Conservatives and New Urbanism

The Claremont Institute ^ | upcoming event June 9-12

[Lorianne]

Conservatives and New Urbanism

Steven Greenhut, the President of the Congress for New Urbanism John Norquist (former mayor of Milwaukee and author of a thoughtful book), and I will be among the speakers on the “Conservatives and Urbanism” panel of the 13th Annual Meeting of the Congress for the New Urbanism, at the Pasadena Convention Center, June 9-12. Our panel is Friday morning, June 10.

Greenhut will argue that new urbanism is too close to regulatory-happy Smart Growth to satisfy conservatives’ insistence on liberty. Norquist will argue that conservatives should approve of New Urbanism’s desire to break up current zoning schemes, resist eminent domain, defend school choice, and support other criticisms of the prevailing regulatory regime.

While acknowledging some of these libertarian arguments, I will ask why New Urbanists haven’t gone further in adopting other conservative principles. Is New Urbanism primarily about appearances (restoring traditional architecture) or is it about a way of life? If the latter, what is its object?

My suspicion is that New Urbanism doesn’t take politics seriously enough—for example, see my objection to 9/11 architecture and endorsement of Donald Trump’s proposal. New Urbanist Philip Bess has a fine summary (with excellent slides) defending New Urbanism as a communitarian understanding of life. Libertarian Randall O’Toole objects.

[sergeantdave]

What happened to "cool cities?"

Did you know Detroit was #32 on Forbes list of cool cities? And our beloved communist governor Jenny Granola had her grubby eyes on strip mining $100 million from exurbia to give to her rat cronies in Detroit and other socialist hellholes.

So where are the cool cities?

Quite simply, government doesn’t have a clue on how to build “cool.” People making individual choices build “cool.”

By doing a perfunctory examination of the top 40 cool cities, as determined by Forbes magazine, it’s possible to assemble a cool city:

If you want to get murdered, live in a cool city. If you want to breath pollution in and out, live in a cool city. If you want to engage in daily conversations with bums and winos, live in a cool city. If you want to see your wallet picked by tax loving socialist politicians, live in a cool city. If you want to hang your hat in overpriced, tiny gerbil boxes called lofts, live in a cool city. If you want to get mugged, live in a cool city. If you want hoards of buzzing bureaucrats minding all your business, live in a cool city.

Now, is that cool or what?

We don't even have our first "cool city" built yet, and here comes "new urbanism." I just can't keep up with all these people planning how we should live.

Next they'll come up with something called "soviets."

[conservativebabe]

This thing being called "New Urbanism" seems like a really neat thing to me. I am not sure about all the politics involved with this or how that figures in. Would be interesting to hear.

I am speaking from a standpoint purely focused on the appearance and idea of these traditional neighborhoods.

My husband and I just recently discovered one of these communities in the town we live in CO. We have been here only a year.

It is a magnificent commuity. It has traditional style homes mixed with modern style, big city style brownstone type buildings. It has it's own business district with retail, business, and a restaurant, parks, and plans for an ice rink. The streets are narrow and lined with mature trees, no garages are visible as alley ways run behind houses and garages are in the back. The front yards bump up to the roadways. It has a real smalltown, days-of-old feel to it.

A traditional neighborhood which encourages community and being friendly with neighbors is a good thing.

Here is the link to the one where I live if anyone is interested.
http://www.prospectnewtown.com/ProspectStory/Main.asp

[Dumb_Ox]

I'm not too far from Longmont, myself. Next time I'm passing through, I'll try to check this area out. I've heard interesting things about New Urbanism, but never actually seen its architecture. I have fond memories of my grandparents' urban neighborhood, and if money were no object I wouldn't mind living in a similarly designed neighborhood.

Re: the actual post:

Is New Urbanism primarily about appearances (restoring traditional architecture) or is it about a way of life? If the latter, what is its object?

I hope this commentator doesn't think appearances are completely unconnected to ways of life. Bauhaus architecture like the featureless black box skyscrapers, I am told, was predicated on the idea of making mankind a sexual monad isolated from any reality other than his own self.