NOTE: This is a non-peer reviewed paper and is intended only to provide a general overview of the issue. Readers are encouraged to consult the references at the end of the article for a more in-depth treatment of the issues and research. The views expressed in this paper represent those of the author and not necessarily the views of the Reason Foundation, its trustees, or its contributors.
INDEX: New Urbanism
Neo-traditional town planning (NTP) represents the newest trend in urban planning.
Many NTP concepts provide the foundation for the New Urbanism, a movement in urban planning that could rival the stature of earlier epochs such as the City Beautiful movement in the early twentieth century. While not yet part of mainstream planning thinking (Southworth 1997), many planners and policymakers view the New Urbanism as a realistic and practical alternative to urban sprawl. Understanding its origins and goals is crucial for understanding planning and urban policymaking in the 1990s. While NTP concepts have not been implemented widely, initial evidence provides some skepticism about its potential as a solution to urban problems.
History and background
Neotraditional planning emerged out of dissatisfaction with Planned Unit Developments (PUDs) in the 1960s and 1970s (Bookout 1992a, 1992e). PUDs were originally designed as methods for creating comprehensive developments that cluster high-density residential uses with retail, shopping and employment. PUDs became a popular mechanism for providing more flexibility for developers and planners. Many "planned communities" (i.e., Reston, Virginia and Columbia, Maryland) have used them extensively.
But PUDs failed to create the sense of "place," or community, that many planners believed was important to urban design and meaningful community development. Despite their attempts to infuse comprehensiveness and flexibility into the development system, PUDS did not consider the community as an "integrated urban design problem." NTP promised to fill this void.
NTP was not simply a different approach to urban design. It represented an attempt within the planning profession to adopt a concept of cites that was more tolerant of diversity and, in the initial stages, encourage flexibility to meet non-traditional planning standards (e.g., narrow streets, town centers, or mixed uses).
NTP was imported into the United States from Europe in the 1980s, borrowing heavily on European planning designs that focused on small villages and towns (Knack 1989). While most planners recognize the limitations of attempting to directly transplant European designs into the U.S., they also see NTP as an attractive alternative to what they consider is the relatively bland, suburban sprawl common in most American suburban communities.
Key Concepts
Bookout (1992a, 1992b) argues that neotraditional towns consist of several distinguishing features:
NTP concepts direct residential and commercial activity toward a town center. While the town center typically follows a traditional grid pattern, curved streets in low-density residential areas do not follow traditional suburban designs. One of the principle advantages of neotraditional planning, according to its proponents, is its ability to generate density and manage congestion through thoughtful planning (Bookout, 1992b).
Another advantage of NTP according to its proponents is the break from conventional codes and standards. This has become increasingly relevant given criticism of the rigidity of subdivision and zoning codes governing new development (Kingman, 1990; Haar and Kayden 1989; Knack 1988). In fact, many planning innovations in suburban areas are tied to the process of streamlining the development permission and zoning process.
Disadvantages and limitations
Neotraditional planning also has several disadvantages.
1. NTP can become detailed and cumbersome. Knack (1989) notes that neotraditional planning codes can be extremely inflexible and burdensome, sometimes becoming more rigid than their predecessors. Even real estate consultant Lloyd Bookout, a proponent of neotraditional planning, observes that "neotraditional town design can take lots of time and involve a tremendous amount of regulatory detail" (1992c, 21). Communities often create detailed performance zoning codes to ensure new developments remain consistent with the goals, intent and requirements of the neotraditional design concept.
While neotraditional zoning codes can be short, the more diverse and complex the urban area is, the more complex the zoning codes will be (Bookout, 1992c). Seaside, Florida, for example, started the NTP movement in the U.S. by adopting a one-page, wall- size diagrammatic table that specified standards such as intent, land use, buildings, and infrastructure requirements. Fast growing Loudoun County, Virginia, on the other hand, adopted several ordinances specifying different types of development for different densities and sizes: Rural Hamlets were small (forty acres) large-lot developments governed by a twenty-six page (single spaced) document. Slightly larger, more dense Rural Villages (one hundred to three hundred housing units) are governed by a forty-two page ordinance. The Loudon County neotraditional planning ordinances also allow for the development of towns and urban centers, although the urban centers are designed to serve populations of only twenty-five thousand.
2. Application to redeveloping existing land is limited. NTP is also most often associated with large, comprehensive developments more common in suburban and rural areas. This limits its applicability to the problems of redeveloping land in built-up areas. Central cities and other built-up areas have relatively few large tracts of undeveloped land. Even vacant land has often been previously developed, creating complications concerning ownership and legal responsibility for externalities created from the previous use (e.g., environmental spills). Most cities, in fact, are faced with dozens of acres of abandoned buildings that are prime areas for redevelopment. NTP provides limited application to the problems of encouraging the redevelopment and reuse of land.
3. NTP is not practical in most circumstances. A more salient weakness of neotraditional planning is its attempt to reduce the size and scope of built-up areas. This approach is not practicable in built up areas such as central cities where services and development policy are administered city-wide. While some cities are beginning to develop and implement mechanisms for decentralizing political and planning approvals, many public agencies service a large region that inherently limits the scope of localized decision making.
4. NTP is utopian and inflexible. Driving the NTP concept is an "ideal type," a vision of what a community should be, and how it should work, rather than how it does work. Strictly applied, the pursuit of a NTP design provides little flexibility or opportunity to deviate from the plan. These plans are fundamentally static. NTP designs are innovative because they propose a different design concept compared to current practice. They typically do not accommodate a wide variety of interests and goals, or the city's evolution away from the original design. Thus, despite claims NTP is "innovative," the designs cannot accommodate innovation. In fact, often the structure of the plan development and approval process is more tightly controlled and strict than under traditional zoning and planning procedures.
Kentlands and Laguna West
In practice, NTP developments have not been embraced by developers and housing markets. Kentlands, an NTP development near Gaithersburg (MD) expected to house 5,000 people, began construction in 1989 (Southworth 1997). 1,100 of the projected 1,600 housing units had been built by 1996, but only 400,000 of the planned 1.2 million square feet of retail space, and none of the 1 million planned commercial office space, had been built.
Laguna West, an NTP development near Sacramento (CA), began construction in 1990 and is designed for a population of 8,000 to 10,000 people. By 1996, only 550 of the planned 3,300 housing units had been built (Southworth 1997).
Both NTP developments rely on their larger metropolitan areas for most jobs and services. As a result, they remain largely auto-dependent (Southworth 1997). Residents tend to walk to shopping and services more often, but only 9% of the residents say they use public transit regularly. "A common complaint was the lack of retail stores and services, as well as the slow pace of development." (Southworth 1997, 42).
"Neither example [Kentlands or Laguna West] allows or encourages the development, over time, of identity reflecting the needs and tastes of individual inhabitants," observes planner Michael Southworth. "In reaction to the anonymous sprawl of suburbia, the tendency has been for designers to superimpose an image on a development before it is even occupied, providing a 'scenographic' setting that is fixed and unchangeable and that occupants and users cannot shape over time." (1997, 43)
References
Bookout, Lloyd W. 1992a. Neotraditional Town Planning: A New Vision For the Suburbs? Urban Land (January), pp. 20-6.
__________________ . 1992b. Neotraditional Town Planning: Cars, Pedestrians, And Transit. Urban Land (February), pp. 10-5.
__________________. 1992c. Neotraditional Town Planning: Bucking Conventional Codes and Standards. Urban Land (April), pp. 18-25.
__________________. 1992d. Neotraditional Town Planning: The Test of the Market Place. Urban Land (June), pp. 12-17.
__________________. 1992e. Neotraditional Town Planning: Toward a Blending of Design Approaches. Urban Land (August), pp. 14-19.
Haar, Charles M. and Jerold S. Kayden. 1989. Zoning Today: A Time for Reckoning. Planning 55, no. 6 (June): 20-1.
Kingman, Hildy L. 1990. Zoning with Intensity. Planning 56, no. 10 (October): 18-21.
Knack, Ruth Eckdish. 1989. Repent Ye Sinners, Repent. Planning 55, no. 8 (August): 4-13.
__________________. 1988. Rules Made to Be Broken. Planning 54, no. 11 (November): 16-21.
Southworth, Michael. 1997. Walkable Suburbs? An Evaluation of Neotraditional Communities at the Urban Edge. Journal of the American Planning Association 63, no. 1 (Winter): 28-44.