Is new urbanism the cure? A look at central Florida's response

Real Estate Issues, Fall 2001 by Brown, Ted R, Bonifay, Cecelia

No theory of community design and urban form is currently more debated by architects, developers, community planners, land use attorneys, and local government officials than New Urbanism. New Urbanism, also commonly referred to as neotraditional town planning (TND), is a movement which advocates a return to pre-World War II neighborhood design patterns as a means of counteracting the perceived failures of post-World War II suburban development, now referred to by most as "sprawl." Essentially, New Urbanists envision compact neighborhoods comprised of a mix of residential housing and commercial uses, pedestrian-friendly streets, large tracts of open space, and convenient access to mass transit. By contrast, conventionally designed subdivisions refer to residential developments where all the land is divided into house lots and streets into what is essentially a monoculture of housing. All the land has been paved over, built upon, or converted into lawns or backyards.

These problems are not new. Suburbanization of the kind we call sprawl is the flip side of the deterioration of our cities and the issues implicit in both are closely related. As Steven Fader notes in his book, Density by Design, "these twin poles of our urban condition rise and fall on macroeconomics and politics: the cost of land, the hidden subsidies for highway development, exclusionary zoning, and the like." Until recently, the system for allocating capital for development, as well as the political context, favored suburban development over compact development, urban disintegration over reinvestment.

For any of us growing up in the 1950s, the emergence of the automobile was a key ingredient of the notion that one could leave the crowding of the inner city and escape to the suburbs. It provided a means that allowed us to move freely between work and home, and for a time "livability" was perceived to be much improved.

In the last several years a new ethos has emerged. It is couched in terms of "livability" but is more often articulated in the context of "community." In attempting to define our lives in a matrix that focuses on a communal realm, we have come to see that, with some exceptions, suburbia has become what we were running from.

There is a new search for meaning in our physical environment. Community is a paradigm that seeks to facilitate social interaction and TND suggests that one can engineer community through the design not only of the street grids, but through the use of architecture, open space, neighborhoods and even the placement of public buildings. Open space and its integration into the design are critical and land preservation for public open space are givens in the new paradigm.

TND has challenged the symbol of suburbia-the cul-de-sac. We now argue that a more uniform street network, with narrower street profiles create a safer, more intimate community. It contributes to land conservation and reduced development costs, but government is often wary and fire marshals, in particular, frequently argue (with success) that the old way is preferred in order to accommodate fire equipment.

TND also challenges the single-use planning and zoning that has characterized our historic building patterns. TND seeks to incorporate a mix of uses at both the macro and micro levels. The idea of a mixed-use neighborhood/town center with housing and retail/office mixed in is an old idea reemerging as new in the 21 st century.

Neotraditional town planning has been employed throughout the United States, and its impact in Florida continues to expand. The city of Seaside, located in Walton County on Florida's panhandle, is considered by most architects and developers to be the first New Urbanistic development in the United States. Disney's Celebration, located just south of Orlando, is probably the most famous (and infamous) neotraditional development in the country, although some question whether it truly qualifies as neotraditional. Current examples that have followed the precepts of the New Urbanism movement and that have introduced elements of TND are Avalon, being developed in southeast Orange County by Beat Kahli, and Victoria Park, being developed by the Arvida division of the St. Joe Company, which is located in both the cities of DeLand and Lake Helen.

Avalon Park can be viewed as a true TND. It is located on approximately 1,800 acres and consists of a minimum of eight and a maximum of 12 villages, three of which are under construction. Two villages are complete. In summer 2001, Avalon started its second commercial building in the town center. At build-out, it will include 4,000 single-family and multi-family units, a high school, an elementary school, 500,000 square feet of commercial/retail space in its town center and 250,000 square feet of office/industrial space. According to Ross Halle, town architect and planner, it is the combination of all the mixed uses and the planning of those uses which embody the concepts of New Urbanism. Avalon is a real neighborhood where its residents can truly live, work, send their children to school, shop and participate in community activities.