New urbanism

So whats all this about New Urbanism? Its said to be the rebirth of traditional wisdom and knowledge of making places, city planning, and town designing. This emerged in the 80’s (correct me if I’m wrong), when professionals and other people who were concerned about how ugly their city was, how un-humane it was, as if it were made for machines and cars. A city with large roads, massive lots for parking, often vacant, and many slump areas. It’s the revival of lost art of place-making, and promotes the creation and restoration of compact, walkable, mixed-use cities, towns, and neighborhoods.

The best examples in the new urbanism movement, if I may say so are mostly taken from old cities mainly in Europe. Walkable roads, a city filled with life, mixed use of commercial and residential areas, very compact, which makes a city really feels like a decent place to LIVE in, not just work, but socialize and have fun, even connect back with nature. Well, you can search many websites on this topic, on of them is http://www.newurbanism.org/newurbanism/principles.html. or you can hear an interesting presentation on www.ted.com or www.youtube.com

An interesting question from is.. does this highly utopian urban design exist now and have been built well, how do people living in these places made with New Urbanism concept feel, do they have enough freedom? Because from many stories in history ( and fiction too;p) tells the story of people trying to make the best place, the best nation or country for their people, the most ideal, giving happiness and joy and peace to all the citizens. But turns out, to get there many people are stripped away from their freedom and human rights to achieve this goal. Achieving this ideal state sometimes means getting rid of those who are not in line with this goal. You know what I mean, stories from ancient history to nazi, to modern wars and conflicts. Most of the ideas started from making a better place for all. But all, in here is those who feel the same way with the visionary leader. The last important question is if there really is such a nice place that could be made in this modern world, how did they get there, I mean how did they do it? What were the hardest obstacles they had to face?..

Reference of built environment based on New Urbanism

The cotton district,known as the first new urbanism development in the world founded by Dan Camp, owner, developer, and property manager of the area.filled mostly with students and young professionals, this is a walkable area with many public spaces, shops, and bars. The area is filled with architecture from Greek architecture, other parts of old Europe, America. It hosts many big events now,for over 20,000 participants.

The owner built the district one unit at a time, he didn’t make any masterplans cos he didn’t really own the place. He just took old ugly buildings and made in to new ones to rent out. He did this for around 15 years until he made a vision of the whole district. There were hard times, he said almost 90%, almost everyday he hears people wanting to tear down the lot to make a parking space. But Camp always tries to hold back unimaginative people , as he describes. He has a firm concept of how a sustainable living and working environment should be. He doesn’t make any big buildings to maintain the human scale and proportion..

Disney’s celebration, Florida

Developed by The Walt Disney Company, it is a unincorporated master planned commnuity, which basically means it was planned from the very start on an empty undiveloped land.so it was much easier and not so many conflicts as if it were previosly occupied. The town is run by the company, all the main offices, and propeties. Now Disney doesn’t have so much control of the town as they did before.but they still run some offices.

Mountain house, Sanfransisco

Also unincorporated masterplanned community with everything within walking distance. The plan is for over 15,000 units built in 12 stages, creating a city of 45,000 people with 22,000 new jobs by 2030.^[1] . Looks like this one was from the government.

very carefully planned right? Exactly! And some critics say its too well planned and leaves very little liberty for the people who live there to change or redecorate their homes the way they like. And sometimes feels like living in an imaginary wonderland. Perfect as may be but kinda seperated from the other places, or should I say the outside world.

Short summary..

It is easier to make suitible and sustainable environment and community when designed and built from scratch rather than dealing with preoccupied areas.

Usually the owner, the visionary land manager, and developer is the same person or company. Otherwise it would need very close relations between this element to keep control of the development.

Very utopian as it may seem, it does somehow make us feel a bit prisoned in this very wonderful dreamland. Not being able to do things freely, always in the watch of the property manager.its a great place to live in temporary, for pensiun, for events, for tourism because its very coordinated and neatly handled

From my point of view at the moment, it is still different from the cities in Europe, might be same physically, but the formation of public activities doesn’t seem as natural. Theres a whole bunch of theories and references yet to be read and studied. There is urban renewal in Englang, and Urban rennaissance in Japan. Theres New Urbanism, Everyday Urbanism, and the so called post urbanism. Huh, to think about how these social theories develop so fast.amazing isnt it. That’s all for now. Cheers!

BTW.how do you stck pictures here?