Examining New Urbanism...Overall Conclusions

In today’s society, we are faced with a challenge that will ultimately determine how sustainable our cultural choices regarding our development patterns, transportation choices and consumer-based economy will prove to be.

Suburban sprawl is the product of the combination of all of these choices that continues to negatively affect the environment and threaten the sustainability of our society.

The sustainable response to suburban sprawl is the embracing of smart growth principles as well as the principles of New Urbanism.

This shift in development patterns as well as an overall paradigm shift from consumptionism to conservationism is especially significant in the emerging age of globalization.

As cultures begin to export their economic systems and the associated negative effects of these systems, the embracing of a sustainable form of development and overall environmental practices will help to ensure the overall sustainability of the global community.

Never before has an international effort to reverse the negative effects of unsustainable development patterns and practices been so significant to the health and welfare of the planet’s inhabitants.

The depletion of the rain forests, the desertification of areas due to increased unsustainable industrial practices and the hyper-consumption of non-renewable resources are important environmental issues that must be addressed by the global community.

All of these issues are directly linked with the unsustainable development patterns that have evolved from the practices of the United States. The United States has an opportunity to regain its international status as a responsible leader through the implementation of sustainable development principles.

Through the analysis of the four New Urbanist communities, a matrix has been created that will help developers and designers create truly sustainable communities.

This matrix highlights the six essential qualities that every sustainable community must possess;

 
  (1) a compact and consolidated intensity of uses;

  (2) a comprehensive and complimentary diversity of uses;

  (3) a contained and consistent extent of uses;

  (4) a connected and combined system of communication;

  (5) a centered, configured and comprehensible sense of place;

  (6) a re-configurable plan that allows for flexibility of uses.

Through the application of smart growth design principles and the embracing of New Urbanism principles, these qualities can be generated in nearly every development that is designed in the new millennium.

The importance of creating sustainable communities has never been more evident in this country than it is today.

We are faced with daily reminders of the negative effects of suburban sprawl as commuters sit in hours worth of traffic delays during seemingly endless commutes, wars are fought over the control of non-renewable resources and access to clean water and productive agricultural lands, communities become faceless and meaningless collections of individualist detached housing that ensures the residents privacy and social segregation and the country faces an obesity epidemic for the first time in its history.

Embracing the qualities of sustainable communities is the most effective tool in combating the negative effects of suburban sprawl that threaten our physical, social, cultural and economic health.

After 1980, you never heard reference to space again. Surface, the most convincing evidence of the descent into materialism, became the focus of design. Space disappeared. -Arthur Erickson

Examining New Urbanism...Design Considerations

Pedestrian Circulation & Open Space Planning Analysis

A major component of smart growth, New Urbanism and sustainable design are the integration and celebration of the pedestrian and accessible open space.

All of the developments described in this study have successfully created progressive pedestrian circulation systems and development open space plans.

The celebration of the pedestrian environment within each of these developments helps to reduce the dependence on the private automobile as the primary form of transportation.

This celebration is achieved primarily through the clear separation of uses that is enhanced by the implementation of buffers between the pedestrians and vehicles.

These buffers can take various forms that include on-street parking to act as a barrier between the pedestrian and the road, landscape buffers that provide for a cleaner pedestrian environment or by removing the automobile from the equation all together.

The open space systems of these developments help to demonstrate that developments can achieve high levels of density without sacrificing the preservation or creation of accessible open spaces within the community.

Whether it is through the creation of pocket-parks, waterfront parks or large community spaces, the importance of accessible open space cannot be ignored.

Accessible open space benefits not only the members of the immediate community, but it contributes to the improvement of the global environmental community by discouraging the unchecked development of our natural lands.

Normative qualities can be associated to the successful design of pedestrian and open space systems that will ensure their sustainability.

Pedestrian and open space systems should be planned to provide for a connected, combined, contained, consistent and re-configurable system.

Paying careful attention to these qualities will allow designers to create viable pedestrian circulation systems that will reduce the dependence on the private automobile and result in an improvement of our global environmental community.

In addition to improving the environmental community, pedestrian circulation systems enhance the opportunities to engage in inter-personal communication that helps to improve our social community.

These systems should be clearly defined and should strive to integrate multiple uses into the system.

Finally, the systems should maintain a high level of flexibility so that they may be re-configured to respond to developmental challenges that they will face over time.

Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed by them. -Henry David Thoreau

Earth day is upon us...

Well, today is the 39th Earth Day.

I find it a bit perplexing that as members of the world-wide ecological community, we require a single day to be set aside to celebrate the planet we live on.

And honestly, with what we have done to this planet I not sure we should be celebrating, but instead begging forgiveness and seeking penance.

So before anyone gets into a tizzy regarding whether or not global warming really exists; or whether or not owning 4 cars in a 2 driver household really contributes to sprawl; or whether or not the trickle-down theory is really the most democratic economic system; or whether or not our development choices have really led to an alarmingly high child obesity rate; or whether or not our use of coal-burning power plants in the Ohio valley has really poisoned every body of freshwater in the Northeast with mercury; or whether or not developing nations really allow rampant deforestation in the name of hyper-capitalism masked as progress; or whether or not our hyper-capitalist driven land-use choices have really destroyed important wetland ecosystems whose function is to protect low-lying areas from flooding; or whether or not our government has really allowed hyper-capitalist auto manufacturers to convince us that an efficient, low-emissions internal combustion engine is not feasible; or whether or not our nation really has the largest privately funded rail network in the world yet we can't seem to implement a reliable high-speed rail network; or whether or not in our democratic and just society that our health care system is really ranked 38th in the world just ahead of Slovenia and Cuba; or whether or not we really allow hyper-capitalists to bulldoze the mountains of West Virginia in search of cheap coal; or whether or not we really celebrate the automobile so much that when a developer actually installs sidewalks or a trail system they want a commendation from the Sierra Club; or whether or not allowing National Home Builders to mass grade, change designated land-uses and leverage their projects based solely on speculation informed by reports that their own lobbyists generate has really contributed to the crash of the housing market; or whether or not hyper-capitalist driven greed has really fueled the subprime lending market in which housewives-turned-mortgage brokers fleece unsuspecting, uninformed homebuyers into products that they could never afford; or whether or not the lack of congressional oversight is really the true culprit behind many of the misdealings of the financial crisis; or whether or not relying on the guise of religion and freedom is really a just means to slaughter innocent people with roadside bombs, dirty bombs, hazardous chemicals, conventional weapons, plutonium-enriched shells or any other means of destruction; or whether or not globalization has really led to the exportation of American-style hyper-capitalism resulting in the further socio-economic stratification of developing nations; or whether or not our coastal development choices have really placed cities, towns and residents in danger of catastrophic weather events; or whether or not saving 10-cents a month on your electricity bill really means you are living a sustainable lifestyle; or whether or not greenwashing your development project with a certified "green" checklist is really a step in the right direction for facilitating a system-wide paradigm shift; or whether or not protesting taxes when nation's survival is at stake as opposed to protesting deficit spending to invade sovereign nations based on lies is really justifiable; or whether or not the United States really has over 1,300 endangered species of plants and animals yet we continue to plan to exploit wildlife refuges for hyper-capitalist gains; I would like to remind everyone of one thing.

Everything is connected to everything else.

If there is one phrase which should become part of the American lexicon, that is it.

The sooner we accept that our actions affect the larger eco-community and that in order for our species to survive we must change our habits, the sooner we can begin celebrating Earth Day everyday of the year.

The universe is wider than our views of it. -Henry David Thoreau

Shades of gray...

So they question remains, how do we facilitate the necessary paradigm shift towards a more sustainable homebuilding model?

This task is much more difficult than one can imagine. In order to demonstrate just how murky the waters truly are, we need to examine one of the organizations whose entire purpose is to defend national builders and their hyper-capitalist ways. This is none other than the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).

Just to give you an idea as to exactly what this organization is about, the "NAHB strives to create an environment in which...Housing and those who provide it are recognized as the strength of the nation." Unless you've been living in a cave for the past three years, we all know how this vision has panned out for our nation!

Regardless, the NAHB is making an effort to embrace and promote "Green Building Practices". However, if we take a closer look at this effort we will quickly discover yet another greenwashing smokescreen intended to distract us from the real issues.

(You didn't really think that I would simply point out the NAHB's efforts without immediately proceeding to systematically dissect its true intentions, did you?!?!)

Let us begin with the NAHB's "Green Home Building Guidelines", which is structured somewhat like the LEED rating system. The NAHB's system allocates points for green building "line items", resulting in a gold, silver or bronze rating.

Points for site selection, site design, building materials and so on comprise the overall strategies to achieve a "green" community. But, if we take a closer look at their overall "green" goals, we quickly discover how they truly feel about the movement;

It should be noted that although many green building programs have been in existence for 10 years of more, the concept and practice of green building is not clearly defined and straightforward. Many gray areas remain in identifying and quantifying the precise environmental impact for each particular line item. (NAHB, Model Green Home Building Guidelines.)

Huh, that's funny because as we have come to learn, everything is connected to everything else. That seems like a pretty straightforward concept, but then again it could be construed as a gray area. I mean, does everything include stuff that we haven't invented or produced yet? And does it include thoughts or electrical impulses?

I've changed my mind; it is pretty gray.

Let's look at it another way. How about the view that sustainable development is "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” (Brundtland, 1987.)

That doesn't help at all. For instance, what if scientists invent a way to solve all of the world's pollution problems in the future?!?! If that were to happen, then anything we do now won't really hinder the ability of future generations!

Yup, pretty gray.

How about if we look at the very first criteria for site selection; "Avoid environmentally sensitive areas". One could state with some certainty that this would include wetland areas.

Ahh, we remember wetlands don't we? Those diverse ecological communities which perform a variety of functions from cleaning water to providing protection from flooding.

But hold the phone, we may have discovered a gray area.

The NAHB, in all its infinite wisdom is quick to point out that "wetlands are a controversial issue for builders and federal agencies." Furthermore, they are quick to point out that wetland degradation and loss is a "common misconception". In fact, they feel that there has been "no net loss" of wetlands in our nation recently.

Well, those smoke-screening scientists over at the pesky EPA would probably like to step-up to the microphone to refute that statement by saying, "Huh?".

For instance, in Louisiana alone "every thirty minutes, an area of coastal land the size of a football field vanishes. Since the 1930s, more than 1.2 million acres (1,900 square miles), an area the size of Delaware, has disappeared from the Mississippi River Delta."

Yup, so very gray.

Perhaps the NAHB neglected to read the entire memo concerning the federal government's policies on wetlands. If they had read past the first two lines, they would have learned that both President Bushes wanted to implement a regulatory policy which accounted for no net loss of wetlands.

Oops. Missed that one.

A builder can still apply for a permit to "fill" a portion of a wetlands and either construct or "mitigate" their impact somewhere else on their site. Or they can even mitigate that impact to somewhere that is not even in the same area as their site!!!

In an effort to return to our original point, how do we expect the new homebuilding giant Pulex to embrace the concepts of sustainability and "green" building if the organization who supports them doesn't even wholeheartedly believe in these concepts?!?!

Well, in a democratic society operating under an capitalist economic system, We the People are the ones who possess the power to instigate change. That change must come from the consumer who demands nothing less than a truly "green" and sustainable product from organizations who are truly concerned with the impacts they are making on our society.

Remember, yes we can.

Are we not the whores of big business, selling our product for their commercial lust? -Arthur Erickson

Greenwashing the Site Plan...Thou Shalt Not Pollute the Water

Having touched upon the choices which lead many developments to completely alter the existing soil matrix,we can now shift our focus to the second requirement of the sustainable site plan:

...the proposed project does not contaminate the overall water supply, which includes both surface sources and sub-surface sources...

This seems as if would be the one requirement that nearly everyone in the world could understand, but alas, we find this is usually not the case. As we delve into this issue a bit further, and of course jargon-free, try to keep in mind our short discussion regarding the site's soils.

Early in the planning stages of a development (keep in mind this refers to any type of building and development activity), the designer is always faced with the task of treating the stormwater which falls on the site.

In jargon-free terms, the designer needs to be sure that the rainwater that runs across pavement, concrete and other surfaces which it cannot pass through (jargon= impervious surfaces) is as clean or cleaner than when it left the cloud.

In order to really understand this concept, let's quickly talk about the hydrological cycle, or in jargon-free speak; how rain is born and reborn. Here's a quick visual aid:

The simple explanation for this graphic is that water evaporates up into the clouds from various water surfaces such as ponds, lakes and oceans. The clouds hold the moisture, move over the land and release the moisture in the form of rain, sleet or snow. When the rain hits the ground, it is absorbed through the soil (remember soils!!!), and is consumed by plants through their roots.

The rainwater that is not consumed by our plant friends moves through the soil and underground channels (jargon= aquifers), returning to the water supplies (ponds, lakes, rivers, oceans) to be used again in the cycle.

In addition to the underground movement of water back to the source, our plant friends contribute to the cycle by releasing moisture into the air through a process called transpiration. In jargon-free terms, the plants sweat and the sweat returns to the clouds to be reborn as new rain.

In other words, in the hydrological cycle; everything is connected to everything else.

As we can clearly see, altering a site's soils to accommodate a use that the site is most likely not suitable for has far-reaching consequences. This leads us back to our discussion about clean water.

When rain falls on pavement (especially asphalt), some of the water moves across the pavement while a small amount of water is absorbed into the asphalt. Herein lies a major issue; asphalt is made with oil.

Automobiles also need oil to operate their internal combustion engines and quite often these autos tend to leak oil; especially when they are parked. If rain is falling on the asphalt and moving across that surface accumulating various chemicals on its journey, one could presume that there is a lot of oil in that water.

Here's something else to consider; most drinking water supplies originate from surface runoff. In jargon-free speak, when the rain falls and moves across a parking lot; chances are you are going to end up drinking that water.

If your municipality does not get its drinking water from surface runoff, but through an aquifer (look at the diagram), then guess what; not only are you drinking some of the oil and chemicals on the surface of the pavement, but when the water moves through the asphalt (which it does even though asphalt is considered to be impervious) picking up more contaminants on its journey; because the soils on many sites have been drastically altered, that water is not exactly the cleanest.

So what!?! may be your initial response, but if we take a closer look at the hydrological cycle diagram we notice that the water which moves through the soil not only returns to its source (e.g. a reservoir), but the dirty water is returning to the clouds to be reborn into rain; or as we have come to know it: acid rain.

Now that you are thoroughly scared to drink water, we need to return to the requirement for the sustainable site plan:

...the proposed project does not contaminate the overall water supply, which includes both surface sources and sub-surface sources...

A truly sustainable site plan provides measures for treating the water which falls on the site and eventually ends-up coming out of your tap. Logically, the next question that is on the tip of your tongue is most likely; If that's the case, then what are you going on about?!

Well, as we all know by now, measures taken by Hyper-Capitalists are usually driven by one principle; how does it affect my bottom line. Developers will always choose the method which costs them the least amount of money but satisfies the minimum requirements for approval.

In fact, many municipalities offer developers the opportunity to "bank" or "mitigate" their impacts on stormwater runoff. In other words, they can use money in place of clean water!!!

All hope is not lost, Frodo.

The rules governing stormwater treatment are becoming more and more restrictive. This has caused the development community to rely on Hyper-Capitalist scare tactics in their responses to governmental agencies. Their usual response sounds something like this: "If we are more restricted with how much of the land we can develop because of stricter stormwater rules, then the city/county/town is going to lose tax revenues and will be restricting its own growth."

Once a government entity hears that tax dollars will be lost, all hell breaks loose.

What the developers are not saying is that for a few dollars more in the planning phases of a project, a creative landscape architect or civil engineer could utilize sustainable stormwater management techniques that will allow growth to continue in addition to not polluting the water supply!

In fact, many of the sustainable stormwater treatment techniques are far more aesthetically pleasing than the standard practices!! Imagine, not only will they be providing clean water, but their development will be more attractive!!! More attractive means more profits!!!!

Hyper-Capitalists Rejoice!!!!!

So as we can clearly see, the need for strict adherence to the second requirement of the sustainable site plan not only ensures that our children will not be born with deformities due to our drinking water having alarming levels of contaminants, but it will produce a more aesthetically pleasing landscape.

Not only does this improve the environment, but it improves our culture and our society as a whole. And only then can we begin to move towards sustainable and equitable existence.

Beauty: the adjustment of all parts proportionately so that one cannot add or subtract or change without impairing the harmony of the whole. -Leon Battista Alberti

For every action...

Just as we have concluded our brief discussion of the influence which hyper-capitalism wields over the comprehensive planning process, we are reminded of the dedication needed to facilitate actual change. Disrupting hyper-capitalist driven federal land auctions has caused a bit of a stir in the profit-driven world, while environmentalists, conservationists, the stewards of the land, the National Geographic Society and Teddy Roosevelt are all applauding one activist's efforts.

The fact that it has taken two-years of litigation between the BLM and various other governmental agencies, environmental protection groups and conservation groups to even hold a federal land and drilling-rights auction, demonstrates the obvious need for a closer look oat our nation's energy consumption and ultimately our overall transportation planning efforts.

We could isolate and analyze these two topics, however that would prove to be counter-productive and violates Barry Commoner's main law of ecology that we have discussed in previous posts; that everything is connected to everything else.

This national dilemma is inclusive of more than the ecological issue; our actions and decisions (which, in this case, seem to be based solely on hyper-capitalist ideals) are most certainly causing long-term, residual effects on what remains of the undeveloped "natural" landscape of the United States.

These actions, which begin with the policy set forth by our elected officials, sets the tone for how our state and local governments (and ultimately us as consumers) plan and develop our nation; which for the past half-century, has been based upon our love of the automobile and our hyper-capitalist driven need to use our automobiles to consume everything from fossil fuels to the aesthetic qualities of our nation's natural beauty.

"We need an energy plan that encourages consumption." -George W. Bush