Posted on 12/21/2007 11:24:09 AM PST by Lorianne
There are encouraging signs that New Urbanism is beginning to take root in American design. The U.S. Green Building Council has begun using a pilot system called LEED Neighborhood Design, which will include location and transportation use in its green ratings. Duany and his peers in the movement are helping city and town planners to dismantle the postwar zoning regulations that helped make the car king, and you can find New Urbanist projects sprouting across the country.
Americans may say they hate their long commute, but there's little evidence that they're eager to abandon a lifestyle built around the car. If one city could represent the opposite of New Urbanism, it would be sprawling, decentralized Atlanta, where extreme commuting is fast becoming the norm. (Coincidence or not, Atlanta is one of the fastest growing metro areas in the U.S.) And sprawl is spreading overseas, to developing nations like China that are fast abandoning traditional, dense neighborhoods as they fall in love with the car. "We'll design a community for [Chinese clients] that is essentially Chinese, which has served them well for centuries," says Duany. "They say, 'No, we want Orange Country.' They're desperate to live in the dopey American way."
If we can change that way, we can save ourselves — and much of the rest of the world. That will require the leadership of architects like Duany, who has dedicated his career to New Urbanist principles. But it will also require something of the rest of us: actively valuing what we profess to value, like more time out of the car and with our families, and choosing to live in neighborhoods that make those ideals possible. If that happens, the benefits to the fight against climate change — and our own sanity — would be immense.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
Yep. 300 million Americans and 1 billion Chinese who collectively arrive at the same decision are "dopey". It's only the author who possesses the savvy to see a better path.
LOL, as an architect and mall developer, even we are looking at green solutions to new building design. The last developer I worked for had an article written by a local paper in which called us urban land rapists. I had to get a copy of that and had it framed, lol.
“cause I’m the taxman, yeaaah yeaaah the taxman”
LOL! That's how we felt when we were in the middle of the ice storm earlier in the month.
Carolyn
I couldn’t care less how green or un-green my neighborhood is.
I ripped out eight trees yesterday. Nobody will give me carbon credits for the other 100, so there.
It was pretty darned green until winter (A.K.A. Global Warming caused by Bush and Haliburton) set in and caused all the trees to drop their leaves. I say we need a new tax to fix this.
I have no problems with that--in fact, where I live, a little attention to passive solar in design would reduce heating costs 50%. Your customers' customers would all be coming to the mall voluntarily.
OTOH, these folks (from the article) want to force people into their "arcosantis" because that's the way people ought to live.
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