Steven Greenhut on Why New Urbanism Doesn't Work
After the housing bubble burst a few years ago, sending real estate prices to the floor in many places, some influential academics and urban planners associated with the New Urbanist movement celebrated the supposed demise of something they had always hated: the suburbs. In their view, the kind of homes and neighborhoods most Americans live in are tacky, ugly, unsustainable blights. Yet as Steven Greenhut observes, New Urbanism is the real failure. It only builds bureaucracy, he observes, not affordable living.