Dense Feedback

Readers respond to Randal O'Toole dissection of the New Urbanism.

From the April 1999 issue

(Page 2 of 4)

There's another group of little design dictators in most American communities: the local fire and rescue brigades. If the city approves a development with tighter intersections, narrower local streets, or other traffic calming measures, these interests invariably evoke images of little old ladies being burnt to death in second-floor rooms while the fire truck crawls around a traffic circle or tight street turn. And the local police will warn against permitting alleyways--a wonderful invention now too seldom used--because they might be useful getaway routes for burglars.

I guess it is just a personal prejudice, but here's one libertarian who agrees with the New Urbanists on another point: There's a lot to be said for having more "walkable" communities. It can be healthy, enjoyable, and efficient to walk to do one's small-item shopping and banking. And there is some truth to the claim that people who walk the streets and have the opportunity for casual interaction with neighbors may form a better-integrated community than people who drive everywhere.

Nonetheless, O'Toole's central criticism of New Urbanism is valid. Insofar as it wants to mandate that all new development conform to its high-density preference, it is simply authoritarian. As O'Toole says, the New Urbanists make a fraudulent promise when they claim denser development will be more economical development. (A bit of extra plastic pipe is far cheaper than the extra time of engineers and surveyors and ditchdiggers needed to crowd utilities together.) Denser development makes it more difficult, not less, to meet clean air standards. And the New Urbanist assault on "big box" stores is nostalgic and elitist, irresponsibly ignoring the tradeoff of small-store prettiness with efficiency, lower prices, and greater choice.

To the extent that the New Urbanism blames highways for sprawl, it is simplistic. Any underpriced form of commuter transportation, whether it is road or rail, will tend to stack the urban deck in favor of excessively spread development. But again, New Urbanists have a point. Many appurtenances of the mass ownership of automobiles--commercial strips in new areas, vast parking lots at new shopping malls--are unlovely. And there is something in the scale of freeways, especially in the newer cities of the south and the west, that even a hard-boiled libertarian can find disturbing. We'd be better off with a lot more, but smaller-section, highways--a denser net of parkway-like roads, like those found in Westchester or Minneapolis, rather than the eight- and 10-lane freeways of Los Angeles.

By preventing the construction of highways on new alignments, the stop-the-freeways crowd has inadvertently encouraged the steady widening of freeways into the superhighways we have today. The politicians and planners take the path of least political resistance and keep adding lanes to an existing road, rather than building an additional one between two existing freeways. A more market-oriented approach might be helpful.

In short, the New Urbanists make good points and bad. We don't compromise the battle against their bad ideas by acknowledging that some are good.

Peter Samuel
Publisher
Toll Roads Newsletter
Frederick, MD
[e-mail]

Randal O'Toole's article was well-written, intelligently organized, and researched in depth, but unfortunately it seemed narrow in focus and limited in perspective.

Every country in Europe has a multiplicity of transportation options, whether for moving freight or moving passengers. In America, we are dominated by one: the highway. Cars are not bad in themselves, but when they are the only option they become a severe problem.

For rail and other transportation options to be viable, people need to live in higher-density neighborhoods. Only with higher density can a sense of community develop and grow.

Since the end of Word War II, America has been zoned and developed so that the functions of life are separate and distinct, making it impossible for communities to develop. Living in an urban area that requires walking to the store, theater, coffee shop, or supermarket or to visit friends and family, people are able to get to know each other, and that creates healthy, vibrant communities. Forced to isolate themselves in their suburban homes and get everywhere in their automobiles, three generations of Americans have not had the opportunity to know the pleasures of community living.

If Americans had had the opportunity to grow up in vibrant, healthy, safe, exciting cities like Rome, London, and Copenhagen, a large percentage would opt to live downtown in healthy, higher-density communities. For three generations Americans have not known what real cities and communities are like. New Urbanism is America's first real attempt to remedy that situation.

Douglas E. Morris
President
4D Publications Inc.
Washington, DC
[e-mail]

Randal O'Toole erroneously identifies New Urbanism as a movement intent on tyrannical bureaucracies and Draconian development controls. New Urbanism is a design philosophy whose aim is to blend the civic and convivial qualities of pre-World War II neighborhoods with the convenience and market viability of modern car culture. It is quite possible for high-density development to utterly fail the precepts of New Urbanism (Crystal City near the Pentagon, for example).

Less than 0.1 percent of new developments are New Urbanist. The low percentage is not for lack of customers but rather the result of institutional inertia and restrictive zoning ordinances. In most parts of the country, it is illegal to build according to New Urbanist guidelines. Architects, developers, and activists often contend with intransigent regulators, notwithstanding Portland, Oregon.