11.800- Knowledge in the Public Arena FINAL CASE PAPER

INTRODUCTION The concept of “urban sprawl” has become so popular in American planning and design literature that it has produced its own dedicated lexicon of specialized terms. Words like “asphalt nation”, “McMansions”, and “lollipop suburbs” define the conditions of low-density, automobile-dependent land use patterns that characterize the American landscape with ever greater degrees of specificity (Hayden, 2004). There have been many reactions against urban sprawl. Amongst the most widely known in the planning and design world is a style known as “New Urbanism”, advocated by a professional non-profit organization of the same name. New Urbanist designers emphasize smaller, more human scaled environments, with increased density, mixed land uses, increased transit, and “traditional” styling elements such as front porches, arcades, and pavilions Their stated goal is “the restoration of existing urban centers and towns within coherent metropolitan regions, the reconfiguration of sprawling suburbs into communities of real neighborhoods and diverse districts, the conservation of natural environments, and the preservation of our built legacy.” (Duany, Speck, and Plater-Zyberk, 2001). This approach has been successful in many regards, especially commercially. Despite its success, the approach is widely unpopular amongst architecture and planning elites. New Urbanism has been criticized for producing developments that mimic the aesthetic characteristics of traditional environments yet function similar to the suburban developments that they seek to combat (Gordon