oilman2’s Recent Comments

• Click here to view comment in original post

  Urbanism - not nearly new

  I live in a small city adjacent to one of these "new urbanism" mixed use developments. It is replete with hiking and biking trails, numerous malls and shopping centers, business developments, a junior college and thousands of cloned, postage stamp yards. My parents lived there until recently, and my mother had a small business. We moved them to a rural area recently.

  Why don't these New Urbanism developments end up working? My opinion is that the drive for profits outweighs whatever the original concept was. 30 years ago, the rules in this community included no cutting of trees from lots with a diameter greater than 3". This resulted in most homes being nearly invisible, and created a very natural feel for the development. There were also restrictions on home placement, preventing identical or mirrored floor plans from going up near each other. Roadways were asphalt (oh so much quieter...) and the drainage system was compoased of grates flat in the ground in yards - no curbs and no ditches. All in all, a very pleasant effect was achieved.

  Unfortunately, this is now a very small piece of the current development, like 7%. The remainder, if you drive through it chronologically, can be seen to morph into typical sprawl. Asphalt streets gave way to much noisier concrete. The rules about tree cutting gradually were ignored or else given variance over time. Now the yards are all tiny green strips with humongous houses rising to treetop level. The old natural looking flat grate drainage system can be seen evolving to typical curb and gutter as the concrete streets became more prominent. There are numerous places in this development where identical home designs are staring across the street at one another!

  The driver for this is profit - maximizing the number of homes on a given swatch of land means more dollars for the developer - period. Using curb and gutter drainage requires less design and construction time than the flat grate drainage. All the landscape people lobbied for reduction in the "natural landscape rule", and so now every yard is St. Augustine grass strips broken with typical decorative garden plots - the "woodland feel" is gone. And each of these homesteads is supported by monthly spraying of pesticides and chemicals to "hold the woodlands at bay" and keep that grass green.

  In similar fashion, the small businesses have been driven out by the Walmarts and Targets and Krogers and other big chains. My parents were the victim of this, watching helplessly as their landlord ratcheted their rent up 25% a year until they couldn't afford to lease their space. Now we have a local "mega-liquor" chain store where my parents once ran their business. The "green belts" have gradually become filled with fast food  and convenience stores. First the city grants a single variance, and tax revenues increase. Now there is little compunction to deny other variances, and finally the old policy is dead in favor of revenue growth. Only the bike trails have any type of real woodland surrounding them, and that extends no more than 10 feet either side of their paths. Sadly, even that underbrush is thinned for the sake of "safety" - to allow patrolling police to view what is happening on the bike trails.

  The drive is simply profit. For developers, landlords, local service businesses, and especially the city itself. To deny a city ever-increasing revenues is unheard of. Every city government wants more and more money - thus things get bartered and given away to special interests. Economic growth AT ALL COSTS....it's uniquely American...

  It's a phenomenon of our "growth culture" - if we aren't growing, we are failing. While this isn't true, it's an American axiom. And until we chill out and realize that growth is often unwise or even bad for the local populace, little will change. And in the end, it's we Americans who have to stand up to local elected officials and developers and others and simply say "ENOUGH!"On Why isn't there more new urbanism? posted 3 years, 8 months ago 28 Responses