter block with buildingslining the streets and wrapping around parking, mostredevelopment opportunities were based on detailedcircumstantial responses to particular site conditions.In part, this reflects the great level of individual siteappraisal that was possible on a project of this neigh-borhood scale and scope. In larger city or regionalplans, greater reliance has to be placed on typologicalsolutions that hold within themselves the seeds ofsubsequent detail development. This level of detaildesign was also a function of the longer time period,six days instead of our more usual four. In manyways, six days is ideal, but the extra expense usuallymilitates against this arrangement. In this instancethe city of Greenville had creatively tapped a numberof sources in the public and private sectors to financethe longer period.

At the time of writing the book in the springof 2003, the city had adopted the plan and wasimplementing the zoning code. While detaileddiscussions were still continuing on the Church

Street improvements, the city’s decision to proceedwith the Springer Street tunnel improvements was awelcome pledge of commitment to the master planand the Haynie-Sirrine neighborhood. City staffwere also using the plan to convince the school boardnot to condemn land around the stadium for newhigh school playing fields. This would be a bad deci-sion for the neighborhood and the city. It would takevaluable land off the tax rolls, as the school board,a public body, does not pay property taxes, and itwould seriously disturb the balance of the plan inits carefully constructed relationships of economicdiversity. From conversations with city officials, itappeared at the time of writing that they were confi-dent the plan would remain intact and that the wideconsensus and commitment developed through thedesign process between the city, the neighborhood,and the private sponsors would endure.

The only disappointing note in the process and itsaftermath was the withdrawal of the hotel developer.He dropped out as the market declined during theeconomic recession that followed the attacks ofSeptember 11. Despite this setback, the prognosis forthe neighborhood is good, and local observers expectprivate developments to begin on site as the overalleconomy slowly improves.


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Our final case study is dramatically different fromthose that have preceded it in many ways. This differ-ence is not simply a matter of scale; the personnel andthe procedure varied, too. The authors and other pro-fessional colleagues featured in previous case studieswere heavily involved, but all played very differentroles. And this project was not produced by a char-rette; rather it evolved over a decade, beginning in1993 as a series of academic projects by architecturalstudents. For a few years it lay fallow while the prop-erty at the heart of the town of Cornelius wasenmeshed in a legal dispute and the focus of theauthors and others was elsewhere, helping to reformu-late the town’s development plans and zoning ordi-nance on New Urbanist principles. Finally, the projectre-emerged in 1997 as an innovative public–privatepartnership between the town and a private developer.

The particulars of the Cornelius town center pro-ject are relatively localized but the site is enmeshed ina much larger tale of regional collaborative planning.We’ll briefly describe the planning context as the pre-lude to the story of the block’s dramatic redevelop-ment, but first, the site itself. It comprises a 10-acre(4 hectares) urban block in the historic center ofCornelius, a small town 20 miles north of Charlotte.The site is located at the intersection of a majornorth–south regional road, Highway 115, and MainStreet, which until the mid-1990s was a main con-nector to points west. For decades, the block wasoccupied by a textile mill, housed in a random seriesof brick and tin sheds of no architectural quality.These industrial buildings were served by a long-defunct rail spur from the nearby freight line, andthey lined one side of Main Street with a long, blank

brick wall. In 1990, manufacturing ceased on thesite, and the vacant buildings soon became a derelicteyesore at the center of the old town, casting a shroudover the development potential of the surroundingarea. Partly as a consequence of this blighted environ-ment, extensive suburban growth sprouted a couplemiles away on more pleasing property along theshores of Lake Norman, a very large man-made lakeformed for the generation of electricity. Figure 11.1shows the site with the demolition of the old indus-trial buildings in progress.

This new development was separated from the oldtown by Interstate-77, which acted as a barrierbetween the two parts of the community. This is thesame interstate that played a key role in the Mooresvillecase study in Chapter 9, and Cornelius is situated

11The block

Case Study 5: Town Center,Cornelius, North Carolina

Figure 11.1 Aerial Photo of Cornelius Old Mill Site.This photo from 1997 records the early stages ofdemolishing the old mill buildings, ugly sheds of noarchitectural quality. (Photograph courtesy of ShookKelley architects)



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only five miles south of the Mount Mourne area (seeFigure 9.1). These and two other towns noted beloware linked not only by the interstate but also byHighway 115 and the same future high-speed com-muter rail line, all three transportation corridors par-alleling each other in a north–south direction.

Cornelius is one of three contiguous towns thattogether comprise the northern portion of MecklenburgCounty in North Carolina, the other two beingHuntersville immediately to the south and Davidsonsharing a boundary to the north. Together, the threetowns cover a combined territory of approximately 80square miles. At the heart of Mecklenburg County sitsbig city Charlotte, the heart of a Metropolitan StatisticalArea (MSA) of approximately two million people, ofwhich, in 2003, about 55 000 lived in the three northMecklenburg towns.

This case study documents the saga of the rebirthof this decrepit urban block into an active mixed-usecenter – the catalyst for the creation of a real towncenter where none had ever existed. But it also tells alarger story of regional collaborations between threetowns in forging an unique example of SmartGrowth and New Urbanist development that hasgone largely unheralded in contemporary Americantown planning. This story also demonstrates, onceagain if proof were needed, the relevance and conti-nuity of New Urbanist concepts of town planningfrom the scale of a region to a single urban blocklocated at its core.

Forging a Regional Vision

In 1994, one of the authors received a phone callfrom a concerned citizen in the town of Davidsonabout a major thoroughfare that was planned to ripthrough the edge of town and disturb the quaint,small town character of that community. This was afamiliar enough beginning – on either side of theAtlantic – for citizen activism to rise against thought-less transportation planning that had little regard toadjacent patterns of land use or community charac-ter. A series of public protest meetings followed,where it became clear that the proposed road wasonly the symptom of a larger problem. The town ofDavidson, a pleasant community 25 miles outsidethe major regional city of Charlotte simply had noeffective means to manage the suburban sprawl thatwas heading inexorably its way.

All that the town possessed prior to 1994 was astandard zoning ordinance compiled from regulations

dating from the 1970s and which, if implemented,was guaranteed to produce sprawl. Davidson didhowever employ a dynamic young planner, TimothyKeane, who was acutely aware of the problem. Keane(who moved onward and upward a few years later tobecome Planning Director of Charleston, SC)persuaded the Town Board to appoint the architectauthor as town planning consultant, and together thepair explored the application of traditional townplanning principles (in 1994 New Urbansim had notyet become the term of choice) to the town’s develop-ment problems. In particular, we investigated howbest to adapt coding examples like DPZ’s famousSeaside Code to the challenges of managing growthin a full, public municipal context. An intensive,12-month public process led to the adoption in 1995of a new Land Plan for the town combined with adesign-based code, pages from which were illustratedin Figure 3.4.

The same author was then appointed as town-planning consultant to neighboring Cornelius, withthe charge of leading the town toward a similargrowth management strategy. Work on a new townplan and zoning ordinance led to the appointment oftwo new staff members, Timothy Brown as PlanningDirector (now Planning Director of neighboringMooresville, NC) and Craig Lewis as Assistant TownManager (now a colleague of the authors in privatepractice). Between them these two newly appointedplanners wrote the new Cornelius neotraditionalzoning ordinance (adopted in 1996) while the authormoved one town south to become planning consul-tant to the town of Huntersville. Working this timewith Planning Director Ann Hammond (nowPlanning Director of Nashville and DavidsonCounty, TN) the author helped craft a similar newtown plan and zoning ordinance for that town, bothof which were adopted late in 1996.

As part of this multi-year public process, theauthors, working with community groups in all threetowns, developed a large hand-drawn map ofthe anticipated build-out scenario for the whole ofthe northern part of Mecklenburg County coveredby the jurisdictions of the three towns. Conceivedoriginally as a public participation tool to educate thepublic and developers into the advantages of NewUrbanist concepts by designing typical or con-tentious sites in detail, this map grew to a compre-hensive vision of collaborative growth management.It featured extensive interconnected street and openspace networks, transit village centers along the pro-posed commuter rail line to and from Charlotte, and


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was backed up by compatible design-based andtransit-supportive zoning across all three jurisdictions(see Plate 51). This collaborative civic regionalismwas hailed in The Charlotte Observer as ‘theMecklenburg Miracle,’ (Newsom, 1996) and featuredbriefly in an American PBS television documentaryand companion book (Hylton, 2000).

As part of the detailed design exercises for key sitesin the three towns, several students at the College ofArchitecture at the University of North Carolinaworked with the architect author on illustrative pro-jects, and one fifth-year student, Mick Campbell,produced a detailed urban design master plan for theold center of Cornelius in 1996. This plan showedthe old manufacturing site redeveloped as a mixed-use town center with a new town hall, grocery store,retail shops and live-work units. In accordance withthe early plans for transit in north MecklenburgCounty, Campbell sited a new commuter train sta-tion directly adjacent to this town center, and onvacant land on the other side of the tracks laid out atransit-oriented development following New Urbanistguidelines (see Figure 11.2). This prescient schemeparalleled moves being made by the town for theredevelopment of its historic center.

The Town Center and the Old Mill Site

The old town center of Cornelius was first identifiedas a potential commuter rail stop in Charlotte andMecklenburg County’s 2025 Land Use andTransportation Plan, adopted in 1994. The previousyear, architecture students from UNC Charlotte hadresponded to the town’s request by presenting devel-opment alternatives for the old mill site. Building onthese twin initiatives, town officials, with guidancefrom the architect author, began more advanced con-ceptual studies for the redevelopment of the old towncenter and adjacent land as a transit-oriented urbanvillage in 1995.

To advance its vision, and to stop heavy trucksfrom further degrading the old town center, the townhad already rezoned the old mill property in 1993 toavoid its continued use for manufacturing or as awarehouse. The town also tried to purchase the 10-acre industrial site and in 1995, but were unsuccess-ful, and the civic plans were further thwarted by aprivate businessman who outbid the town and refur-bished some of the buildings as warehouses in directopposition to the town’s wishes. A complex legal bat-tle ensued, which was initially won, against the odds,by the private owner on a zoning technicality. At one

point the owner even grazed goats on the property toestablish some legal point! Despite this setback,Cornelius officials immediately threatened to appeal,and the consensus of legal opinion agreed the aber-rant decision of the lower court jury would not likelybe upheld under the more informed scrutiny of theappeal court. Accordingly, the owner settled out ofcourt with the town and early in 1997, Corneliuseventually achieved ownership of the property(Brown, 2002).

During the ownership struggle, the town, with thearchitect author acting as planning consultant, hadlaid the planning groundwork for a new town center.Accordingly, in June 1997, a few months after the

Figure 11.2 Cornelius Town Center, Student ThesisProject, 1996. As part of a continuing dialoguebetween the town of Cornelius and students at theUNC Charlotte College of Architecture, this designby Mick Campbell identified key themes for theredevelopment of the block: the main retail storesorganized around a parking piazza within the block;smaller shops and apartments lining the streets; anda new town hall on the main corner opposite thefuture train station. Compare with Plate 52. (Drawingcourtesy of Mick Campbell)


adoption of New Urbanist zoning ordinance, thetown, under the guidance of Tim Brown and CraigLewis, was able to enter into a public–privatepartnership with a local developer to redevelop thesite with a mixture of commercial and residentialuses, and a new town hall.

KEY ISSUES AND OBJECTIVES

The main objective of the mill site redevelopmentwas to lay the foundation of what would, over a10–20-year period, become a thriving town centerfocused on the commuter rail station.

Subsidiary objectives for the site and its immedi-ately surrounding area were:

● Build a new grocery store to serve the older, easternhalf of the community bisected by Interstate 77.

● Revive the civic heart of the community by con-structing a new town hall to replace the miserable,windowless brick shed that city staff had worked insince the 1930s, together with a new police station,and nearby on a separate site, a new town library.

● Create a new residential population in the historiccore by including market-rate and affordablehousing on the town center site.

● Redevelop the site to increase the town’s taxrevenues.

● Stimulate new development in the older easternpart of town to balance the extensive suburbansprawl in the western parts of town on the otherside of the interstate.

● Design the site layout to link with a future trainstation on adjacent land immediately to the eastand future transit-oriented residential developmenton the other side of the tracks.

THE MASTER PLAN (PLATE 52)

The master plan for the block was designed by theCharlotte architects Shook Design Group (laterShook Kelly), who worked with town officials andthe McAdams Company, the private developer.Highway 115 runs south to north along the easternedge of the property, paralleled by the rail line thatwill provide the future commuter service betweenMooresville and Charlotte. Main Street runs east towest along the bottom of the plan. The designprocess began in November 1997, construction doc-uments were finalized in May 1998, and the firstphase was completed by December of that same year.

Phase I comprised the 33 000 square feet (3066square meters) grocery store plus 10 000 square feet(929 square meters) of ancillary retail shops on4.47 acres (1.79 hectares).

This grocery store was visible from Main Street,with its required parking lot directly in front of thestore’s entrance to conform to the establishedsuburban stereotype, but this conventional arrange-ment would later be screened by subsequent phases ofdevelopment along the street edge (see Figure 11.3).This was a neat solution (presaged in Campbell’s planin Figure 11.2) to the problem of fixed attitudes bygrocery and other ‘big-box’ retailers regarding what isto them a mandatory requirement for parking in frontof their stores. This design provided parking where itwas needed to satisfy this expectation (and those ofthe conservative lenders who finance such projects),but it established a larger pedestrian-friendly urbanframe around the conventional solution. (Also seeFigure 11.5).

Phase II comprised the construction of the newtown hall, at 27 000 square feet (2508 square meters)nine times the size of the old civic building. Whilesome thought was given to locating this importantstructure on the southeastern corner, at the junction oftwo main roads – for visual and symbolic significance– the town and the designers opted for a Main Streetlocation that could be paired with the future police sta-tion in a formal, symmetrical arrangement to give a


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Figure 11.3 Grocery store viewed from Main Street.Two rows of three-storey live-work units line the newCornelius Main Street, creating a space betweenthem through which the grocery store and itsparking are clearly visible and accessible. In this waythe large parking area does not dominate thetownscape.


sense of civic scale and grandeur to the composition.The town hall was also designed by the Shook Kelly tobe reminiscent of older courthouses and municipalbuildings, with enhanced vertical scale and massiveneo-classical symmetry, in order to stamp its civic pres-ence on what could otherwise appear a normativecommercial development. Design of the town hall wasbegun in October 1997, and the building completedin August 1999 (see Figure 11.4).

Phase III, the most important urban design elementof the master plan, comprised the construction of twoterraces of three-story live–work units along thenorthern side of Main Street (see Figure 11.5).Designed by Charlotte architect David Furman, these25 live-work units illustrate some of the complexitiesof building regulations designed for suburban situa-tions where every building has its own separate use,and stands apart in its own space. These terraces wereconstructed as three-story residential townhomesbecause of the difficulty under state-building codes ofdealing with the simple mixed-use arrangement of liv-ing above the store – the condition that characterizedMain Street America for nearly two centuries. To makethese buildings suitable for their true use, Furmanmade the footprint of the building’s plan deeper thannormal townhomes to accommodate ground floorbusiness uses. The town’s zoning code then circum-

vented the limitations of the state building code byallowing the street level ‘living room’ to be used as anoffice or shop as a ‘home occupation.’

These units were marketed in February 2000 forbetween $142 000–$255 000 and quickly sold out,illustrating the impact of America’s fastest growingbusiness sector, the small entrepreneur working fromhome (Brown: p. 56). Similar buildings have beendesigned for the eastern frontage of the site alongHighway 115, but these constitute a later phase, tiedmore to the construction of the future train station onthe opposite side of the road than to Main Street’srevitalization. This timing and orientation also appliesto the remaining buildings planned at the importantintersection of Main Street and Highway 115.

Main Street was also redesigned to allow angledparking, a boon for street level businesses, but eventhis improvement necessitated the town arguing withhigher state authorities. As a state-maintained high-way, diagonal parking was not allowed under out-of-date regulations that regarded the parking andbacking out of cars to be an impediment to thesmooth and speedy flow of vehicles. To achievethe pedestrian-friendly improvements necessary forthe success of the overall project, the town had toagree to take over maintenance of the street from thestate, adding a cost to its municipal budget. Once the


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Figure 11.4 Cornelius Town Hall, Shook KelleyArchitects, 1999. The monumental scale of the newtown hall was a shock to many local residents, usedto paying their taxes and going to meetings in asingle-storey shed for several decades. While thisbuilding works well and provides excellent facilitiesfor the town, the authors can’t help but wish thearchitecture had made a more contemporarystatement rather than retreating into historicism.

Figure 11.5 Live-work units on Cornelius Main Street,David Furman, Architect, 2001. These buildingsillustrate a common American quandary:progressive urban design constructed with historicistaesthetics. American taste at the beginning of thetwenty-first century has little affinity with crisp,modern aesthetics to match the advances inurbanism. Compare this architecture with thatillustrated in Figure 3.9.


street was taken over by the town, it assumed author-ity over the space, and could re-classify it as a townstreet with angled parking.

The fourth phase of the town center consisted ofthe new 18 000 square foot (1672 square meters)police station, completed in late 2002 to thedesigns of Charlotte architects LS3P, who alsodesigned the nearby branch library opposite thetown’s elementary school two blocks away in 1998.Both these buildings demonstrate good urbandesign sensitivity to the public street, but manifesta conservative, brick and stone neo-classicism intheir external appearance, echoing the ‘retro’ char-acter of all the architecture in the new town center(see Figure 11.6).

A fifth phase, comprising the vital component ofaffordable housing in the form of small townhomesaround the west and north of the site, completedthe construction to date at the time of writing in thelate spring of 2003. The master plan also sketchedin further terraces of mixed-use development alongthe south side of Main Street to mirror those on thenorth. This redevelopment on land not owned bythe town is not likely to come to fruition for severalyears, but on other nearby properties a considerableamount refurbishment and infill development hasmaterialized in response to the town’s commitmentto reviving its historic core. As a result, the1996 assessed tax valuation of $800 000 for thetown center area had increased by 2003 to severalmillion dollars.

IMPLEMENTATION

North Carolina state law allows public–private partner-ship ventures to occur for downtown revitalization, butthis town center project tested the legal boundaries ofthe statute as the first instance of its use. The town hadoptioned the site while negotiating with the developer,and upon agreement of terms, assigned the option tothe development company. The town then spent$500 000 to clear and clean up the site, and $250 000to bury all the power and telephone lines along MainStreet. As part of the clever legal agreement, the townbought back the site of the town hall for $800 000 andentered into a ‘build-to-suit’ contract with the devel-oper for the construction of the new building. Thisenabled the town to save money, benefit from theeconomies of scale by being part of the larger, overalldevelopment with more competitive pricing, and,importantly, enjoy a faster design and developmentschedule afforded by the private sector compared toconventional process of separate design and competi-tive bidding for publicly financed municipal buildings(Brown: p. 55). All this innovative manoeuveringnecessitated detailed negotiations between the townand the state commission for local government in orderto approve the methods of financing.

We noted earlier that Professor Walters’ work withthe town in the mid-1990s had established the princi-ple of a transit-oriented town center on this site andadjacent properties, with the redevelopment of theold mill as the foundation for this vision. With theeconomic and critical success of this town centerblock (it received awards for its detailed design fromthe American Institute of Architects and theAmerican Planning Association) Cornelius tookanother bold step in January 2000. Following itsinnovative precedent on the old mill site, the towncontracted to purchase 128 acres (51 hectares) of landimmediately on the opposite side of the rail line fromthe town center, where Campbell’s 1996 student the-sis had explored a transit-oriented residential develop-ment. The town did so ‘as a catalyst to support andfacilitate the successful development of this property,(but) with no desire to own or develop the propertythemselves’ (Brown, 60). It was their intention to pro-duce a design for a TOD while the property wasunder their option to buy, and then ‘flip’ the site, withits design and full zoning in place, to a developer, whowould be the actual one to purchase the land and pro-ceed with construction. This strategy kept the town’sfinancial commitment low, while leveraging extensiveprivate investment to complete the project.


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Figure 11.6 Aerial View of partly completeddevelopment showing Police Station, LS3P Architects, 2002. The police station is visible on the left-hand side of the photograph, opposite thetown hall. Like the town hall it contributes to goodurban design but its tepid neo-classicism isdisappointing.


The town employed Duany Plater-Zyberk &Company to prepare a master plan and assessments ofdevelopment feasibility, which they completedthrough a public design charrette in December 2000.With the plan in place, elected officials and staff inter-viewed several development companies before select-ing one to implement the project. The DPZ plancreated an attractive blueprint for the transit-orienteddevelopment, and established a viable framework, butsome difficult topographic and implementation issuesremained unresolved. As a result of some disagree-ments between the consultants and the town,Charlotte landscape architects Cole Jenest and Stone(members of the original design team) were hired torevise the plan to meet the needs of the town and theselected developer (see Figure 11.7). The commuterrail line is still on schedule to be up and running by2008, and the first homes in the transit-oriented

development were scheduled to break ground in thesummer of 2003.

Cornelius’ proactive planning regime moved toconsolidate this town center vision in the spring of2003 when it commissioned the Lawrence Group toprepare a master plan for its remaining land areaaround the TOD and along the train line, about sixsquare miles, in collaboration with its neighbors, thetowns of Davidson and Huntersville. The LawrenceGroup set up another public charrette, and the resul-tant master plan balanced the opportunities fordevelopment, particularly spurred by transit and therecent provision of sewer service, with the conserva-tion of some of the last large areas of open farmlandin the county (see Plate 53).

Within the study area for this last piece of thepuzzle, and immediately to the east and south of the Transit-oriented Development, sits 656 acres


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Figure 11.7 Revised TOD Master Plan Layout, Cole Jenest and Stone, Landscape Architects, 2001. This planretained many elements of the original DPZ plan, but revised parts of the street pattern to suit detailedtopographical conditions. The commuter rail line makes a shallow arc on the left-hand edge of the drawing,and the train station will be located next to the pedestrian connection across the tracks to the adjacenttown center. The mixed-use development discussed in this chapter is immediately off the drawing on the left-hand side. (Drawing courtesy of Cole Jenest and Stone)


(254 hectares) of working farmland that has been in theownership of one family since it was granted duringthe reign of King George III. The land was conveyed bythe British admiral and peer, Lord Anson from whatwas then Anson County, which extended all the wayfrom the Charlotte area to the Mississippi River, about600 miles to the west, illustrating the vast scale of colo-nial America. Listed on the National Register ofHistoric Places this land is destined by family decree toremain undeveloped for generations to come. Whilethis is prime developable land (all good farmland is!)which would allow improved connectivity betweenCornelius and Davidson, its presence as a huge ‘centralpark’ immediately next to centers of denser develop-ment, has great environmental and historic benefit forthe community. Accordingly, in our final study, weconcentrated future development well away from thisland, and around the location of another future com-muter train station at the southern edge of this masterplan area, two-and-a-half miles south from the locationof the Cornelius town center station. Here we created anew employment-led TOD merged with a park-and-ride facility, as the conditions were very similar to theMooresville/Mount Mourne case study in Chapter 9:good road access to Interstate 77, and large tracts ofdevelopable land held by only a handful of propertyowners. This plan was just recently finished when thisbook was completed in the early summer of 2003. Weawait with interest to see if this companion develop-ment to the Cornelius town center and the MountMourne employment center reaches an equivalent levelof fulfillment!


We have many good things to say about this casestudy, having been involved in its initial phases andthen observing the concepts coming to fruition byvirtue of the skills and talents of others. We have onecaveat, however. This bold, entrepreneurial vision ofa new town center has been implemented in a seriesof conservative neo-classical buildings. These struc-tures use the past as something to copy as a restrictivemodel, rather than something to interpret afresh, asa typology. This retreat into imagery from the pastto concoct a style for new buildings is a commonAmerican problem, and well known in Britain too,where the fine line between a discerning respect fortradition and a cozy nostalgia for an invented past isoften blurred. In this instance, as in many others

including Huntersville’s Birkdale Village, historicistarchitecture has been the means of gaining popularand economic success. It is a perplexing commentaryon our times that if the bold planning and urbandesign moves in the town center of Cornelius hadbeen rendered in equally bold contemporary archi-tecture (which can be perfectly compatible with NewUrbanism) it is most unlikely that elected officialswould have backed the project, nor the citizensembraced it. In 2003 in America, we live in a time ofvery conservative popular taste, and while as artistsand architects we long for the opportunity to marrycontemporary design with Smart Growth planning,as urban designers, we realize it may take anothergeneration before our society’s cultural quest for shal-low nostalgia deepens into something more aestheti-cally profound.

On a much more positive note, it is clear that thiscase study has achieved the highest level of implementa-tion of any in the book. This is due largely to its lengthytime period, early plans in the form of student projectshaving been discussed as far back as 1993. It has taken10 years to reach its current status, still unfinished butmoving forward piece by piece. The successful imple-mentation of good design ideas has been driven by theproactive leadership of the town, both elected officialsand staff, and their aggressive seeking of public–privatepartnerships that could combine the energy and effi-ciencies of the private sector with the long-term visionof the public authority, and using modest public invest-ments to leverage major private money.

Of particular note are the connections made bythe town outward from its new central core. Townofficials recognized that to be an active center, the oldmill site had to become the focus of something largerthan itself. Accordingly, through several changes ofelected officials, most of whom shared a commonvision, town staff made sure the new town center wasconnected to high-density transit opportunities –and compensatory open space preservation – alongthe rail line they shared with their neighboringtowns. This perspective is an exemplar for us all, andreinforces our fundamental belief in the connected-ness of scales in Smart Growth and New Urbanism.Even when we work at the scale of the block, we arealways thinking beyond the site boundaries and grap-pling with the larger context. One block relates to theblocks around it, then to the whole neighborhood,and then to the whole town, and in this instance to acollaborative regional vision with adjacent munici-palities. The block is the crucible of the region asmuch as the region is the incubator of the block.


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This book has attempted to weave together severalstrands of urban thought into one coherent narrativearound a central premise: the best way to plancommunities is to design them in detail. We chose toillustrate this theme with an insider’s view of thedesign and planning process, believing that layingbare the successes and disappointments of our ownwork could accomplish five things. First, for thosewho find urban design a fuzzy concept, using casestudies of typical projects could demystify theconcepts and techniques of the discipline, renderingit more accessible to non-designers. Second, thedetailed description of real-life examples could revealthe potential that Smart Growth and New Urbaniststrategies have for communities large and small intheir struggle for more sustainable ways of living andbuilding.

Third, we hope that our case studies will illuminatethe similarities in technique and the differences inpolitical context between British and Americanpractice. Fourth, by displaying our concepts, theories,and results on site, the work can function as an openbook for students in both countries, demonstratinghow professionals work in practice, and how ideastaught in studios and lecture halls by architectureprofessors can be directly relevant to critical practice.And fifth, it could support others like ourselveswho work hard to save America from itself. We arenot alone.

One of the first things architects learn as profes-sionals is something they are rarely taught at inschool, except perhaps as a lecture in ProfessionalPractice: their work as architects and urban designersis founded on collaboration and compromise. Further-more, compromise need not be the dirty word thatbesmirches architectural genius. Clients, contractors,surveyors, engineers and planners all play valid andimportant roles in creating buildings, and what is truefor architecture is magnified in the wider worlds ofurban design and town planning. The charrette isjustly touted as a great method of getting communityinput and buy-in to complex planning issues, butthat forum is equally useful in contextualizing thedesigner’s skill, casting him or her in a role that goesbeyond that of an independent professional. The

urban designer is part of a creative team that includesrepresentatives of many other disciplines as partners,along with non-professionals and citizens.

When minds are open, charrettes can be greatlearning vehicles for designers as well as the generalpublic. Throughout the book we’ve emphasized theuse of traditional urban forms and typology as ameans of bridging past, present and future, and ofusing history and theory to enrich our designs amidstthe development realities in American towns andcities. Being alert to the power of traditional sourcesdoes not imply that architectural design can’t orshouldn’t evolve. Within the urban frame of people-centered public space, architecture can experiment,evolve and adapt. Similarly, using typologies doesn’timply our designs are fixed; we do not necessarilyknow the solution before we begin.

Typologies are starting points for designers,generic foundation stones of structures that take par-ticular shape according to local circumstances. Thislocal understanding comes only by listening andinvolving local people as partners in the enterprise ofshaping their community. One reason why theMooresville and Greenville charrettes were success-ful was because local participation was excellent. The design team learned a great deal from people inthe area, and the master plans were greatly improvedby the process.

Through our case studies, we have deliberatelyillustrated a real-life mixture of success anddisappointment. We don’t say ‘failure’ because noneof the projects ‘failed’. Even the Raleigh example,where our contract did not include any provisionsfor implementation, leaving the master plan aloneand vulnerable to the vagaries of future decisions, didnot ‘fail’, although it did certainly not succeed asmuch as we would have liked. We take some heartthat in knowing that planners in Raleigh, as in manycities across the USA, are working hard to improvethe planning system, and our plan might havemade the task of our Carolina colleagues a littleeasier. Our plan also helped support the efforts of theTriangle Transit Authority to bring commuter trainservice to the region, and, especially we think, helpedthe community to appreciate the economic and social

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advantages that transit-oriented villages provide, asopposed to building bare-bones park-and-ride lots atthe station sites.

Apart from the Cornelius town center with itslonger time span, all these projects were planned dur-ing the years 2000 and 2002. In America’s recession-prone economy, burdened by threats of globalterrorism and a general loss of confidence, the impactof the plans on the ground has been modest – withthe further exception of the Mooresville masterplan – which helped attract a major corporate head-quarters to the site. This limited implementationwithin a one- to three-year period after completion ofthe plans should also not be judged a failure, becausetown building is a long-term process. It is notuncommon for a complex architectural project totake five years from inception to completion, and forurban design and town planning projects; this timeframe can easily be doubled or tripled. We were veryserious in the Greenville case study when we mappedout a potential implementation schedule that lasted20 years!

For the professional, urban design is necessarilyabout deferred gratification. As experienced profession-als now in middle age, we know we may be retiredbefore the plans we draw today take shape in the world.The trade-off for this long time scale is the scope ofaction and influence: we get to do a lot more thandesign buildings, honorable as that labor is. We get todesign towns and cities! The public dynamism of urbandesign, and the constant interaction with communitiestrying to shape their future, are very satisfying architec-tural and planning endeavors. To continue analogieswe’ve drawn from Gordon Cullen and Camillo Sitte,we urban designers are a bit like composers, whosemusic needs musicians to be heard. We create an urbanscore, but nothing happens unless other professionalsand citizens play their parts by transforming our lineson paper and words on the page into political actionand bricks and mortar. Delayed gratification it may be,but oh, the joys of composition!

We deliberately chose our case studies to illus-trate a hierarchy of urban scales: creating a regionalframework for collaborative development amongmany municipalities; restructuring a faded subur-ban area in a large city around urban village centers; creating a new urban village on a greenfieldsite to make patterns of suburban growth moresustainable; revitalizing a poor inner-city neighbor-hood; and regenerating a decayed town center.Our work on these large and small projects hasconvinced us of one of New Urbanism’s central

propositions – continuity and connections in designthinking exist between all scales of urbanism, fromthe region to the block.

Some professional opinion still maintains thatSmart Growth operates at a large scale of ‘planning,’while New Urbanism concerns itself with the smaller,‘design’ scale of individual projects (Wickersham,2003). In our view this is fundamentally mistaken: itperpetuates the divorce of planning from design. To take the design content out of Smart Growth, so itbecomes just another set of planning policies, is togive it the kiss of death. Smart Growth, above all else,is about the redesign of our communities to help solveenvironmental and social problems, and to createnew patterns of sustainable living in places thatnourish the soul while providing for everydaynecessities. Smart Growth and New Urbanism areindivisible; together they form a comprehensiveapproach to development, redevelopment and con-servation at all scales.

Our work is living proof that New Urbanism isn’tjust about making cute suburbs for the well-heeledmiddle class. It can, and should be an agency of socialchange and improvement. But one of the most severetesting grounds, for Smart Growth and New Urbanismalike, is in this arena of social equity. New Urbanismhas garnered a reputation, somewhat unfairly, asmerely a means of creating environments for thepleasure of the wealthier classes in American society.The economically distorted legacy of Seaside, andour enjoyment of Birkdale Village, in Huntersville,North Carolina, exemplify this problem. But this cat-egorization is unfair because it ignores, among otherthings, the great contributions to affordable housingevident in HOPE VI projects that are based squarelyon New Urbanist principles. But the belief stilllingers, and as we noted in Chapter 6, opponents ofSmart Growth have developed a potentially powerfulnew tactic of branding Smart Growth as ‘snobgrowth’, the preserve of a wealthy upper-middle classthat excludes lower income families and individuals.To overcome this slur is vital, but aspects of Americansociety make it a very difficult challenge.

For an allegedly ‘classless’ culture, America in thetwenty-first century is handicapped by a stratificationbased on money and race, all too self-evident inthe form of the nation’s cities. Low- and moderate-income households are often concentrated in parts ofcities many miles from centers of employment, withlimited means of getting to and from workplaces,schools, and health services. Wealthy citizens keeppoorer members of the community away from their


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suburban enclaves by means of large-lot exclusionaryzoning that means smaller, more affordable homescan’t be built in those locations. More rampant socialand spatial segregation by means of gated communi-ties is increasingly commonplace. On occasion, we’vebeen interviewed by towns seeking consultants for anew comprehensive plan, only to find that our statedideals about the importance of social equity andaffordable housing in all communities immediatelydisqualified us from further consideration. Suchmunicipalities seek compliant consultants who willinstitutionalize discrimination, and they find them.However, we believe that to be complicit with thisagenda is a reprehensible breach of professional ethics.

The equitable distribution of affordable housingthroughout the community is both a founding prin-ciple of New Urbanism, and one of the hardest objec-tives to meet. America’s sprawling settlement patternmeans that on average, American households spendmore money on transportation than on food, andonly a fraction less than it takes to provide a roof overtheir head. Shelter consumes an average of 19 centsof every dollar, transportation 18 cents, and food,only 13 cents. For poorer households who desper-ately need money for decent housing, the distancesbetween home and work mean that transportationcosts alone take a whopping 36 cents out of everydollar, leaving too little for reasonable accommoda-tion (Katz, 2003: p. 47).

While federal programs in America do provide sup-port for affordable housing initiatives, it would beoverly optimistic to hope for the implementation of amore proactive national policy mandating the equitabledistribution of such accommodation in communities.It will be left to individual towns and cities to solve thisproblem as best they can. In this context, charrettes,master plans and new design-based zoning ordinanceslike the ones described in these case studies can helpachieve social equity by designing it on the ground,neighborhood by neighborhood.

The authors don’t want British readers to get toosmug about the problems besetting America’s townsand cities. The growing racial and class conflicts inBritain’s inner cities, particularly in older failingurban areas in the north of the country bode illfor the future. Even in once prosperous industrialcities like Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which underwentdecades of decline before fighting its way back to

some semblance of urban health, the much-heraldedand praiseworthy revitalization of the city center andquayside is contrasted with bitter urban decay inworking class neighborhoods only a couple of milesaway. This is not an isolated problem.

All is not sweetness and light in Albion’s scepteredisle, and Americans who build their image of Britainfrom the BBC and Masterpiece Theater would bestartled to comprehend the pressures and problems inBritish urban society. But, as we’ve said earlier in thebook, there are national policies and support forplanning and urban design that provide a frameworkfor more comprehensive solutions than in America,and we’re somewhat more optimistic about Britishcities than their American equivalents. In America,we simply have to work harder and put design to bet-ter use. As we hope we’ve shown in this book, designisn’t simply an issue of aesthetics; it is a means of solv-ing problems, and urban design provides the tech-niques for solving problems in cities throughthree-dimensional thinking. Contrary to Mies vander Rohe’s assertion, in this case, less is not more. Theextra third dimension provides designers and plan-ners with more sophisticated tools to tackle urbanproblems than two-dimensional planning conceptsthat deal only with location and function. Urbandesign makes real places to live, to work, to shop, toworship, and to fall in love; urban planning makesonly abstract models of cities.

The renaissance of American urban design isrelated in many ways to the British tradition oftown planning – where the disposition of a commu-nity is organized according to physical criteria aswell as social, economic and cultural considerations.It is the premise of the case studies that this kind ofdesign-based planning can meet communities’ needsin a way that conventional two-dimensional tech-niques cannot. Our work, and the work of manyother professionals across the USA, reaffirms thetradition of physical master planning. We create abuildable vision and the means to implement it – asopposed to statistical planning methods thatemphasize only analysis and policy formulation.The closer we get to the real world of places andpeople, the better we can solve the problems ofcities, towns and neighborhoods. We, and otherslike us, are trying to reshape America for a sustain-able future, one place at a time.


231

The Congress for the New Urbanism viewsdisinvestment in central cities, the spread of placelesssprawl, increasing separation by race and income, envi-ronmental deterioration, loss of agricultural lands andwilderness, and the erosion of society’s built heritage asone interrelated community-building challenge.

We stand for the restoration of existing urban cen-ters and towns within coherent metropolitan regions,the reconfiguration of sprawling suburbs into com-munities of real neighborhoods and diverse districts,the conservation of natural environments, and thepreservation of our built legacy.

We recognize that physical solutions by themselveswill not solve social and economic problems, but nei-ther can economic vitality, community stability, andenvironmental health be sustained without a coher-ent and supportive physical framework.

We advocate the restructuring of public policy anddevelopment practices to support the following prin-ciples: neighborhoods should be diverse in use andpopulation; communities should be designed for thepedestrian and transit as well as the car; cities andtowns should be shaped by physically defined anduniversally accessible public spaces and communityinstitutions; urban places should be framed by archi-tecture and landscape design that celebrate localhistory, climate, ecology, and building practice.

We represent a broad-based citizenry, composed ofpublic and private sector leaders, community activists,and multidisciplinary professionals. We are commit-ted to reestablishing the relationship between the artof building and the making of community, throughcitizen-based participatory planning and design.

The charter of the congress of the new urbanism I

APPENDIX

We dedicate ourselves to reclaiming our homes,blocks, streets, parks, neighborhoods, districts,towns, cities, regions, and environment.

We assert the following principles to guide publicpolicy, development practice, urban planning, anddesign:

THE REGION: METROPOLIS, CITY,AND TOWN

1. Metropolitan regions are finite places withgeographic boundaries derived from topography,watersheds, coastlines, farmlands, regional parks,and river basins. The metropolis is made of multi-ple centers that are cities, towns, and villages, eachwith its own identifiable center and edges.

2. The metropolitan region is a fundamentaleconomic unit of the contemporary world.Governmental cooperation, public policy, physicalplanning, and economic strategies must reflect thisnew reality.

3. The metropolis has a necessary and fragile rela-tionship to its agrarian hinterland and naturallandscapes. The relationship is environmental,economic, and cultural. Farmland and nature areas important to the metropolis as the garden is tothe house.

4. Development patterns should not blur or eradicatethe edges of the metropolis. Infill developmentwithin existing urban areas conserves environmen-tal resources, economic investment, and socialfabric, while reclaiming marginal and abandoned

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areas. Metropolitan regions should develop strate-gies to encourage such infill development overperipheral expansion.

5. Where appropriate, new development contiguousto urban boundaries should be organized asneighborhoods and districts, and be integratedwith the existing urban pattern. Noncontiguousdevelopment should be organized as towns andvillages with their own urban edges, and plannedfor a jobs/housing balance, not as bedroomsuburbs.

6. The development and redevelopment of townsand cities should respect historical patterns, prece-dents, and boundaries.

7. Cities and towns should bring into proximity abroad spectrum of public and private uses tosupport a regional economy that benefits people ofall incomes. Affordable housing should be distrib-uted throughout the region to match job opportu-nities and to avoid concentrations of poverty.

8. The physical organization of the region should besupported by a framework of transportation alter-natives. Transit, pedestrian, and bicycle systemsshould maximize access and mobility throughoutthe region while reducing dependence upon theautomobile.

9. Revenues and resources can be shared more coop-eratively among the municipalities and centerswithin regions to avoid destructive competitionfor tax base and to promote rational coordinationof transportation, recreation, public services,housing, and community institutions.

THE NEIGHBORHOOD, THE DISTRICT,AND THE CORRIDOR

1. The neighborhood, the district, and the corridorare the essential elements of developmentand redevelopment in the metropolis. They formidentifiable areas that encourage citizens totake responsibility for their maintenance andevolution.

2. Neighborhoods should be compact, pedestrian-friendly, and mixed-use. Districts generallyemphasize a special single use, and should followthe principles of neighborhood design whenpossible. Corridors are regional connectors ofneighborhoods and districts; they range fromboulevards and rail lines to rivers and parkways.

3. Many activities of daily living should occur withinwalking distance, allowing independence to those

who do not drive, especially the elderly and theyoung. Interconnected networks of streets should bedesigned to encourage walking, reduce the numberand length of automobile trips, and conserve energy.

4. Within neighborhoods, a broad range of housingtypes and price levels can bring people of diverseages, races, and incomes into daily interaction,strengthening the personal and civic bondsessential to an authentic community.

5. Transit corridors, when properly planned andcoordinated, can help organize metropolitanstructure and revitalize urban centers. In contrast,highway corridors should not displace investmentfrom existing centers.

6. Appropriate building densities and land usesshould be within walking distance of transit stops,permitting public transit to become a viablealternative to the automobile.

7. Concentrations of civic, institutional, and com-mercial activity should be embedded in neighbor-hoods and districts, not isolated in remote,single-use complexes. Schools should be sized andlocated to enable children to walk or bicycle tothem.

8. The economic health and harmonious evolutionof neighborhoods, districts, and corridors can beimproved through graphic urban design codesthat serve as predictable guides for change.

9. A range of parks, from tot-lots and village greensto ballfields and community gardens, should bedistributed within neighborhoods. Conservationareas and open lands should be used to define andconnect different neighborhoods and districts.

THE BLOCK, THE STREET, AND THE BUILDING

1. A primary task of all urban architecture and land-scape design is the physical definition of streetsand public spaces as places of shared use.

2. Individual architectural projects should be seam-lessly linked to their surroundings. This issuetranscends style.

3. The revitalization of urban places depends onsafety and security. The design of streets andbuildings should reinforce safe environments, butnot at the expense of accessibility and openness.

4. In the contemporary metropolis, developmentmust adequately accommodate automobiles. Itshould do so in ways that respect the pedestrianand the form of public space.

DESIGN FIRST: DESIGN BASED PLANNING FOR COMMUNITIES

232


5. Streets and squares should be safe, comfortable, andinteresting to the pedestrian. Properly configured,they encourage walking and enable neighbors toknow each other and protect their communities.

6. Architecture and landscape design should growfrom local climate, topography, history, andbuilding practice.

7. Civic buildings and public gathering placesrequire important sites to reinforce communityidentity and the culture of democracy. They

deserve distinctive form, because their role isdifferent from that of other buildings and placesthat constitute the fabric of the city.

8. All buildings should provide their inhabitantswith a clear sense of location, weather and time.Natural methods of heating and cooling can bemore resource-efficient than mechanical systems.

9. Preservation and renewal of historic buildings,districts, and landscapes affirm the continuity andevolution of urban society.

APPENDIX I • THE CHARTER OF THE CONGRESS OF THE NEW URBANISM

233


235

Appendix II sets out our set of Smart Growthprinciples dealing with the planning and the urbandesign of communities, prefaced with a set of moregeneral policies. This is an expanded list from the onein Chapter 2; we have added notes in italics where themore exacting requirements of sustainable develop-ment extends and deepens these concepts of SmartGrowth.

General policies

1. Plan collaboratively amongst municipalitieswithin a region.

2. Target public investment to support developmentin key areas and to discourage development inothers. Extend suburban areas only in locationswhere they can be supported by existing publicfacilities and services or by simple and economicextensions of these services.

3. Reinforce the centers of cities, towns andneighborhoods. Locate regional attractions incity centers wherever possible, and not in subur-ban locations.

4. Create developments that expand the diversity, syn-ergism, and use of renewable resources in localeconomies (Porter, 2000: p. 2).

5. Make development decisions predictable, fairand cost effective. Involve community stakehold-ers and citizens in the decision-making process.

6. Provide incentives and remove some legislativebarriers to persuade and enable developers to dothe right thing. Make it easy to build smartdevelopments and harder to build sprawl.

Planning strategies

7. Integrate land-use and transportation planningto minimize the number of trips by car and thedistances driven. Provide a range of transporta-tion choices to mitigate congestion.

8. Create a range of affordable housing opportuni-ties and choices.

9. Preserve open space around and within the com-munity, as working farmland, areas of naturalbeauty or areas with fragile environments.

10. Maximize the capacity of existing infrastructureby reusing derelict urban sites and filling in gapsin the urban fabric. Preserve historic buildingsand neighborhoods and convert older buildingsto new uses wherever possible. Minimizedemolition.

11. Foster a distinctive sense of place as a buildingblock of community development.

Urban design concepts

12. Create compact, walkable neighborhoods withconnected streets, sidewalks and street trees tomake walking to work, to school, to the busstop, or train station, or just walking for pleasureand exercise, safe, convenient and attractive.

13. Integrate offices and shops, along with commu-nity facilities such as schools, churches, libraries,parks and playgrounds into neighborhoods tocreate places to walk to and reduce vehicle trips.Design for densities that can support activeneighborhood life. (The Denver Regional AirQuality Council estimated that urban designs

Smart growth principles IIAPPENDIX

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that follow these guidelines can reduce theVehicle Miles Travelled [VMT] by as much as10 percent [Allen, 16].)

14. Make public spaces the focus of building orien-tation and neighborhood activity. Move large carparks away from streets and screen them withbuildings.

15. Use compact building designs and layouts to min-imize consumption of land and conserve natural

resources. Maintain and restore environmentalattributes of development sites (Porter, 2000: p. 2).

16. Design buildings to reduce the consumption ofenergy and non-renewable resources and the produc-tion of waste and pollution (Porter, 2000: p. 2).

To all of which we would add:

17. Think three-dimensionally! Envision your com-munity in urban design detail.


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Extracts from a typical design-basedzoning ordinance III

APPENDIX

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NEIGHBORHOOD EDGE (NE) NEIGHBORHOOD GENERAL (NG) NEIGHBORHOOD CENTER(NC) UNIVERSITY RIDGE VILLAGE CENTER (URVC)

MIXED USEPROVISIONS

SPECIFIC BUILDING Detached House – Street Lot Detached House – Street Lot Detached House – Alley Lot Detached House – Alley LotTYPES PERMITTED Detached House – Alley Lot Detached House – Alley Lot Townhouse Townhouse

Except where Civic Building Townhouse Apartment Building Apartment Buildingtopographic conditions Apartment Building Shopfront Building Shopfront Buildingprohibit, all buildings Civic Building Civic Building Workplaceshall enfront on Civic Buildingpublic streets or parks

PERMITTED OPEN Greenway Greenway Greenway GreenwaySPACE TYPES Meadow Park Square Square

Park Sportsfield Plaza PlazaSportsfield Green Community Garden Community Garden

Square Close ClosePlaza Playground Playground

Community GardenClose

Playground

MAXIMUM HEIGHT 21/2 Storys 3 Storys 4 Storys 6 Storys(exception-6 stories for Hotels)

SIGNAGE Arm Sign Only Arm Sign Only All Permitted Signage(Monument Signs for Civic (Monument Signs for

Buildings only) Civic Buildings only)

Residential

Residential

Residential/Home Office

Cottage/Studio/Office

Garage/Workshop

Residential/Office

Residential/Office

Residential/HomeOffice


Garage/Workshop

Residential/Office/Hotel



Residential/Office/Hotel/Retail


Garage/Workshop

Residential/Office

Residential/Office

Residential/Office

Residential/Office

Residential/Office

Residential/Retail/Office



Haynie-Sirrine Neighborhood Zoning Overlay Code

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USE PROVISIONS NEIGHBORHOOD EDGE (NE) NEIGHBORHOOD GENERAL (NG) NEIGHBORHOOD CENTER (NC) UNIVERSITY RIDGE VILLAGE CENTER (URVC)

Residential: Premises available Restricted residential: The number of Limited residential: The number of dwellings is Open residential: The number of dwellings Open residential: The number of dwellings isfor long-term human habitation dwellings is restricted to one within a principal limited by the requirement of 1.5 assigned parking is limited by the requirement of 1.5 assigned limited by the requirement of 1.5 assigned parkingby means of ownership and rental, building and one within an ancillary building, spaces for each dwelling, a ratio that may be parking spaces for each dwelling, a ratio spaces for each dwelling, a ratio that may be reducedbut excluding short-term letting and by the requirement of one assigned reduced according to the shared packing standard. that may be reduced according to the according to the shared parking standard.of less than a month’s duration parking space for each. Both dwellings Permitted uses: Single Family homes, Duplexes, shared parking standard. Permitted uses: Single Family homes,

shall be under single ownership. and Multi-Family dwellings Permitted uses: Single Family homes, Duplexes, and Multi-Family dwellingsPermitted uses: Single Family Duplexes, and Multi-Family dwellingshomes and Duplexes

Lodgings: Premises available Restricted lodging: The number of Limited lodging: The number of bedrooms Open lodging: The number of bedrooms Open lodging: The number of bedrooms availablefor short-term human bedrooms available for lodging is available for lodging is limited by the requirement available for lodging is limited by the requirement for lodging is limited by the requirement ofhabitation, including daily restricted to one within an ancillary of one assigned parking space for each bedroom, of one assigned parking space for each bedroom, one assigned parking space for each bedroom,and weekly letting building, and by the requirement in addition to the parking requirement in addition to the parking requirement for each in addition to the parking requirement for each

of one assigned parking space for each for each dwelling. Food service may dwelling. Food service may be provided dwelling. Food service may be provided at all timesleasable bedroom in addition to the only be provided in the morning. at all times. Permitted uses: Hotels and Inns, Rental Cottagesrequirement of two spaces for a dwelling. Permitted uses: Rental Permitted uses: Hotels andPermitted uses: Rental Cottages Cottages and Bed and Breakfast Inns Inns, Rental Cottages(in outbuildings)

Office: Premises available Restricted office: Customary home occupation Restricted office: Customary home occupation Open office: The area available for office Open offices: The area available for office usefor the transaction of a uses are permitted only provided the office uses are permitted only provided the office use use is limited by the requirement of one is limited by the requirement of one assignedgeneral business, but use is restricted to the first floor or is restricted to the first floor or ancillary assigned parking space for each 250 square feet. parking space for each 250 square feet, a ratioexcluding retail sales and ancillary building and by the requirement building and by the requirement of one a ratio that may be reduced that may be reduced according to themanufacturing of one assigned parking space for each 250 assigned parking space for each 250 square feet, according to the shared parking shared parking standards.

square feet, in addition to the parking in addition to the parking standards. Permitted uses: Office Uses, Live-Work Unitsrequirement dwelling for each. requirement for each dwelling. Permitted uses: Office Uses, Live-Work UnitsPermitted uses: Home Occupations Permitted uses: Home Occupations

Retail: Premises available Restricted retail: Retail use is forbidden Restricted retail: Retail uses is forbidden Open retail: The area available for retail use is Open retail: The area available for retail use isfor the commercial sale of within residential buildings; with the within residential buildings; with the exception limited by the requirement of one assigned limited by the requirement of one assigned parking merchandise and prepared exception that one neighborhood storefront that one neighborhood storefront (in the first parking space for each 250 square feet of gross space for each 250 square feet of gross retail space, foods, but excluding (in the first storey of a corner location) storey of a corner location) shall be permitted retail space, a ratio that may be reduced according a ratio that may be reduced according to the share manufacturing shall be permitted for each 300 dwelling for each 300 dwelling units in a neighborhood. to the shared parking standards. parking standards.

units in a neighborhood. Permitted uses: Neighborhood Store (on corner lots Permitted uses: Retail Uses, Restaurants, Permitted uses: Retail Uses, Restaurants,Permitted uses: Day Care Centers only) and Day Care Centers Entertainment Uses, Day Care Centers, Entertainment Uses, Day Care Centers, Convenience

Convenience Stores Stores and Drive-Through Facilities (subject to the Excluded uses: Automotive, Road and Heavy issuance of a Conditional Use Permit)Equipment Sales and Service, Adult Establishments Excluded uses: Automotive, Boat, Heavy Equipmentand Adult Video Stores, Drive-Through Uses Sales and Service, Adult Establishments

and Adult Video Stores

Manufacturing: Premises available Restricted manufacturing: Manufacturing Restricted manufacturing: Manufacturing uses Restricted manufacturing: Manufacturing Limited manufacturing: The area available forfor the creation, assemblage, and uses are forbidden. are forbidden. uses are forbidden. manufacturing use is limited to the building.repair of items including their retail The parking requirement shall be negotiatedsale except when such activity creates according to the specific manufacturing activity.adverse impacts Permitted uses: Light Manufacturing

Uses (no outdoor storage permitted)

Civic: Premises available for not-for- Open civic: civic uses shall be permitted, Open civic: Civic uses shall be permitted, except Open civic: civic uses shall be permitted, Open civic: Civic uses shall be permitted, exceptprofit organizations dedicated to except those uses that exceed 25 000 square those uses that exceed 25 000 square feet except those uses that exceed 25 000 square feet those uses that exceed 25 000 square feet shallreligion, arts and culture, education, feet shall be subject to the issuance shall be subject to the issuance of a shall be subject to the issuance be subject to the issuance of a Conditional Use government, social service, transit, of a Conditional Use Permit. Conditional Use Permit. of a Conditional Use Permit. Permit.and other similar functions


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Haynie-Sirrine Neighborhood Zoning Overlay Code

APARTMENT BUILDING

Lot Requirements Architectural Requirements

Description: A multiple unit building with apartments vertically arranged and with parking located below or behind the building. Units may be for rental or for sale on condominium ownership or may be designed as continuing care facilities. The ground floor may be available for commercial uses.

General Requirements

1. Usable porches and stoops should form a predominatemotif of the building design and be located on the frontand/or side of the building. Usable front porches are at leastsix feet deep and extend more than 50 percent of the façade.

2. Garage doors are not permitted on the front elevation ofany apartment building.

3. Fences or walls shall be no greater than eight feet in heightbehind the front building line. Fences shall be no greaterthan four feet in height and walls no greater than three feetin height in the front yard setback.

4. All building elevations visible from the street shall providedoors, porches, balconies, and/or windows. A minimum of60 percent of front elevations, and a minimum of 30 percentof side and rear building elevations, as applicable, shall meetthis standard. “Percent of elevation” is measured as the hori-zontal plane (lineal feet) containing doors, porches, balconies,terraces and/or windows. This standard applies to each fulland partial building store.

5. All front entrances shall be raised from the finished grade(at the building line) a minimum of 11/2 feet.

6. All multifamily and infill buildings shall provide detaileddesign along all elevations. Detailed design shall be pro-vided by using at least three (3) of the following architec-tural features on all elevations as appropriate for theproposed building type and style (may vary features onrear/side/front elevations):a) Dormersb) Gablesc) Recessed or covered porch entriesd) Cupolas or towerse) Pillars of postsf ) Eaves (minimum six-inch projection)g) Off-sets in building face or roof (minimum 16 inches)

window trim (minimum four-inches wide)h) Bay windowsi) Balconiesj) Decorative patterns on exterior finish (e.g. scales/shin-

gles, wainscoting, ornamentation and similar features)k) Decorative cornices and roof lines (for flat roofs)

Materials

4. Residential building walls shall be wood clapboard,wood shingle, wood drop siding, primed board,wood board and batten, brick, stone, stucco,approved vinyl, or similar material. Accessorybuildings with a floor area greater than 150 squarefeet shall be clad in materials similar in appearanceto the principal structure.

5. Garden walls may be of brick, stone or stucco match-ing the principal building. Front yard fences shall bewood picket or wrought iron only. Side and rear yardfences may be chain link, wood, wrought iron, orsimilar material. All side and rear yard fences overfour feet in height shall be wood or similar material.

6. Residential roofs shall be clad in wood or asphalt shin-gles, clay tile, or standing seam metal (copper, zinc, orterne) or material similar in appearance and durability.

Configurations

1. Main roofs on residential buildings shall be symmet-rical gables or hips with a pitch between 4 : 12 and12 : 12. Monopitch (shed) roofs are allowed only ifthey are attached to the wall of the main building.No monopitch roof shall be less than 4 : 12.

2. Two wall materials may be combined horizontally onone façade. The heavier material should be below.

3. Exterior chimneys shall be finished in brick or othermaterial approved by the Planning Department.

4. The crawlspace of buildings shall be enclosed.

Techniques

4. Overhanging eaves may expose rafters.5. Flush eaves shall be finished by profiled molding

or gutters.6. All rooftop equipment shall be enclosed in build-

ing material that matches the structure or is visu-ally compatible with the structure.

Side setback= 0 ft.

15ft

10ft

5 ft

Center Line of Alley

Max.Ht.3 Stories

Setbacks:Front (Maximum): 10 feetSides: 0 feet (Corner-4 feet)Rear: 15 feet from centreline of alleyParking and Vehicular Access: Primary vehicular access is provided using a rear lane or alley only. Off-street parking should be located in the rear yard only. No curb cuts or driveways are permitted along the frontage.Building Lot Coverage (Maximum): 50 percent

Maximum Height: 3 Stories (4 Stories in NC)

Accessory Structures:Side/Rear Setback: 0 feetMaximum Footprint: 650 square feet

Encroachments: Balconies, stoops, stairs, chimneys, open porches, baywindows, and raised doorways are permitted to encroach into thefront setback. Upper story balconies may encroach into the right-of-way up to five feet with permission from the City.

Multifamily Building Eightplex Multifamily Building Multifamily Building


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241

SHOPFRONT BUILDING

Lot Requirements Architectural Requirements

Description: A small-scale structure which can accommodate a variety of uses. A group of shopfront buildings can be combined toform a mixed-use neighborhood center: Individual shopfront buildings can be used to provide some commercial service, such as aneighborhood store, in close proximity to homes. Office buildings, hotels and inns can be placed in shopfront buildings.

General Requirements1. At least 70 percent of the width of street level

frontages shall be in windows or doorways. Streetlevel windows shall be visually permeable. Mirrorizedglass is not permitted in any location. Faux or displaycasements are not permitted in lieu of exterior win-dow treatments for the frontage elevation.

2. No frontage wall shall remain unpierced by a windowor functional general access doorway for more than16 feet.

3. The principal, functional doorway for public ordirect-entry access into a building shall be from thefronting street. Corner entrances shall be provided oncorner lot buildings.

4. Decorative cornices shall be provided for buildingswith a flat roof. Alternatively, eaves shall be providedwith a pitched roof.

5. A building canopy, awning, or similar weather pro-tection may be provided and should project 3–5 feetfrom the façade.

Materials

1. Commercial building walls shall be brick, stucco,stone, marble, or other materials similar in appear-ance and durability. Regular or decorative concreteblock may be used on building walls not visible froma public street or as an accent material only. All acces-sory buildings shall be clad in materials similar inappearance to the principal structure.

2. Pitched roofs shall be clad in wood or asphaltshingles, clay tile, or standing seam metal (copper,zinc, or terne) or materials similar in appearance anddurability.

3. Signs on the inside of glazed openings may be neon.

Configurations

1. All visibly exposed façades shall have a recognizablebase course, which shall align with the sill level of thefirst storey consisting of, but not limited to: thickerwalls, ledges, or sills; integrally textured materialssuch as stone or other masonry; integrally coloredand patterned materials such as smooth finishedstone or tile; lighter or darker colored materials, mul-lions, or panels; and/or planters.

2. All visibly exposed façades shall have a recognizabletop consisting of, but not limited to: cornice treat-ments, other than just colored stripes or bands, withintegrally textured materials such as stone or othermasonry or differently colored materials; sloping roofwith overhands and brackets; stepped parapets;and/or a cornice which shall terminate or cap the topof a building wall.

3. Two wall materials may be combined horizontally onone façade. The heavier material shall be below.

4. Sky-lights shall be flat (non-bubble).

Techniques

7. Stucco shall be float finish.8. Windows shall be set to the inside of the building

face wall.9. All rooftop equipment shall be enclosed in building

material that matches the structure or is visually com-patible with the structure.

Max. Ht.4 Stories

Side setback= 0 ft.

Min. FrontageBuildout = 70%Front setback

= 0 ft.

Min. FrontageBuildout = 70%

Min. FrontageBuildout = 70%

Min. Ht.26 ft

32 ft. min.

3 ft.

20ft.

Minimum Height: 26 feetMaximum Height: four stories

Setbacks:Front (Maximum): 0 feetSides: 0 feetRear: 20 feet

Frontage Buildout (Min.): 70 percent

Parking and Vehicular Access: Primary vehicular access is providedusing a rear lane or alley only. Off-street parking shall be located inthe rear yard only. No curb cuts or driveways are permitted alongthe frontage.

Encroachments: Upper story balconies may encroach into the right-of-day up to three feet with permission from the city.

Accessory Structures:Side/Rear Setback: 0 feet

Mixed Use Mixed Use Mixed Use Mixed Use Mixed Use Gorary Store


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STREET TYPES AND STANDARDS Boulevard Avenue Main Street Residential Main Street

The Boulevard serves as a long-distance, medium-speed The Avenue is a short-distance, medium-speed The Main Street serves as a small-scale, low-speed The Residential Main Street serves as a small-scale,vehicular corridor that traverses an urbanized connector which transverses an urbanized connector. Main Streets provide frontage for low-speed connector. Residential main streets area. It is usually lined by wide sidewalks or area. It is unlike a Boulevard, in that its axis is high-density buildings such as offices, shops, provide frontage for high-density residential buildingsside medians planted with trees. Center medians terminated by a civic building or monument. apartment buildings, urban mansions, and rowhouses. such as apartment buildings and rowhouses. may be continuously planted or have trees in The Avenue is typified by carefully landscaped A Main Street is urban in character, with raised curbs, A Residential Main Street is urban in character,individual planting areas. Buildings edges including three or more individual rows of street closed drainage, wide sidewalks, parallel parking, with raised curbs, closed drainage, wide sidewalks,uniformly line the edges. trees within the Right-of-Way. trees in individual planting areas, and buildings parallel parking, trees in individual planting areas,

aligned on short setbacks. and buildings aligned on short setbacks.

Designated Thoroughfares: Designated Thoroughfares:Church Street Haynie Street (in NC)University Ridge Pearl Avenue (in NC)

12 ft 12 ft 12 ft 12 ft

24 ft 24 ft 6 ft20 ft16 ft20 ft 20 ft 20 ft

8 ft 8 ft12 ft 12 ft

16 ft 16 ft12 ft 12 ft8 ft 8 ft

16 ft 16 ft40 ft

8 ft 8 ft 8 ft 8 ft10 ft 10 ft 8 ft 8 ft

16 ft 16 ft36 ft


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PARKINGSTANDARDS

GENERAL PRINCIPLES

1. Parking lots should not dominate the frontage of pedestrian-oriented streets, interrupt pedestrian routes, or negatively impactsurrounding neighborhoods. Lots should be located behind build-ings or in the interior of a block whenever possible.

2. Parking areas shall not abut pedestrian-oriented street intersec-tions or civic buildings, be adjacent to squares or parks, oroccupy lots which terminate a vista.

3. No off-street parking area shall be located within any front yardexcept for single-family residential uses. All off-street parkingspaces for multifamily buildings shall be in the rear yard only.

4. Parking lots shall not occupy more than 1/3 of the frontage ofthe adjacent building or no more than 75 feet, whichever is less.

5. All parking areas visible from the right-of-way shall be screenedfrom view. Parking structures shall be wrapped by buildingsalong the primary façade.

6. Off-street parking areas shall be designed to facilitate adequatemovement and access by sanitation, emergency, and other publicservice vehicles without posing a danger to pedestrians orimpeding the function of the parking area.

7. Off-street parking areas shall be designed so that parked vehiclesdo not encroach upon or extend onto public rights-of-way, side-walks, or strike against or damage any wall, vegetation, utility, orother structure.

8. Large surface parking lots should be visually and functionallysegmented into several smaller lots. Alternative parking areadesigns incorporating planting island and trees shall create sepa-rate and distinct outdoor rooms for no more than 36 cars perroom. The size of any single surface parking lot shall be limitedto three acres, unless divided by a street or building.

9. All parking areas shall be curved using a standard curb with aminimum width of one feet six inches. Landscape islands shallbe similarly curved.

AISLE AND DRIVEWAY WIDTHS

1. Parking area aisle widths shall conform to the following table, which varies thewidth requirement according to the angle of parking.

Angle of Parking

Aisle Width 0 30 45 60 90

One Way Traffic 13 13 13 18 20

Two Way Traffic 19 19 20 22 24

2. Driveways shall be a maximum of 12 feet in width for one-way traffic and 24 feetin width for two-way traffic. In no case shall a driveway width exceed 24 feet,except as required by the City of Greenville.

PARKING SPACE DIMENSIONS

1. Parking space dimensions (other than those designed forthe disabled) shall be a minimum of (twenty) feet longand (nine) feet wide. Parking spaces shall be dimen-sioned in relation to curbs or aisles, so long as their con-figuration, area, and dimensions satisfy therequirements of this Section.

2. Parallel parking space dimensions or disabled parkingshall be a minimum of twenty feet by (eight) feet.

MINIMUM PARKING RATIOS

All square footage is in leasable square feet. Uses less than2500 leasable square feet are exempt from parking require-ments. Parking requirements may be satisfied using on-street parking in front of buildings or public lots with 300feet of primary building entrances.

SHARED PARKING STANDARDS

1. The joint use of shared off-street parking between twouses may be made by contract between two or moreadjacent property owners. Adjacent lots shall be inter-connected where practical.

2. Developments that operate at different times mayjointly use or share the same parking spaces with a max-imum of one-half of the parking spaces credited to bothuses, if one use is a church, theater, assembly hall orother use whose peak hours of attendance will be atnight or on Sundays, and the other use or uses are onesthat will be closed at night or on Sundays or upon thenormal hours of operation.

Single family Home 2 spaces

Multi-family Home 1 per bedroom (up to 2 required)

Commercial Uses 1 per 250 sq ft

Restaurants 1 per 4 seats

Light Industrial 0.25 per 1000 sq ft or non-office space

Bed and Breakfast Inns and Hotels 1 per bedroom

Civic Uses No minimum

Alley

Dampster

Adjacent Parking Lots

Interconnected

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Public Street


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Historic Carpenter in Cary, NC

2.4.4 RURAL NEIGHBORHOODCENTERS

The CORE Planning and Design WorkshopReport identified a site for a Rural NeighborhoodCenter in the historic Carpenter Community.

A Rural Neighborhood Center is equivalent insize to the Convenience Center noted earlier,but scattered in buildings generally not exceeding 6000 square feet in footprint areaaround a central public space such as a prominent intersection or open space.

The following recommendations are specific to theexisting Carpenter Historic District, but provide ageneral template for dealing with other small scalerural centers that may be developed in the future.

1. New buildings should beconsistent with the exist-ing historic characterand built fabric.

2. New commercial ormixed-use developmentshould be in detachedbuildings at a scale com-patible with existingdevelopment and historicprecedents, generally notexceeding the 6000square feet limit previ-ously noted. They shouldbe residential in scale andcharacter, for example,by using pitched roofsand front porches. Newbuildings generallyshould not exceed twostoreys.

3. A significant publicopen space, like, forexample, a village green,should be constructedwithin the area createdby existing and newbuildings. The spaceshould be large enoughto accommodate civicfestivities and eventssuch as a farmers’ mar-ket. For these purposes,the green should notexceed one acre in size,and have an informalaesthetic in plan andplanting design.

4. To reinforce the impor-tance of such a specialrural place, a new publicbuilding, like a library,

museum or communitycenter should be sited onor immediately adjacentto the green, and in har-mony with the existinghistoric buildings andother new construction.A transit stop for futurelocal bus transit shouldalso be located adjacentto the new green.

5. To ensure the continuedrelevance and public useof this historic ruralcrossroads, the greenshould be connectedinto the proposedgreenway system for thearea. New medium-density housing,between 2–6 units peracre, should be con-structed between thehistoric center and theadjacent CarpenterVillage development.The streets in this newhousing developmentshould be connectedinto Carpenter Villageand to the historic ruralcrossroads area. Therural character of thecrossroads should bepreserved by shieldingthis new housing fromthe viewshed alongMorrisville-CarpenterRoad. This can be doneby means of careful siteplanning to locate newhousing behind existingtree lines and ridge lines.

Guidelines


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5.1 SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENTPRACTICES

Preservation and renewal of historic buildings,districts, and landscapes affirm the continuityand evolution of civic life. All buildings shouldprovide their inhabitants with a clear sense oflocation, weather, and time. Natural methods of heating and cooling can be more resource efficient than mechanical systems.

Guidelines

1. Building designers shouldprovide the anticipatedrating of proposed build-ings according to eitherthe current US GreenBuilding Council'sLEED standard or thecurrent Triangle JCouncil of Governments’High PerformanceGuidelines standard.

These standards coverresource efficiency andenvironmental impacts,including many of thesite-related itemsaddressed in this docu-ment. The anticipatedrating should include adescription of the specificanticipated points achiev-able. The TJCOG HighPerformance Guidelinescan be viewed at: http://www. tjcog.dst.nc.us/hpgtrpf.htm.

The LEED standard isavailable at: http://www.usgbc.org.

2. The adaptive reuse of thevaluable historic buildingstock is an effective sus-tainable practice and isencouraged.

3. Existing vegetation andlarge specimen treesshould be preserved andincorporated into the sitedesign in order to create anatural landscape andthat give the impressionof a mature landscape.

4. Consider utilizing droughttolerant plants and otherxeriscape techniques.These include: amendingthe soil, mulching, group-ing plants by water need,and utilizing water-efficient irrigationequipment and schedules.

Use of TJCOG’s High Performance Standards canresult in efficient, cost-effective, durable, andenvironmentally sound buildings and landscapes

The adaptive reuse of historic structures conservesresources and maintains the character of the community



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5.2 BUILDING PLACEMENT

A primary task of all urban architecture andlandscape design is the physical definition ofstreets and public spaces as places of shareduse. Streets lined by buildings rather thanparking lots are more interesting to movealong, especially for pedestrians, and providea safer environment.

Buildings Opening to Street

Parking Lots to Rear of Building

Guidelines

1. Locate buildings close tothe pedestrian street (within25 feet of the curb), withoff-street parking behindand/or beside buildings.

2. Outside of Mixed-useActivity Centers, build-ings on infill lots shouldgenerally be setback a dis-tance equal to an averageof all buildings within300 feet on the same sideof the street.

3. If the building is located ata street intersection, placethe main building, or partof the building, at the cor-ner. Parking, loading orservice areas should not belocated at an intersection.

4. To maximize the streetfrontage of buildings andminimize the street

frontage of parking lots,buildings should be artic-ulated so that the longside fronts the street.

5. Pedestrian circulationshould be an integral partof the initial site layout.Organize the site so that thebuildings frame and rein-force pedestrian circulation,and so that the pedestrianswalk along building frontsrather than along or acrossparking lots and driveways.Also arrange buildings tocreate view corridorsbetween pedestrian destina-tions within and adjacentto the site including build-ing entrances, transit stops,urban open space, andnearby public amenitiesincluding parks andgreenways.

Locate buildings on the corner to createpedestrian interest and reduce the visualimpact of parking

Locate residential buildings close to thesidewalk to create pedestrian interestalong the frontage and maximize thefunctional use of the rear yard


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5.3 STREET LEVEL ACTIVITY

The sidewalks remain the principal place ofpedestrian movement and casual social interac-tion. Designs and uses should be complementaryto that function.

Guidelines

1. The ground floors ofbuildings in Mixed-useActivity Centers shouldbe encouraged to containpublic or semipublic usessuch as retail or entertain-ment uses with directentry from the street. Inresidential areas, thepredominate architecturalfeature of the homeshould be porches andstoops. These featuresencourage pedestrianactivity by providing anattractive destination andan interesting journey.

2. Retail activities withinbuildings should be ori-ented toward the streetand have direct accessfrom sidewalks throughstorefront entries.

3. Buildings should have atleast one primaryentrance facing apedestrian-orientedstreet. Alternatively, aprimary entrance may bedirectly accessed by asidewalk or plaza within

20 feet of the entrance(except single familydetached homes).

4. Street level windowsshould be transparent topermit views to the inte-rior and to provide exte-rior security through“eyes on the street.”

5. Open-air pedestrian pas-sageways (with or withoutoverhead cover) are gener-ally more visible andmore inviting than inte-rior hallways. This can bean attractive, successfullocation for store entries,window displays, and/orrestaurant/café seating.

6. Take the “indoors” out-doors by spilling interiorspace (e.g. dining areas,small merchandise dis-plays) onto walkwaysand plazas and bring the“outdoors” into thebuilding by openinginterior spaces (e.g.atriums) to views andsunshine.

Porches and stoops create a semi-public outdoor spacethat encourages pedestrian activity

Sidewalks should encourage casual social interaction

Small sidewalk displays help bring the indoors outsideand add pedestrian interest


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2.0 INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW OFMIXED-USE CENTERS

The Mixed-use Center encourages the development ofcompact, urban buildings that compliment the surround-ing neighborhoods and are supported by existing andplanned transportation networks constructed to supportthe traffic demands of both the auto and the pedestrian.Mixed-use Centers should be designed around a square,plaza, or other urban open space that can serve as a focalpoint for community activities.

Mixed-use Centers are historically formed near theconvergence of large, coherent neighborhoods and nearthe intersection of major City streets.

This runs counter to the current Comprehensive Planwhere most Focus Areas are designated at the intersectionof thoroughfares. Unless a substantial investment is madeto redesign these roads to permit the pedestrian trafficthat Mixed-use Centers generate, the location of the Coreshould be moved to the mid-block away from the inter-section. This slight shift in the Focus Areas will permit theMixed-use Centers to function as true pedestrian-friendlyenvironments as well as maintain the efficiency of theintersections.

The Mixed-use Center is typically defined by three organ-izing elements: the Core, a Transition, and the Edge.

The Core of a Mixed-use Center is finite in size, typicallyradiating 1/8 to 1/4 mile (or a five-minute walk for theaverage adult) from the “Main-Main” intersection or aprimary focal point such as a significant urban open space(e.g. Moore Square Park). The Core consists of the mostintense urban buildings in both massing and use and isthe center of pedestrian activity. Buildings in the Core areoften vertically mixed-use, provid-ing opportunities for housing andoffice uses above ground-levelretail. Like most successful MainStreets across the United States, theretail and restaurant uses should bephysically concentrated in the Coreto provide a critical mass of shop-ping and pedestrian activities thatidentifies it as a destination.Corridors of predominately mixed-use buildings typically form theentryways into the formalizedCore.

The Transition area, due to itsphysical proximity to the Core, isthe ideal location for medium- to


252

A Typical Neighborhood Center

Images of pedestrian-scaled Neighborhood Centers


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high-density (where appropriate) housing. The housing istherefore supported by the Core and vice-versa along afine network of well-connected, pedestrian-scaled streets.In addition, where transit stops are located within theCore, there is a significant user population within walkingdistance. The Transition area, by its name, serves as a tran-sition from the intensity of the Core to its surrounding,supporting neighborhood areas. The size of Transitionarea is largely a function of its walking distance to theCore. For Neighborhood and Village Centers, this dis-tance is typically 1/8 mile and 1/4 mile respectively,though this distance may be increased to 1/2 mile arounda rail transit station.

The Edge is typically not a part of the Mixed-use Center asit is typically comprised of predominately single-familyhousing. While these areas should be seamlessly connectedto the Core by pedestrian-oriented streets, transitions fromthe “neighborhood” to the “center” should be accom-plished through the proper design of the public realm ofthe street (including the use of traffic calming features onexisting streets) as well through appropriate massing, scale,and architectural design of the buildings.

For the purposes of these Guidelines two Mixed-useCenters have been identified: the Neighborhood Centerand the Village Center. While both share basic urbandesign principles, the size (acreage) of the Core area andthe permitted height of buildings is differentiated.

In general, Neighborhood Centers have a maximum dis-tance from the center of the Core area to the Edge of 1/4mile or a five-minute walk for the average adult. The FivePoints and Glenwood South areas are an example of ahistoric Neighborhood Center. Neighborhood Centers aremost often comprised of uses simi-lar to a typical Grocery Store-anchored shopping center, thoughthey front on a pedestrian-friendlygrid of streets rather than a largeparking lot.

Village Centers typically radiate1/2 mile (10-minute walk) fromthe center of the Core to the Edge.Examples of Village Centersinclude Hillsborough Street andCameron Village. An excellentmodel of a new Village Center isBirkdale Village, located inHuntersville, NC.

A Typical Village Center with urban open space as focal element

Images of a new Village Center (Birkdale Village in Huntersville, NC)

Rendering courtesy of Shook



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4.1 GENERAL STREET DESIGN PRINCIPLES

It is the intent of these guidelines to build streets that areintegral components of community design. Streets should bedesigned as the main public spaces of the City and should bescaled to the pedestrian.

The Guidelines encourage the development of a network ofinterconnecting streets that disperse traffic while connectingand integrating neighborhoods with the existing urban fabricof the City. Equally as important, the Guidelines encouragethe development of a network of sidewalks and bicycle laneswithin the rights- of-way that provide an attractive and safemode of travel for cyclists and pedestrians.

Pedestrian-oriented Streets have an activated public realmwith formal landscaping where the building frontages openout to the sidewalk.

These Guidelines are applicable to all streets up to andincluding major thoroughfares, particularly those that enter a Mixed-use Center. Streets that are within a Mixed-use Center should be designed and posted as low-speed(20– 35 mph) connectors. The Recommended Street DesignStandards for these streets are contained in Appendix III.

Guidelines

1. Sidewalks should be 5–8 feet wide andlocated on both sides of the street.Sidewalks in commercial areas should be aminimum of 12–16 feet wide to accommo-date sidewalk uses such as vendors, mer-chandizing, and outdoor seating.

2. Streets should be designed with street treesplanted in a manner appropriate to theirfunction. Commercial streets should havetrees which compliment the face of thebuildings and which shade the sidewalk.Residential streets should provide for anappropriate canopy, which shades both thestreet and sidewalk, and serves as a visualbuffer between the street and the home.The typical width of the street tree land-scape strip is 6–8 feet. This width ensureshealthy street trees, precludes tree rootsfrom heaving the sidewalk, and providesadequate pedestrian buffering. Street treesshould be at least 61/4 inches caliper andshould be consistent with the City land-scaping, lighting and street sight distancerequirements.

3. In Core areas, trees may be planted in treewells with grates over the top to protect theroots. Irrigation should be provided. Unitpavers are preferred over concrete.

4. Planted medians are encouraged on multi-lane roads to provide additional tree canopyand reduce the visual height-to-width ratioof the overall streetscape. They also providefor safe, convenient pedestrian refuges atcrossings.

5. Wherever possible, street locations shouldaccount for difficult topographical condi-tions, by avoiding excessive cuts and fillsand the destruction of significant trees andvegetation outside of street rights-of wayon adjacent lands.

The Basic Elements of a Pedestrian-oriented Street

Key

Elem

ent

Key

Elem

ent

Key

Elem

ent


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Guidelines

6. Closed or gated streets are strongly discouraged.

7. On-street parking provided should be par-allel. Curb or angle parking is permittedonly on low-volume, low-speed streets.

8. Where on-street parking is provided, thelandscape strip should be planted in grassat-grade. This will enable people to walkdirectly from their car to the sidewalk.Shrubs, ground covers, trees and raisedplanters should be located so as not toconflict with opening car doors or pedes-trians’ access to and from on-street parking.

9. Streets should be designed so pedestrianshave convenient and safe means to crossstreets. Allowable treatments may includebut not be limited to roundabouts, raisedpedestrian crosswalks, multi-way stops,“bulb-outs,” alternative pavement treatments, and signals at crosswalks when warranted.

10. Streetscape designs should include a sys-tem of pedestrian wayfinding signs, kiosksand other environmental graphics to sup-ply directions to the pedestrian. Thisshould be done in a unified comprehen-sive manner for Mixed-use Centers.

11. Landscaping and pedestrian features suchas bump outs and tree planters need onlybe placed at the end of the block and at mid-block-crossings. Mid-block crossingsare necessary where the block face is morethan 200 feet.

12. Angle parking is encouraged in commer-cial areas as a way to provide additional,convenient parking spaces for merchantsand restaurants.Guidelines

A Pedestrian-oriented Streetis detailed with interestingstorefronts, landscaping,furniture wide sidewalksand on-street parking

Pedestrianwayfinding signs andother kiosks givepedestriansadvantages over theautomobile

Diagonal parking is more convenient and plentiful per linear foot than parallel parking and is encouraged

in heavy commercial areas


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CHAPTER 7

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CHAPTER 8

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CHAPTER 9

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CHAPTER 10

The Lawrence Group Architects of North CarolinaInc., 2003. Haynie-Sirrine Neighborhood MasterPlan, Greenville, SC, Davidson, N.C.: TheLawrence Group.

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CHAPTER 11

Brown, T.D., and Lewis, C.S. eds., 1996. The Townof Corneliues Land Development Code,Cornelius, NC: Town of Cornelius.

Brown, T.D., 2002. Planning for a Transit-OrientedFuture: The Town of Cornelius LandDevelopment Code and Planning Initiatives,unpublished Masters Thesis, University ofNorth Carolina at Charlotte.

Hylton, T., 2000. Save Our Land: Save Our Towns,Harrisburg, PA: Rb Books and PreservationPennsylvania.

Newsom, M., 1996. ‘A Mecklenburg Miracle: Howregional citizens are having a say on growth,’The Charlotte Observer, June 1, p.14.

AFTERWORD

Katz, B., 2003. ‘The Permanent Campaign,’ UrbanLand, 62, 5. May, 45–52.

Wickersham, J., 2003. ‘EIR and Smart Growth,’Urban Land, 62, 5. May, 24–7.

APPENDICES

Appendix ICongress for the New Urbanism, Leccese, Michael,

and Kathleen McCormick, editors, 1999.Charter of the New Urbanism, New York:McGraw-Hill.

APPENDIX II

Porter, Douglas R. et al., 2000. The Practice ofSustainable Development, Washington, D.C.:Urban Land Institute.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

267


Appendix III

The Lawrence Group Architects of North CarolinaInc., 2003. Haynie-Sirrine Neighborhood MasterPlan, Greenville, SC, Davidson, NC.: TheLawrence Group.

Appendix IV

The Lawrence Group Architects of North CarolinaInc., 2003. Centre of the Region Enterprise:

General Development Guidelines, Davidson,NC.: The Lawrence Group.

Appendix V

The Lawrence Group Architects of North CarolinaInc., 2002. City of Raleigh, NC, Urban DesignGuidelines, Davidson, NC.: The LawrenceGroup.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

268


269

Index

Action Planning, 146Active living by design, 124–125Adaptive reuse, 82Adler, Jerry, 44Advocacy planning, 15Affordable housing (See Housing,

affordable)Alexander, Christopher, 21, 88, 152Almere, Holland, 102Alton West Estate, Roehampton, London

(UK), 8, 8American Regional Planning Association,

57, 152Amsterdam, Holland, 102Anchor tenants, 150Anson, Brian, 152Archigram, 23Architectural Review, 19, 23Arendt, Randall, 62Arup Associates 84Ashburton (UK), 127, 127–128, 133Athens Charter (see Charter of Athens)Atlanta, Georgia (USA), 47, 71, 100, 140,

140Lindberg Center, 49, 126

Atterbury, Grosvenor, 38Austin, Texas (USA), 24–25

Bakema, Jacob, 16Baltimore, Maryland (USA), 123BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing

Anywhere Near Anything), 146Barbican, London, 40, 41Barcelona (Spain), 63, 65, 117, 118 Barnett, Henrietta, 38Barnett, Jonathan, 114Bath, 83Baudelaire, Charles, 90Bauhaus, 8Baxter, Fort Mill, South Carolina (USA),

166Beaux Arts, 11, 63, 87, 145, Plate 52Bedford Park, London, 36Belle Creek, 71Beverly Hills, Los Angeles (USA), 39, 89Bicycle, access/facilities, 68, 90, 99, 124,

144, 160–163, 162, 182, 184, 186,194

Bilbao (Spain), 117Birkdale Village, Huntersville, North

Carolina (USA), 81, 91–93, 101,126–127, 150, 226, 228, 252, 253,Plates 4, 5, 6, and 7

Birmingham, UK, 13, 20, 47, 65, 126,126

Handsworth riots, 9Blair, Tony, 47Block,

demolition of, 14, 54high-rise/tower blocks of flats, 8, 9, 10,

11, 11, 137mid-block crossings, 256mid-block zoning changes, 206modernist, 9perimeter, 65, 82–83, 83, 117, 138,

217structure, 14superblock, 18, 40typology, 232urban, 3, 8, 14, 25, 27, 30, 39–40, 42,

46, 58, 63, 73, 89–90, 93, 101,112–113, 126, 141, 147, 152, 154,163, 169, 182–183, 185, 193, 195,206–208, 210, 219–220, 221, 222,224, 226, 228, 231, 251, 256

Bohl, Charles, 89Boston, Massachusetts (USA), 24–25, 34,

101Boulder, Colorado (USA), 25Bournville, Birmingham (UK), 35Bristol (UK), 65Broadacre City, 11, 41, 152Broadgate, London (UK), 83–84, 84Broadwater Farm, Tottenham, London

(UK), 9Brooklyn, Charlotte, North Carolina

(USA) 14, 14Brown, Capability, 32Brown, Denise Scott, 30Brown, Timothy, 220, 222Browne, Kenneth, 85Buchanan, Sir Colin, 40Buffalo, New York (USA), 45Burton, Decimus, 33Bush, George W., 2Buckeye Institute, 71Byker, Newcastle (UK), 17–19, 17, 19

Cadbury, George, 35–36Café society, 26, 75, 89–92

Calloway Johnson Moore and West, architects, 195

Calthorpe, Peter, 22, 54, 59, 62, 62, 89,128–129

Calthorpe Associates, 100Cambridge (UK), 83Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA), 25Campbell, Mick, 221, 221, 224Canary Wharf, London (UK)

(see Docklands)Cary, North Carolina (USA), 157, 162,

164, 169, 175–176Cascade Policy Institute, 71Celebration, Florida (USA), 115Center of the Region Enterprise (CORE),

North Carolina, 157–172, 195,Plates 14–20

Centers,arts, 107, 107, 183, Plates 24 and 25center-to-edge relationships, 57, 58,

121, 147, 164, 215, 231, 252–253city/town, 13, 14, 16, 20, 30–32, 34,

36, 39, 43, 45–47, 50, 56, 67, 68,89–93, 99, 102, 106, 111, 115, 117,122, 125, 125–130, 140, 141, 142,154, 161, 175, 177, 191, 196,201–202, 219–222, 221, 224–226,225, 228–229, 235

community, 18–19, 62, 78, 98, 246employment, 158–159, 164, 170, 184,

194–195, 226, 228, Plates 10, 34,35 and 36

for architectural and urban excellence, 97

historic, 56, 219, 221, 246, 253lifestyle, 90, 126, Plates 4–7mixed-use, 84, 91, 123, 126, 126–128,

144, 147, 149–151, 159–161,163–165, 170–171, 176–177, 187,194, 196–197, 220–221, 241,247–248, 251–252, Plate 18

Morrisville Neighborhood Center,163–164, 169, Plate 19

multiple, 231neighborhood, 33, 57, 68, 149–151,

159, 163–165, 169, 170–171,176–178, 187, 207–213, 208, 209,213, 215–216, 238, 239, 241, 251,252, 252–253, Plates 19, 42 and 47

of creativity, 24

References to illustrations are shown in italics.

Walters_ind.qxd 3/1/04 5:43 PM Page 269

Centers (Continued)RTP Service Center, 161, 163, 165,

165, Plate 20rural village, 150, 171, 245, Plate 13shopping/strip, 23, 39, 43, 45–49, 66,

70, 82, 89–90, 102, 128, 158–159,164, 181, 194, 201, 253

specialized urban, 177–178, 181suburban, 91, 93, 126, 129, 135,

Plates 4–7transit-oriented (see also Transit-

oriented development, TOD), 150,159, 170, 193, 198, 220, 224, Plates8, 22, 24–26 and 33

Triangle Metro Center, 161, 163, 163,165, 170, Plate 18

typology, 151, 179, 199, 201–202urban, 231–232

urban village, 123, 149, 159,163–164, 170–171, 177–178,181, 183, 195–196, 215–216,228, 238, 239, 252–253, 253,Plates 4–7, 22, and 24–26

Cerda, Ildefonso, 117, 118Chamberlain, Powell and Bon,

architects, 41Chaos theory, 73, 84Chapel Hill, North Carolina (USA), 157,

161Charleston, South Carolina, 54Charlotte, North Carolina, 13–14, 14,

25–26, 25, 30, 45, 48, 49, 56, 68,81, 83, 91, 93, 93, 99, 101, 104,109, 110, 111–112, 112, 116, 117,125

Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS),193, Plate 8

Dilworth, 56, 81, 116, 135, Plate 9First Ward Place, 49, 93Gateway Village, 117, 139–140

Charlotte of Mecklenburg, Queen ofEngland, 191

Charrette(s), 2, 66, 84, 118, 121, 132,142–147,149, 151–152, 154, 157,159, 160, 163, 166, 168, 171–172,176–178, 179, 180–181, 184,186–187, 193, 195, 199, 201–202,205–208, 213–215, 217, 219, 225,227, 229, Plate 12

origin of term, 145press coverage, 205, 207, 207

Charter of Athens, 11, 16, 54Charter of the New Urbanism (see

New Urbanism)Chatwin, John, 126Chicago, Illinois (USA), 24, 34, 34, 36,

45, 112

Citizen groups, 67–68, 99, 109, 146City Beautiful Movement, 63, 87Civilia, 19, 20, 85Clapham, London (UK), 33Clinton, William Jefferson, 2, 99Cluster(s) of compact development, 62,

68, 99, 111, 116Codes (see also Zoning)

building code, 223design-based, 58, 97, 110, 114–116

121, 215–216, 220, 229, 237–243development code, 58, 193, 196–198graphic codes, 21, 60–61, 237–243

(see also Duany and Plater-Zyberk)HAMS code, 114historical examples, 112–115incentives/bonuses, 116model code, 71, 100, 237–243national planning code (USA), 42neighborhood code, 215,open space protection, 116parallel, 30, 115–116regulating code 60–61Seaside code (see Duany and

Plater-Zyberk)TOD codes, 58typological basis, 115–116urban code, 63, 71, 78, 92

Cole, Jenest and Stone, landscape architects, 139, 225, 225

Collins, George and Christianne, 38Commerce City, Colorado (USA), 71Community architecture, 15Community Development Block Grants,

214Community Land Trust(s) (CLT[s]),

214Commuter rail, 34, 56, 59, 123, 161,

164, 168–169, 171, 175–176,180–181, 183, 187 191, 193–194,198, 220–221, 225, 225, 227

Commuter rail suburbs, 33, 34, 56, 59Connectivity, 42, 116, 149, 161–162,

164, 182, 225connectivity index, 145, 162, 162

Congrès Internationaux d’ArchitectureModerne (CIAM), 16–17

Congress of the New Urbanism (CNU),(see New Urbanism)

Conservationof rural land, 53, 66, 102subdivision design 50

Coolidge Corner, Boston, Massachusetts, 34

Cooper Carry, architects 49Cornelius, North Carolina, 115, 192,

219–226, 222, 228, Plates 10, 51–53

Corridor(s),greenway/stream, 158, 163–164, 185,

196, Plate 15highway/street, 89, 125, 129, 176, 179,

181, 183, 203, 209, 220integrated infrastructure, Plate 16regional, 145transit corridors, 59, 111, 129, 151,

160–161, 164, 176, 182, 191, 194,198, 220

typology, 84, 147, 151, 159–161, 170,179, 232

urban mixed-use, 181view, 181

Country Club District, Kansas City,Missouri, 39

Courtyard(s), 83–84,Courthouse Square towns (USA), 77, 78,

78, 82, 84, 112Covent Garden, London (UK), 99, 134Craycroft, Robert, 78Cul-de-sac, 39–42, 113, 116, 161–162Cullen, Gordon, 15, 19, 22–23, 38,

85–88, 88, 228Notation ‘HAMS’ code, 114–115

Dallas, Texas (USA), 45, 123Daniels, Howard, 34Dartmouth (UK), 26, 80Davidson, North Carolina, 58, 61, 62, 93,

115, 166–167, 192, 193, 214, 220,225, Plates 51 and 53

Davis, Alexander Jackson, 34Dawlish (UK) [see Oaklands Park]Dayton, Ohio (USA), 45de Klerk, Michel, 10de Wofle, Ivor 19, 85Dear, Michael, 24Deconstruction, 84Demographic(s), 59, 70, 73, 91, 125Denmark ‘green taxes’ 98;Dennis, Michael, 21Density

comparison of urban areas, 102density bonuses, 116high-density uses, 59, 68, 69, 90, 92,

111, 125–126, 130, 135, 142, 148,158, 161, 163–165, 177, 181, 188,203–204

modenist redevelopment, 13–14of development, 27, 46, 49, 56, 71, 72,

78, 110, 124, 129, 140, 148, 150,158, 165, 168, 177, 181, 183, 193,202–203, 216, 226

population, 2residential, 2, 18, 20, 29, 31, 33, 35,

41, 43, 68–69, 103, 110, 113, 147,

INDEX

270


149–150, 164, 166, 177, 182–183,195–197, 206, 210

Denver, Colorado (USA), 123Design-based codes/zoning (see Codes and

Zoning)Design Fest, 146Design Guide for Residential Areas, 19,

63, 64, 115Design guidelines (see Guidelines)Descartes, René, 82Detroit, Michigan (USA), 45Development control, 3, 21, 97, 109,

111–113, 153, 171Dewey, James, 87Diesel Multiple Units (DMU), 176, 191,

193Dilworth (see Charlotte, NC)Disney Corporation, 115Docklands, London (UK), 21, 106, 107,

146Doorn Manifesto, 16Downing, A.J., 34Duany, Andres, 78, 86, 115Duany, Andres and Elizabeth

Plater-Zyberk (DPZ), 57, 59, 84,129, 147, 225, 225

graphic code use, 21, 37, 58, 78, 115,220

Seaside, Florida, 21, 22, 56, 78, 115, 228Traditional neighborhood development,

54, 56, 58transect, 215

Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia, 17Duda Paine, architects, 117, 139–140Duffy, Frank, 24Duke University, Durham, North

Carolina (USA), 157Durham, North Carolina (USA), 157,

164 169, 175–176Dunbar, Melvin, 115

‘Edge-burbs’, 126Edge Cities, 26Eixample (expansion of Barcelona), 118Empiricism/empiricist, 32, 63, 75, 81Enterprise zones, 21, 106Erskine, Ralph, 17–18, 17, 19Essex, County Council of (UK) 19, 63,

64, 115‘Eyes on the street’ (see Street)

FMK architects, 101, 136–139Family values, 31–32Fayetteville, Arkansas (USA), 1Federal (US) Department of Housing and

Urban Development (HUD), 99,148, 167, 214

Federal G.I. Bill, 42Federal Housing Administration (FHA),

42FHA Minimum Planning Standards, 42FHA Mortgage Insurance, 42

Ferris, Hugh, 40, 114Flaneur, 90–92Floor area ratio (FAR), 177–178Florida, Richard, 24–26, 75Forest Hills Gardens, New York (USA),

38, 57Fountainhead, the, 82, 118Front and back relationships, 80Functionalism, 82Furman, David, 101, 117, 138, 139, 223,

223Furman University, Greenville, South

Carolina (USA), 203

Gainesville, Forida, 25Gans, Herbert, 44Garden City/ies, 11, 15, 35–40, 37, 59,

62, 85, 129, 152Garreau, Joel, 26Gaudi, Antonio, 117, 118Geddes, Patrick, 152, 215General development guidelines

(see Guidelines)George III, of England, 191, 226Glaeser, Edward, 24Global village, 24Gold, John, 9Golders Green, London (UK), 38Goodman, Paul, 65Gracie, Vernon, 17Graphic codes (see Codes)Grayfield sites, 59, 90, 126, 127Green,

greenbelt(s), 29, 36, 101, 106, 127, 129

green building design, 67, 144, 249

greenfield (development of ), 2, 11, 45,50, 50, 62, 89–90, 100, 104, 107,116, 127–129, 191, 228

green public space 8, 13, 40, 42, 63,80, 107, 112, 134–135, 149–50,149, 160, 167, 183, 185, 212–213,Plate 15

green taxes, 98greenway(s), 18–19, 143, 145, 151,

158, 160, 163–164, 182, 184–185,187, 195–197, 202, 207–208, 210,212, 215–216, Plate 27

Greenville, South Carolina, 130, 198,201–217, 228, Plates 38–50

Gropius, Walter, 8, 41

Growth management, 97, 100, 122–123Gruen, Victor, 43Guidelines,

design guidelines, 97, 100, 101, 111,114, 116, 117, 130, 143–145

development guidelines 116, 144, 151,159, 169–171, 245–249

open space guidelines 144urban design guidelines 97, 100, 101,

111, 114, 116, 117, 118, 143, 144,152, 169, 171, 187–188, 251–256

Habitat for Humanity, 214Hall, Sir Peter, 9–11, 106Hammond, Ann, 220Hampstead Garden Suburb 38–39, 39Hanchett, Thomas, 14Haring, Hugo, 10Harvard University, 83Haskell, Llewellyn, 34Haussmann, Georges-Eugene, 117Haynie-Sirrine Neighborhood:

Greeneville, South Carolina (USA),201–217, Plates 38–50

Heartland Institute, 71Hegemann, Werner and Albert Peets, 38,

63Heritage Foundation, 71Hilbersheimer, Ludwig, 8, 11–12, 41Hirschhorn, Joel, 122–123History, 1, 4, 8, 70, 72, 76, 83, 102,

117of architecture and urbanism, 3, 8–11,

22, 29–31, 37, 41, 43, 48, 53, 55,65, 72, 89, 102, 112, 114, 117, 121,134

of ordinances, 97, 103, 114role, value, uses of, 3, 7–8, 10, 12, 30,

55, 83, 117, 154, 193, 227historic

historic buildings, 16, 67, 100–101,101, 104–105, 131, 145, 178

historic context, 3, 207historic landmarks, 205historic precedent, 33, 53, 56, 72,

82, 84–85, 114–115historic preservation, 100historic styles/details, 8historic urban fabric, 1, 13, 56, 67,

79, 84–85, 89, 114, 127–128,132, 164, 191, 194, 201, 206,219, 221–222, 225–226

historicism, 22, 62, 83, 93, 117, 136, 223

Hitchcock, Alfred, (Rear Window) 83HOK architects, 106

INDEX

271


Holly Springs, Mississippi, 77Holyoak, Joe, 13HOPE VI 49, 92, 99, 101, 228Housing, 201–208, 212–216, 222, 224

affordable, 35, 37, 42, 43, 50, 62, 67, 72,92–93, 99, 101, 107, 123, 130, 137,148, 148, 158–159, 167, 192, 195,197, 201–205, 204, 207, 211–216,222, 224, 228–229, 232, 235

apartment zoning, 60–61conventional, 69costs, 46, 62, 123choices, 46, 75decline, 43demolished, 9, 14densities, 18, 41, 90, 111, 123,

125–126, 135, 147, 150diversity, 100, 149downtown, 135enclave, 42high-rise, 8, 10–11, 22housing – jobs balance, 69, 72, 124industry, 42infill, 138in mixed-use, 38, 39, 91, 149, 150luxury, 92, 137modernist, 8–10, 11, 13–14, 17–18mid-rise, 30, 83, 117, 137–140market-rate, 20, 86, 92, 148, 222neo-vernacular, 19, 86new, 19, 23, 46, 62, 69, 70, 111on open sites, 102, 104picturesque, 35, 36, 39, 64, 86policy, 71, 99postwar, 63property taxes, 98public housing, 19, 54, 99single-family, 44, 124slums, 104standardization, 42traditional American, 204types, 41, 59, 92, 147urban, 138Usonian, 41workforce, 32, 38–39, 148working class, 12, 113, 113

Houston, Texas (USA), 102Hovens-Greve, Hans, 16Howard, Ebenezer, 11, 36–38, 37, 59, 62,

129, 152HUD (see Federal [US]Department of

Housing and Urban Development)Hudnutt, William, J., 75Human capital theory, 24Huntersville, North Carolina, 81, 91–92,

115, 126, 150, 150, 192, 220,225–226, 228, Plates 4–7, 51 and 53

Ideal city, 82, Plate 3Impact fees, 46Industrial Revolution, 29, 31–32, 34Industrial village(s), 5, 35–36International Style, 8, 11Internet, 22, 24–25Iredell County, North Carolina, 99, 191,

192, 193Isle of Dogs, London (see Docklands)ISTEA (Intermodal Surface Transportation

Enhancement Act), 99, 214Izenour, Steven, 30, 54

Jacobs, Jane, 9, 12, 15, 23, 66, 202James, William, 87Jefferson, Thomas, 34Jencks, Charles, 9Jones, Inigo, 134,Jordan, Jones and Goulding, 100

Kaplan McLaughlin Diaz (KMD) architects, 89, 126

Keane, Timothy, 61, 220Kelbaugh, Douglas, 54Kelly, Kevin, 26Kentlands, Washington, D.C. (USA), 59Kiefhoek Housing Estate, Rotterdam, 11Kingsport, Tennessee (USA), 39Kingston-upon-Thames, 141Kirchsteigfeld, Potsdam, Germany, 65, 65Kohn Pederson Fox (KPF) architects, 106Knight, Payne, 32Kotkin, Joel, 24Krier brothers, 65Krier-Kohl, architects, 65Krier, Leon, 21, 56, 59, 62–63, 65Krier, Rob, 63, 65, 85Kropotkin, Peter, 152Kunstler, James Howard, 44, 48

Lancaster, Sir Osbert, 48Land use, 1, 13, 18, 30, 33, 46–47, 58,

67–70, 99, 101, 109–110, 113, 143,147, 158–159, 178, 187–188, 191,192, 210, 220–221

La Sarraz (Switzerland), 16Laissez-faire theorists, 71Las Vegas, 30, 53–54,Lawrence Group, architects and planners,

3, 50, 71, 151, 154, 225, Plates 10–50 and 53

Le Corbusier, 8–13, 8, 10–11, 13, 15–17,40–41, 54

Charter of Athens, 16‘death of the street,’ 4rejection of Camillo Sitte, 15towers in the park, 10, 11

LEED (Leadership in Environmental andEnergy Design), 145, 249

L’Enfant, Pierre, 87Leonardo, da Vinci, 40Letchworth Garden City, 36–39, 37, 63Lever, William H., 35, 35–36Levittown (USA), 42, 44Lewis, Craig, 220, 222Libertarian, 71Libeskind, Daniel, 107Lifestyle centers, 90Light rail, 25, 30, 34, 59, 93, 111, 123,

140, 142, 151, 161, 176Live-work unit(s), 32, 164, 212, 221, 222,

223, 223, Plate 47Liverpool (UK), 33–34

Toxteth riots, 9Llewellyn Park, New Jersey (USA), 34Locke, John, 85London (UK), 13, 31, 36, 38, 40, 41, 45,

47, 63, 83, 84, 90, 105, 129, 132,137, 138, 140, 139, 140, 141

Barbican, 40, 41Brixton riots, 9Broadwater farm riots, 9first modern suburbs, 7, 31–33density, 102Merton, Borough of, 18modernist housing, 8–9, 8London County Council Architects’

Department, 8London Docklands, 21, 106, 107, 146London Docklands Development

Corporation (LDDC), 106–107Greater London Council, 20, 47public squares, 134–135, 134underground, 38, 107

Los Angeles (USA), 102, 123Lorraine, Claude, 33Lowell, Massachusetts (USA), 35Lowes Corporation, 191, 195, 195, 198Lowry Centre, Salford Quays, Manchester,

(UK), 107LS3P Architects, 83, 102, 138, 224, 224Lucas, Robert, 24Lutyens, Sir Edwin, 38Lynch, Kevin, 66

MacCormac, Richard, 18McDougall, Ian, 27, 117McHarg, Ian, 30McLuhan, Marshall, 24Market analysis, 180, 185

analysts 159, 179Manchester (UK), 33, 65, 107, 107

Moss Side riots, 109Manhattan, New York (USA), 24

INDEX

272


Mariemont, Cincinnati, Ohio (USA), 39Martin, Camille, 38Masterplans (see Plans)Matthews, North Carolina (USA), 102Mecklenburg County, 99, 191–193,

220–221, 192, Plate 51Merton, Borough of, Architects’

Department, London (UK), 18Mervyn Seal and Associates, 19Metropolitan Planning Organizations

(MPOs), 99Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSAs), 220Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 8, 10, 63Milton Keynes (UK), 129Minimum Planning Standards (FHA)

USA, 42Minneapolis – St. Paul, Minnesota (USA),

100–101, 123Mint Hill, North Carolina, Plate 11Mississippi, state of, 75Mississippi State University (MSU), 78Mixed-use

buildings, 39, 57, 117, 165, 183–185,193–195, 208, 208, 210, 223, 252,Plate 9

development, 49, 63, 70, 92, 107, 126,126, 141, 149, 150, 164, 168, 179,185, 203, 206–208, 210, 212, 216,224, Plate 9

centers, 44, 84, 91, 123, 127–128, 144,147, 149–151, 159–161, 163, 163,165, 170–171, 176–177, 183, 187,194, 196–197, 220, 251, 254–255,Plates 4–7, 18, 19, 22, 24–26

coding, 241, 245, 247–248, 251–252,254–255

corridor, 181, Plate 23districts, 126, 134infill, 142, 147neighborhoods, 16, 22, 27, 56, 57, 59,

68, 111, 216, 232urban village, 69, 124, 130, 181, 183,

186, 192–193, Plates 4–7, 22,24–26, 33

Modelas opposed to type, 83, 85codes, 71, 100, 114–115, 171developments, 10, 12, 16, 23, 33–34,

38, 40, 54, 59, 82, 90, 92, 101,117–118, 121, 123–124, 129, 133,135, 144–145, 158–159, 170, 187,194, 194, 198, 204, 216

industrial village, 35, 35–36, 68Modernism/modernist, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10–13,

11, 15, 17–20, 20, 23, 29, 37, 41,53–55, 55, 58, 63, 66, 82, 87, 89,112, 114, 117

anti-modernist reactions, 7, 16, 19death of, 9

Modernity, 22, 91Mooresville, North Carolina (USA), 99,

188, 191–199Morris, William, 35Morrisville, North Carolina (USA), 157,

159, 161, 163–164, 169, Plate 19Mount Mourne, North Carolina (USA),

191, 192, 193–194, 197–199, 220,226

Mountain View, California (USA), 62Movement for the Reconstruction of the

European City, 56Mumford, Lewis, 15, 57

Nairn, Ian, 23Namour Wright architects, 93Nash, John, 33National Resources Defense Council

(NRDC), 66, 196Neighborhood Center (NC), 215Neighborhood Edge (NE), 215Neighborhood General (NG), 215Neighborhood unit, 57Neo-rationalists (Italian), 21Neo-traditional development (see

Traditional NeighborhoodDevelopment, TND)

Neo-vernacular (see Vernacular)Neshoba County, Mississippi (USA), 75Neshoba County Fair, 63, 75–78, 77, 78,

82, Plates 1 and 2Netherlands, the, 102Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK, 11, 17, 17,

18, 19, 55, 229New Deal (USA), 99New Earswick (UK), 35, 35–36, 68New Jersey (USA), 46New Lanark (UK), 35Newsom, Mary, 127New Towns,

in America, 18, 22, 39, 99, 115in Britain, 13, 15, 19, 22, 36, 63,

68, 102New Urbanism, 3, 21, 22, 22, 26, 29, 37,

50, 53–54, 56, 62, 62–63, 65, 65,68, 70–73, 78, 89, 92, 117,125–126, 129, 134, 141, 226,228–229

Charter of the New Urbanism, 3, 54,59, 89, 154, 231–233

Congress of the New Urbanism, 54, 59,126, 231

New York (USA), 9, 102New York City Regional Plan, 40NIMBY (Not in My Backyard), 124, 146

Nixon, Richard, 100Nolen, John, 39, 112–113, 112, 197Non-place urban realm, 23, 54North Carolina State University (Raleigh,

NC, USA), 151, 157, 164, 175,178–179, 181, 184, 186

Nostalgia, 13, 22, 65, 72, 84, 226

Oaklands Park, Dawlish (UK), 19, 85, 86Oldenburg, Ray, 25, 36Olmsted, Frederick Law, 34, 34, 36, 112Olmsted, Frederick Law, and Calvert

Vaux, 40Olmsted, Frederick Law, Jr., 38–39Olympia and York Corporation, 106Open space, 8, 36, 40–41, 59, 89, 102,

116, 123, 134, 144, 152, 160, 167,184–185, 187, 193, 196–197, 245,248, 251, 253, Plates 28–30, 45–46

loss of, 2, 29, 45, 48, 125, 147preservation/protection of, 50, 62, 67,

70, 100, 116, 123, 127–128, 149,170, 185, 187, 193, 197, 226, 235

tenet of modernism, 8, 8, 10, 12, 16,17, 114

types/typology, 143, 149–150, 149,167, 215–216

Oud, J.J.P., 11Oxford (UK), 21, 21Oxford, Mississippi (USA), 77Ozark Mountains, Arkansas (USA), 1

Palace Fields, Runcorn (UK), 19Parallel codes, 116Paris (France), 63, 90, 114, 117, 145Parker, Barry, 40Parker, Barry and Unwin, Raymond, 13,

35–39, 35, 37, 39, 63, 68, 85Parking, 3, 9, 14, 20, 57, 76, 80, 115,

134, 136, 141, 144, 150, 164–167, 178, 180, 182–187,194–195, 198, 205, 207–208, 210,212–213, 216

areas/ratios/standards, 18, 141,177–178, 185, 239, 243

coding for, 59, 239, 240–242, 255costs, 142, 213deck(s), 45, 142, 142, 150, 183,

185–186, 193, 207–208, 208, 210,212–213, Plate 48

lot(s), 27, 30, 30, 48, 80, 102, 114,141, 141, 158, 167, 184–185, 193,197, 201, 203, 206, 210, 222, 248,253, Plate 4significance of, 54

on-street, 116, 134, 141, 150, 167,185, 194, 212, 242, 255

INDEX

273


Parking (Continued)angled, 223–224, 255–256, 256, Plate 5plaza, 221, 222screening of, 167, 167, 194, 217, 248,

Plates 47 and 48Parris, Alexander, 101Pasadena, California (USA), 126Pedestrian(s)

access (coding), 60activity/experience, 38, 45, 80, 81, 85,

91, 126, 139, 141, 147, 149, 158,207, 209

cone of vision, 80connections, paths, 18–19, 40, 162,

162, 182, 184, 194, 202, 215environment/space, 22, 30, 40, 44, 61,

63, 80, 81, 89, 90, 92, 101, 102,116, 132, 133, 150, 168, 178, 184,203, 209, 222

planning for, 41, 58, 99, 151, 160–163,162, 179

rare sight in American suburbs, 42safety, 116, 135, 161, 166, 186, 202,

209separation from vehicles, 9, 40, 40, 41,

141, 180–181, 183street, 41, 56, 58, 59, 63, 89, 116, 117,

124–125, 134–136, 135, 139, 141,141, 144, 149, 150, 151, 161–162,182, 186, 193, 209, 212, 223

scale, 17, 17, 21, 39, 63, 80, 80, 81,102, 132, 166, 182–183, 185, 193

skywalks, 45Pedestrian Pockets, 22, 58, 62, 128Pelli, Cesar, 106Perimeter block (see Block)Perry, Clarence, 42, 57, 57, 84, 147Perugia, Italy, 87Phoenix, Arizona (USA), 123Philadelphia, Mississippi, 77, 78, 78Picturesque, 35

landscape garden, 32, 38, 85townscape, 65urbanism, 15, 19, 63, 75–76, 81, 85,

86, 87Pierce, Charles Sanders, 87Plan(s)

adopted, 97, 105, 109, 110–111, 153,217

advisory, 97, 109building, 82, 114, 118, 139, 223charrette, 146–147, 151community, 153–154comprehensive, 123connectivity, 161diagrams, 36, 37, 57, 57, 62, 77, 79,

87, 112, 143

generator of building form, 55geometric, 112Land Plan, Davidson, North Carolina

(USA), 220land use and transportation, 221master plan(s), 3, 10, 65, 78, 80, 84,

105, 109, 111–114, 121, 126,142–145, 151–154, 159–160,168–169, 178–180, 179, 183,18–188, 191–193, 195–201,204–207, 212–217, 221–225, 225,227–229, Plates 10–12, 17, 21, 32,35, 40, 52 and 53

modernist, 12, 16–17, 40New York Regional Plan, 40, 56‘not worth the paper’, 111open space, 123‘paid to follow plan’, 112parking, 141‘plan-busting’ proposals, 106‘plan-led’ system, 105planned communities, 35–36public participation, 10, 104–105, 110,

128regional, 158, 164, 217regulating plan, 43, 143–144,

215–216, Plate 50‘road map’, 153small area plan, 175–177, 186suburban, 33thoroughfare, 182town plans, 18, 35, 36, 38–39, 41, 56,

78, 85, 87, 101, 123, 133, 219, 220transit, 62, 99, 111UK system plans, 105, 128

local plans, 105–107, 127regional, 106–107, 127structure plans, 105–106unitary development plan, 105

urban design, 41, 82, 84, 112, 117,126

uncoordinated, 99zoning, 38, 67, 79, 109–111, 143–144,

153, 171, 188, 213, 215, 217, Plate50

Planningadvocacy planning, 15anarchist roots, 152appeals, 105–106charrettes, 152, 171 (see also Charrette)codes, 63, 64, 112, 115community/local, 1, 3, 21, 62, 88, 112,

145, 154, 171concepts/principles, 3, 7, 33–34, 36,

40, 42, 56–58, 63, 77, 87contemporary, 3, 33, 56, 57, 124diagrams/formulas, 2, 12, 36, 143

differences UK/USA, 89, 97–98, 102,104–107, 109, 122, 128, 142, 153

different strands of, 11federal standards, 42for transit, 123–124future realities, 120–122, 125history, 3, 7–8land use, 1, 68, 159modernist, 8–12, 15, 18, 39, 54, 66, 140planning and development briefs, 107,

108process, 1–3, 121regional, 47, 57, 59, 99, 100–101, 105,

109, 122–123, 127, 152, 157–159,164, 170, 219

relationship to Smart Growth and NewUrbanism, 1, 37, 53–54, 56, 59, 62,66–68, 70–72, 141, 142, 154, 159,170

separation from zoning, 109–111, 113,143, 153, 171

socially responsible, 35‘takings’, 103–104transportation/transit, 99–100, 158,UK planning procedures, 105–106urban design relationships, 63, 64,

79–82, 82, 87, 107, 108, 113, 115Planning Policy Guidance Notes (UK),

68, 89, 97–98, 105–107, 109Plater-Zyberk, Elizabeth (see Duany and

Plater-Zyberk)Plato, 83Pollards Hill, Merton, London, 18Pollution, 2, 8, 12, 20, 29, 31, 34, 36, 68,

98, 125 (in America), 158–159air pollution, 36, 47–48, 69, 100water pollution, 2, 47–48, 103–104,

141Port Grimaud (France), 64Port Sunlight, Liverpool (UK), 35, 35Portland, Oregon (USA), 59, 100–101,

123, 126Postmodern/postmodernism/postmodernity,

3, 9–10, 22, 54–56, 61–63Poundbury, Dorset (UK), 64, 65Poussin, Nicolas, 33Price, Uvedale, 32Prince Charles of Windsor, 12, 64Private realm, 83Property rights, 2, 78, 97, 103, 109, 129Pruitt-Igoe housing, 9, 54Pueblo Espanol, Barcelona, 63, 65Public art, 132, 133, 142, 144, 215Public–private partnerships (joint

ventures), 91, 107, 112, 126, 170,183, 187, 202, 207–208, 216–217,219, 222, 224, 226

INDEX

274


Public realm, 4, 41, 44, 55, 58, 80, 83,91–92, 112, 117, 135, 144–145,166, 194, 197, 252, 254

Pullman, Chicago (USA), 35

Quadrangle, 82, 83Quartier/urban quarter, 56, 149Queen Anne Style, 36Quincy Market, Boston (USA), 90, 101

Race, racial, 9, 15civil rights, 13, 76civil liberties, 99demographics, 43, 45–46segregation, 13, 31, 49, 72UK, 9USA, 14, 228–229

Racist, 113Radburn, New Jersey (USA), 18–19,

39–42, 40Raleigh, North Carolina (USA), 123, 151,

150, 157, 164, 169, 175–184,187–188, 227, Plates 21–31

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 157Ranlett, William, 33Reagan, Ronald, 76Rear Window (Hitchcock, Alfred) 83Reason Institute, 71Regional Plan of New York, 57Regulating plan (see Plans)REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts), 127Repton, Humphrey, 32

Research Triangle Park (RTP) North Carolina (USA), 157–166,168–170, 175–176, Plates 14–20

Reventós, Folguera, Nogues and Utrillo,architects, 63, 65

Riboud, Jacques, 63Riesman, David, 44Ringstrasse, Vienna, Austria, 85Riverside, Chicago (USA), 34, 34, 112Roehampton, Alton West Estate, London

(UK), 8, 8Rogers, Lord Richard of Riverside, 2Romantic Garden Suburbs (see Suburbs/

suburbia)Ronan Point, London, 9Rosedale Commons, Huntersville, North

Carolina (USA), 81Rossi, Aldo, 21, 84Rouse Corporation, 101Royal Institute of British Architects, 97Rowe, Colin, 21Rowntree, Joseph, 35–36, 35Runcorn (UK), 19Ruskin, John, 35Ryder and Yates, architects, 55

Sacramento, California (USA), 59St. Louis, Missouri (USA), 123St. Quentin-en-Yvelines, Paris, 63Saltaire (UK), 35Salt, Sir Titus, 35Salt Lake City, Utah (USA), 123San Diego, California (USA), 59San Francisco, California (USA), 24–25San Gimignano (Italy), 87San Jose, California (USA), 123Sandercock, Leonie, 117Santa Fe, New Mexico (USA) 25Santayana, George, 10Sant-Elia, Antonio, 40Savannah, Georgia (USA), 133, 134, 193,

211, 211Scott Brown, Denise, 30, 54Scharoun, Hans, 10Seal, Mervyn, and Associates, 19Seaside, Florida (USA) (see Duany and

Plater-Zyberk)Serial vision, 38, 85, 88Shaw, Norman, 36Shook Kelley, architects, 138, 222, 223,

Plates 4–7 and 52Shopping mall, 36, 44, 62, 90, 176, 206Shotgun House, 203, 204Sidewalks, 25, 59, 67, 70, 80, 98, 114, 116,

124, 125, 134, 151, 158, 160, 162,180, 182, 184–186, 194, 203, 207,209, 212, 214, 235, 254–255, 255

cafés/dining, 75, 90, 136, 211, 247, 254dimensions/setbacks, 60, 166, 166,

167, 185–186, 210, 242, 248disappearance of, 41–42multi-use paths, 162, 162, 182street level activity, 135, 247, 247

Sierra Club, 196Sitte, Camillo, 15, 38, 63, 85–86, 87, 88,

88, 114, 228Smart Growth, 1, 3, 29, 44, 49, 66, 99,

110, 122–123, 127, 142, 147, 187,192, 192, 210, 226, 228

and New Urbanism, 29, 50, 53, 62, 66,69–70, 121, 125, 134, 220, 226–228

definitions and policies, 67development guidelines, 144, 245–249disinformation about, 71, 122–123myths, 67–71opponents of, 71publications, 49principles, 235–6regional planning, 123Smart Growth Network, 66Smart Growth Toolkit, 100State support, 100–101

Smithson, Peter, 16

Social distance, 31Social use of space, 75, 79, 80, 81Solomon, Daniel, 42, 54Spatial enclosure, 80, 81, 132Spoerry, Françoise, 64Sprawl, 2, 22, 29, 38, 49, 67, 71–72, 109,

113, 116, 121–122, 125, 142, 149,167, 235

costs, 46, 49, 71crucial challenge, 124mistaken criticism, 23most sprawling city, 123negative effects of, 2, 29, 43–44, 46,

48, 48, 128, 229, 231origins/causes, 11, 98, 102–103, 115,

220paradox, 147sprawl lobby/sprawl industry, 110, 123strategies to manage sprawl, 68–69, 90,

92, 125, 127–128, 184, 222Staten Island, New York (USA), 34Stein and Wright (Clarence Stein and

Henry Wright), 57Radburn design, 18–19, 39–42, 40

Stewart, Jimmy, 83Street(s)

bleak, 18connectivity, 161–162, 162, 164,

176–177, 180, 184, 194–195, 220,232, 235, 246, 254

curving, 34, 34, 37, 41–42, 132death of the street, 4, 10, 11, 12–13,

18, 24, 30, 89, 114design, 21, 82, 89–90, 112, 114–116,

116, 134, 143–144, 161, 166, 168,182, 203, 209, 216, 232, 248, 254,255

eyes on the street, 166–167, 202, 247furniture, 75, 255green, 160grid, 13, 57, 57, 77, 77, 91, 112, 181,

193–194, 196, 253, Plates 4 and 7layout/infrastructure, 39, 40–42, 41,

57, 62, 63, 67, 76, 80, 81, 82, 92,113–114, 116, 143–144, 150,160–161, 165, 177, 185, 192,195–196, 214, 225

life, 9–10, 13, 16, 25, 25, 66, 75, 87,90, 92, 101, 124–125, 135, 138,181, 208, 247, 247

Main Street, 25, 36, 44, 54, 70, 83,89–92, 134, 135, 183, 216, 219,222–224, 222, 223, 242, 252, Plates5, 7 and 26

‘oppressive trench’, 12, 113off-street parking, 167, 167, 236, 243,

248

INDEX

275


Street(s) (Continued)on-street parking, 116, 116, 134, 141,

150, 167, 185, 212, 223–224, 255,256

overstreet walkways, 101, 130pedestrian environment, 41–42, 45, 56,

59, 62, 81, 101, 116, 124, 134, 135,141, 141, 144, 150, 151, 158,161–162, 166, 168, 182, 193–194,203, 207, 212, 223, 233, 252–255,254

public spaces, 2, 4, 10, 25–26, 33, 35,38, 41, 56, 61, 76, 77, 78, 80, 80,83, 83, 89–92, 98, 109, 112, 114,117, 125, 132, 134–135, 144, 150,158, 166–167, 166, 167, 194,196–197, 201, 205–206, 224, 252,254, Plate 2

racial divide, 45residential, 42, 116, 134, 135, 136,

242, 254single-fronted, 81, 165, 182, 184,

196spatial definition, 31, 56, 78, 83, 114,

116, 132, 133, 144, 181, 183, 203,206, 208, 209, 210, 211, 217, 221,222–223, 232, 248, Plate 47

street-level retail, 101, 101, 141, 142,150, 164, 177, 184, 203, 208, 222,223, 223, 241, 247, 255

traditional urban types, 7–9, 19, 23,25–27, 36, 56, 59, 63, 65, 73,75–76, 89–90, 115, 161, 202,215–216, 231–232, 242

trees, 59, 75, 112, 112, 133, 151, 180,185–186, 194, 194, 196–197, 207,209–210, 211, 235, 254, 256

zoning boundaries, 206Streetcar (suburb), 33, 34, 39, 41, 50, 56,

112, 129, 135, 161, 164Streetscape, 41, 136, 137, 142, 165, 166,

167, 185–186, 206, 211, 213,254–255

Strip, the, 53Suburb, suburbia, suburban

absence of pedestrians, 42, 69Anglo-American suburb, 29, 33commuter/railroad, 33–34, 34,

56–57conventional, 21, 38, 41–42, 43, 48,

56, 58, 69–70, 113, 115, 124, 128,141, 149, 165, 178, 187, 222

conversion of land, 45costs, 46–47, 49, 67cultural values, 70, 90, 92definitions, 31densities, 68, 69, 177

design concepts, 21–22, 26, 29–30, 35,38–42, 40, 44, 54, 58, 65, 67, 90,114–115, 150, 228

development/expansion, 3, 13, 30–31,33–34, 38–39, 42–47, 53, 56, 62,66, 70, 90, 107, 112, 126, 128–129,178, 191, 219, 225

economic exclusivity, 93elderly in suburbia, 124form, 1, 31, 33, 39, 45, 54, 84, 115,

124garden suburb, 13, 22, 33–36, 38–42,

39, 63, 85, 112, 129gender roles, 32governance, 47history, 7, 29–36, 39, 41, 43–44, 114,

154office market, 195paradox, 69parking, 177–178placeless/soulless, 23, 44, 48, 63, 66, 92pollution, 47–48racial factors, 13, 31, 43, 45–46, 228residential, 1, 33, 56, 69, 124, 166, 232region, 72segregation of uses, 41, 171, 183, 223Smart Growth, 67, 69spatial patterns, 80, 176, 184, 228sprawl, 1–2, 11, 22–23, 29, 48–49, 54,

109, 113, 116, 121, 158, 184, 220,222, 231

streetcar, 33, 34, 38, 56, 112, 129, 135strip, 48, 54, 70suburban–urban comparisons, 2, 10,

44–45, 67, 91–92, 121, 235, Plate 6suburbanization of center city, 20, 20

Sun studies, 131, 132 Supreme Court (USA), 2, 103, 112Sustainable/sustainability, 2, 27, 62, 67,

69, 100, 106, 122, 128–129, 144,158, 170–171, 227–228

communities, 22, 170development (definition), 105patterns of development, 1, 46, 49, 62,

63, 66, 100, 102, 104–107, 109,122, 124–125, 128–129, 158–159,163, 163, 170–171, 197, 228, 235,249, Plate 18

transportation, 47, 145, 162, 171urbanism/urban future, 10, 26, 29, 73,

89, 107, 121, 124, 128, 229Sweden, 102

‘Taking’ of property rights, 2, 103–104,111–112

Tax Increment Financing (TIF) District,213

Tax structure, 46–47, 98Taylor, Nicholas, 66TEA-3 (Transportation Enhancement Act

number 3), 214TEA-21 (Transportation Enhancement

Act – 21st century), 99, 214Team 10, 16–17Thatcher, Margaret, 20, 47, 105–107,

107Thompson, Benjamin, and Associates,

architects, 101Thoreau Institute, 71Tibbalds, Francis, 85Toronto (Canada), 123Town and Country Planning Act 1947

(UK), 12Townscape, 15, 19, 20, 22–23, 63–65, 85,

87–88, 92, 137, 141, 201, 222Traditional Neighborhood Development

(TND), 22, 53–54, 56–58, 62, 66,129, 167–168

Traditional urbanism (see Urbanism)Traffic-calming, 141, 203, 215Traffic congestion, 41–42, 47, 68–69,

116, 157–158, 161, 177–178, 180,183, 196

Transect, 215Transit, 33, 39, 41, 58, 62, 68, 72–73, 90,

93, 99, 101–102, 104, 123–124,140–141, 143–144, 147–151,158–159, 163–165, 163, 168,170–171, 176–180, 182–183,186–187, 191, 193–198, 220–222, 225–226, 231–232, 246,248, 252

infrastructure, 160–161, Plate 16Transit-oriented Development (TOD),

22, 33, 34, 53–54, 56, 58, 62, 62,66, 100, 128, 129, 163–165,176–178, 180–181, 183, 187, 191,193, 198, 220–221, 224–225, 225,228, Plates 8, 18–19, 22, 24–26

employment-led, 163, 177–178, 181,193, 226, Plates 35, 53

residentially-led, 177Triangle J Council of Governments

(USA), 158, 170Triangle Metro Center, 161, 163, 163,

165, 170, Plate 18Triangle Transit Authority (TTA),

157–158, 161, 163–164, 169,175–177, 179–181, 183, 187–188,227

Troutman, North Carolina (USA), Plate 13

Tunbridge Wells, UK, 33Turner, John, 152

INDEX

276


Type/typology/typological, 25, 75, 81–85,83, 97, 115–116, 143–144, 151,215, 217, 227

as opposed to model, 83–84, 226building, 44, 56, 59, 76, 115, 147,

151, 168, 177, 206, 215–216, 238,240, 241

housing, 41, 59, 92, 147, 163,166–168, 177, 196–197, 203–204,204, 232

modernist, 10opposite of nostalgia, 84urban/development, 21–22, 27, 33–34,

40, 46, 50, 54, 56, 58, 59, 63–64,65, 70, 77–79, 78, 82, 85, 90–91,98, 112, 115–116, 118, 121–122,124, 127–129, 134, 143, 147, 149,151, 159–161, 165–167, 170,176–179, 181, 183, 197, 208,215–216, 227, 242

vernacular, 9, 204

University of North Carolina at ChapelHill (UNC-Chapel Hill), 157, 161

University of North Carolina at Charlotte(UNC-Charlotte) 25–26, 83, 221

University Ridge Village Center (URVC),215

Unwin, Raymond, 38–39, 62, 85–86 (seealso Parker and Unwin)

Urban design, 1–3, 7–9, 15, 17, 22, 26,30, 35, 38, 53, 57, 63, 65, 67, 71,75, 78–79, 89, 92, 97, 100–101,107, 116, 117, 118, 121–122, 126,143–145, 151–152, 154, 160, 169,171, 176, 207, 212, 215, 221, 223,223, 224, 226–229, 232

in America, 73, 100–102, 114–115,229

concepts for Smart Growth, 67,235–236

definition, 109government regulations (UK), 89,

97–98, 105–107, 109language of democracy, 152master plans (see Plans)methodologies, 79–89techniques, 130–142

Urban Design Alliance, 97Urban Design Associates (UDA), 37, 99,

101Urban design guidelines (see Guidelines)Urban growth boundary, 101, 123, 126Urban Land Institute (ULI) USA, 56, 69,

126

Urban renewal, 8–9, 11–14, 17, 20, 29,54, 99, 146

Urban riots, 1980s UK, 9Urban Task Force (UK), 2Urban/outdoor public rooms, 56, 75, 78,

80–81, 89, 132, 149–150Urban rooms(s), 25–27, 53, 59, 63, 69,

81, 89–90, 111, 123–124, 127–130,150, 163–4, 170, 177, 181, 183,186–187, 192–194, 198, 204, 221,228, Plates 4–6, 18

Urbanism, 7, 17, 27, 39, 62–63, 73, 75,84, 115, 117, 124–125, 128, 142,146, 184, 228

modernist, 9, 12, 15picturesque, 15, 19, 63, 75–76, 81, 85,

86, 87postmodern, 9, 54, 59traditional, 7, 21–22, 22, 26–27, 29–30,

38, 53–54, 56, 59, 61, 63, 71–73,75–77, 79, 82, 89–90, 115, 117

vernacular, 36, 56, 76, 86sustainable, 89, 128(see also New Urbanism)

Vallingby (Sweden), 102van Eyck, Aldo, 16van Ginkel, 16Vandergrift, Pennsylvania (USA), 36Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT), 47Venturi, Robert and Denise Scott Brown,

30, 53–54Vernacular

building types, 9, 59, 78, 203–204imagery/aesthetics, 19, 37, 85, 86neo-vernacular, 19, 63, 86pseudo-vernacular, 63, 72regional/local, 19, 36, 86roadside vernacular (USA), 55urbanism, 36, 56, 76, 86

Vicar of Ladywood (Birmingham UK), 13Villa suburbana, 30, 32Voelcker, John, 16Voysey, C.F.A., 36

Walkable communities, 38, 69, 90, 142,149, 210

links to public health problems, 124Walkable neighborhoods, 10, 25–27, 50,

59, 67–69, 70, 75, 89, 100, 124, 144Ward, Colin, 152Watershed protection, 144, 195, 197Webber, Melvin,

effect of automobile on cities, 23–25‘nonplace urban realm,’ 23, 54

Welwyn Garden City, 39White flight (USA), 43Whittaker, Charles, 39Whyte, William H., 44, 87Weissenhoff exhibition, 16Weissenhoff Siedlung, 10Wilford, Michael, 107Workforce housing, 148Wright, Henry (see Stein and Wright)Wright, Frank Lloyd

Broadacre City, 11, 41, 152zoning code, 144

Wythenshawe (Manchester, UK), 40

Yale University, 83

Zoning, general, 58, 67, 71, 101–102,144, 191, 221

affordable housing, 93classifications, 215conventional format, 21, 30, 59, 68,

70–71, 110–113, 115, 188,198–199, 206, 220, 229

design-based, 58, 60–61, 109, 110,114–115, 121, 143, 152, 153–154,169–171, 188, 197, 198, 206, 213,215–216, 220–221, 223, 229,237–243

development control, 97, 109, 111,153, 171

downzoning, 103, 111–112economic development, 199format, 216history, 110, 112, 114implementation, 154, 179, 191, 207,

215, 217importance of, 112inclusionary zoning, 130incompatible, 158landscape preservation and parks, 62,

116, 197Neshoba County Fair, 76overlay, 216parallel code, 30, 115–116public welfare, 103–104relationship to regulating plan,

143–144, 215–216, Plate 50rezoning, 110–111single use, 12–13, 59, 111separation from planning, 109–111,

113, 143, 153, 171Smart Growth/New Urbanism, 92,

100, 109, 115–116, 130, 171, 192,219–220, 222, 224

typology, 115, 116, 215–216

INDEX

277


design first

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