Political Science 3364F/G Chapter Notes -New Urbanism
27 Jan 2013
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Document Summary
Experience with new urbanism projects has begun to expose some contradictions between theory and practice. Popular planning movements have the potential to polarize. Investigating new urbanism in practice reveals several ironies: discontinuities between the values that new urbanism practitioners affirm and that those that new urbanism practice exemplifies. The discourse of new urbanism proponents reveals the importance of the attributes traditional, public, urban, and democratic to establishing the innovation of new urbanism from the models it seeks to supplant. Europe new urbanism and related approaches share an interest in designing urban places that are vibrant, mixed use and pedestrian-friendly, with well defined edges, coherent open space systems and civic centres. While american new urbanism often proposes connected street systems and traditional architectural designs, european approaches may feature modernist architecture and secluded residential streets or mews. These movements together present a reasonably coherent internationally influential approach that we can legitimately call new urbanism without capitals.
