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Sprawl vs New Urbanism. Sprawl. uses more land than necessary; has a lower population density than traditional cities and towns (e.g., fewer people in larger houses); creates a dependence on cars for almost everything;
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Sprawl • uses more land than necessary; • has a lower population density than traditional cities and towns (e.g., fewer people in larger houses); • creates a dependence on cars for almost everything; • results in fragmented open spaces, wide gaps between development, and a scattered appearance; • separates uses into distinct areas (so, you don't usually have a store or a movie theater within walking distance from your home); • is characterized by repetitive one-story commercial buildings surrounded by acres of parking; and • lacks public spaces and community centers.
Traditional urban centers and towns • have higher population density than surrounding areas; • offer mixed use buildings (businesses and homes on the same block or at least within walking distance of each other); • are pedestrian-friendly; • are served by public facilities, services, and spaces (e.g., public transportation or community centers); • consist of many different types of housing and businesses; • have centers for community activities; and • are surrounded by open spaces, including productive farm and forest land.
REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION New Urbanism • Mass transit—light-rail, buses, subways—is within walking distance of most homes and businesses. • The goals: • fewer car trips • fewer highways • shorter commutes • more time for family and community life • less car-exhaust pollution • Mass transit can also bring city-based low-income workers into job-rich suburbs—“no car” doesn’t have to mean “no job.”
Sprawl • Highways are often choked with traffic and its pollution, due largely to street plans that feed cars onto a few big roads, • lack of convenient mass transit, and • isolation of retail and residential complexes, which require a car trip for nearly every errand or visit. • Roads are often widened to ease congestion, which attracts more drivers to the area, who soon fill the roads to capacity again, prompting appeals for further widening. • Businesses relocate from traditional main streets and scatter along a few wide roads designed mainly for cars—few sidewalks, vast parking lots, and so on. Results: • In the U.S. a two-car suburban family makes ten car trips a day, on average. • In one year a commuter with a one-hour commute (each way) spends the equivalent of about 12 workweeks driving to and from work.
STREET PLAN New Urbanism • An interconnected street network distributes traffic evenly and makes walking easy by offering direct routes between points. • Connected streets ease traffic by providing drivers with alternate routes. • With many alternate routes, streets can be narrower, making them safer to cross and less land intensive. • Sharp street corners, narrow streets, and frequent intersections naturally induce drivers to go more slowly and be more alert. • Each street follows one general direction—north-south for example—allowing for easier navigation and better orientation.
Sprawl • Subdivision street networks and retail and office parking lots often connect only with a wide, pedestrian-unfriendly collector road. A result: quiet subdivisions, gridlocked main roads. • Residents need a car for even the simplest errand. • Streets designed for easy driving—wide lanes, vast cul-de-sacs, few and wide intersections, few trees or buildings that block lines of sight—may encourage speeding, endanger pedestrians, and discourage walking and bicycling. • Subdivision streets often twirl back on themselves or dead-end, confounding even the best sense of direction.
SHOPS, CIVIC BUILDINGS, WORKPLACES • New Urbanism • Mixed-use zoning allows for shops, restaurants, offices, and homes all to be within walking distance of each other—or even in the same building. • With most of life’s necessities within walking distance, fewer car trips are made, easing pollution and encouraging community interaction. • The young and the very old—those carless millions—enjoy a measure of independence, bicycling to the soccer field, say, or walking to the movies. • Allowing for apartments and offices above stores provides patronage for the shops, living space for lower-income residents, and activity for the sidewalk—and a busy sidewalk is generally a safer sidewalk.
Sprawl • Zoning generally prohibits developers from building shops, restaurants, or offices within neighborhoods. • Some characteristic results: • A vast office park next to a sea of houses next to a massive municipal center beside a shopping mall—no town center and little sense of community to speak of. • More homeowners have expansive yards. • Kids remain dependent on their parents for transportation until they reach driving age. • The loss of a driver’s license puts many seniors out of reach of the store, the restaurant, the theater—and into retirement communities away from their hometowns.
RESIDENTIAL DISTRIBUTION New Urbanism • Different housing types—apartments, row houses, detached homes—occupy the same neighborhood, sometimes the same block. • People of different income levels mingle and may come to better understand each other. • A family can “move up” without moving away—say, from a row house to a single-family home. • Property values don’t necessarily suffer when housing types are mixed. New-urbanist neighborhoods are generally outselling neighboring subdivisions, and some of the United States’ most expensive older neighborhoods—Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown, Boston’s Beacon Hill, for example—are marvels of mixed housing.
Sprawl • Developers often fill whole subdivisions with one type of residence—say, $300,000 ranch houses. • Zoning often outlaws apartments and houses in the same development. • Sequestered in a narrow sliver of society, people may develop or maintain intolerance of those outside their ilk.
PARKING • New Urbanism • Parking is concentrated alongside curbs, in lots behind shops, and in garages off rear alleys. • Parking behind, rather than in front of, shops allows buildings to be at or near the sidewalk’s edge—more welcoming and pedestrian friendly than a store in a sea of asphalt. • Placing garages and driveways behind houses allows the houses to be brought closer to the sidewalk, enlarging backyards and adding interest and a feeling of enclosure to the street—a feeling that new urbanists believe adds to a walker’s sense of comfort. • On-street parking insulates pedestrians from traffic, encourages street life by requiring drivers to walk the final steps to their destination, and lessens the need for parking lots and garages.
Sprawl • Store and office parking is in lots in front of businesses, pushing buildings back from the street and farther away from each other. • Residential parking is generally on street-facing driveways, which requires that the house be far back from the sidewalk. The resulting, rarely used front yard may offer a feeling of estate like spaciousness but discourage neighborly interaction. • Parallel parking is often discouraged as a hazard to moving traffic.
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