Features

“New Urbanism” is a term we’re hearing more these days. It refers to a growing interest in building or reviving city spaces that are denser, mixed-use, walkable and community-based. It encourages population diversity, walking, cycling and public transit, and affordable housing. It discourages urban sprawl and invites us to reimagine our use of public space.

This is a topic near and dear to my urbanite policy wonk heart. Whether it means creating public squares where none existed before; putting bike lanes into space formerly used for car parking; finding ways to thwart the bureacratic obstinacy of municipal parking bylaws or creating complete streets on the European model, I’m interested.

When we began examining this theme, we soon found how popular it really is: we felt like latecomers to the party. Herein we present some of our findings, hoping to show that this can indeed be done right here in North America, and to invite our readers to ponder ways they could do the same in their own cities.

The Project for Public Spaces (PPS) in New York has been doing this since 1975, Alta Planning and Design is continuing the work in Portland and beyond, and in Germany it’s become almost second nature. And while Los Angeles, which long ago defined freeways and urban sprawl, might seem an odd place for us to profile, we found noteworthy developments there, too.

From my involvement with our local cycling advocacy group, I should have learned some patience by now. “This stuff takes time,” is the message we often get from City Hall. I’m actually getting more impatient as time goes by, and would like to see some results now. We’re starting to see some. Many city planners are cyclists, as are a number of architects, and some politicians. Cyclists vote, advocates are persistent and the zeitgeist appears to be converging towards much more livable cities.

PPS sums up the process best: “If you plan cities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places.” Let’s hear it for – and work toward – people and places.