Is New Urbanism necessarily a model of sustainability?

Homes in Middleton Hills, WI from Web site - right

Utah's TRAX light rail - lower right

New Urbanism has become an important model for developing new neighborhoods, communities and towns, and for designing for the infilling and redevelopment of existing neighborhoods and communities. The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), formed to promote the principles of new urbanism, counts 320 completed projects in the U.S.

The application of new urbanism planning principles is intended to build community by creating environments in which the impact of the automobile is reduced and the scale of the place provides walking access to neighborhood and community-serving commercial and institutional uses such as schools, churches, post office, markets and shops. At the neighborhood level, new urbanism draws on Traditional Neighborhood Design concepts, including narrow streets designed to reduce the speed of traffic, garage access from rear alleys, and small front yards and functional porches that encourage interaction with neighbors.

At the level of individual structures, design standards assure the construction of homes and other buildings that support the intended look and feel of the place. Owner associations typically enforce the rules and provide services so as to assure maintenance of the community and associated values.

Developments like Seaside in Florida, and the others reviewed in previous posts on the subject, are successful to varying degrees in implementing these principles. They are very appealing places that have been received favorably by people who want to live or vacation in them. On the other hand, does that mean that they are necessarily sustainable? While I have visited a small sample of the entire new urbanism project universe to date, I've seen enough to have some concerns:

1. While autos have been downplayed within new urbanism communities, thousands of automobile trips are generated each day getting to, from and through each of these communities.

2. Many of these communities were designed without alternative or mass transit options in mind. Even if there is a transit option in the plan, it may be years before it takes form.

3. I have yet to visit a new urbanism community where significant numbers of jobs are located in the community.

4. It is only lately that energy efficiency has become a design criterion at the level of the individual building in these communities. However, current green building standards are too low to have the impact needed to meet even the interim standard of 50% reduction in fossil fuel use in buildings by 2010 as advanced by the Architecture 2030 Challenge. (More about the Challenge in subsequent posts.)

5. New urbanism projects are challenged to include housing that is affordable to start and that remains so over time. As a result, diversity in terms of age, race, and income level is often lacking in these neighborhoods and communities. Yet, it is an important principle, articulated in the Charter of the Congress of New Urbanism. According to a CNU survey, 234 of the 320 existing new urbanism projects are considered market rate projects. Only 15% of these projects included affordable housing in their mix.

While I am firmly in the camp of the new urbanists, believing that its principles provide strong counterpoint to the realities of urban sprawl, much work needs to be done to make the model truly sustainable. In fact, the CNU has a number of initiatives in place to focus resources and bring about the changes needed in building codes, transportation and land planning, and consumer attitudes and habits to address these concerns. During my travels I plan to visit as many of the new urbanism neighborhoods and communities as practical, with this perspective as a lens.