New Urbanism
What It Is
New Urbanism is a planning and development movement based on how cities and towns were built for centuries before post-WWII suburbanization: walkable blocks, housing and commerce in proximity, accessible public spaces, and human-scaled design. The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) articulates and promotes these principles.
Source: https://www.cnu.org/resources/what-new-urbanism
Core Principles
- Walkability — daily activities accessible on foot; five-minute walk from center to edge of a neighborhood
- Mixed use — housing, shops, and civic institutions within the same neighborhood, not separated into single-use zones
- Human scale — streets designed for people first, not just cars; multimodal transportation including walking, cycling, and transit
- Public space — plazas, squares, sidewalks, porches, and parks as hosts of daily interaction and public life
- Diverse housing — a range of types and price levels bringing people of different ages, incomes, and backgrounds into daily contact
- Defined edges — neighborhoods with identifiable centers and edges, not sprawl that blurs into more sprawl
- Civic institutions embedded — schools, libraries, community buildings within neighborhoods, not in remote single-use complexes
What It Opposes
Post-WWII development patterns: sprawling, single-use, low-density, car-dependent suburbs that have produced negative economic, health, and environmental outcomes. New Urbanists argue these patterns are not neutral — they actively destroy the conditions for community.
Three Scales
The Charter organizes principles across three scales:
- The Region — metropolitan coordination, protecting agricultural land and natural areas, distributing affordable housing across regions
- The Neighborhood, District, and Corridor — the essential elements of urban life; neighborhoods should be compact, walkable, and mixed-use
- The Block, Street, and Building — physical design that defines public space, ensures safety, and connects buildings to surroundings
Relevance to the CLT Project
New Urbanism provides the urban design vocabulary for what the CLT project is trying to build physically. Several principles map directly:
- The five-minute walk radius matches the Nested Amenities Model — everything residents need daily is within walking distance of their cottage
- Mixed use at the edges (community-facing spaces) addresses the compound stigma problem in Mixed-Use vs Cottage Court
- Human-scaled streets, pedestrian-only interiors, and public gathering spaces are the physical infrastructure for Relational Accountability
- The emphasis on diverse housing types and price levels is the design language of the CLT mission
Useful Tools from CNU
- Shopfront houses and courtyard units as underutilized building types that contribute to diverse neighborhoods
- Graphic urban design codes as guides for predictable, community-appropriate change
- HOPE VI and Choice Neighborhoods programs as examples of New Urbanism transforming deteriorating public housing into mixed-income neighborhoods