The Congress for New Urbanism philosophy is as follows:
Making Connections a Priority
Through grids of streets, transportation choices, and the siting of buildings along sidewalks, New Urbanism brings destinations within reach and allows for frequent encounters between citizens, in sharp contrast to sprawl (right). A key measure of connectivity is how accessible communities are to people with a range of physical abilities and financial resources.
Professional Land Surveyor Source: Congress for New Urbanism
I don’t want to give it away, but I bet you’ve either designed or laid-out one of these before. Watch the video and comment on what you think about it.
Comments
One response to “What’s Wrong With Our Cities? This Two-Minute Video Explains”
New Urbanism only works, to the extent that maybe it might, because it is pirating both national and regional infrastructures of highways already constructed for delivery of every construction stick and brick that they use, as well as being even more dependent upon the same existing national and regional infrastructures to deliver the market of buyers to whom these homes are being sold. New Urbanists are not building transit lines or any regional infrastructure.
I have seen rampant grid towns platted by railroad engineers who were totally insensitive to the topography and had no funding for the multiple drainageway crossings or extensive grading that would have been required for the grids to be constructed, so inevitably the grids were never completed and guess what? Their plans simply end up as incomplete dead end streets with no turnarounds and no stormwater control, dumping street drainage into eroded stream channels.
Cul-de-sacs provide better drainageway protection and conserve more land in open space than most grid plans of any label.