A Personal Discovery of New Urbanism
Articles - Community

1vitruviusby: Paul Crabtree

I have a theory that everyone who becomes a student and proponent of New Urbanism (NU) is drawn there as if by a magnet, and this is because New Urbanism exists as a portion of humanity’s pool of truths. When you touch on a piece of truth – something that is really true for you – you are compelled to pursue it. And it changes your life in a dramatic way.

For example, my discovery of NU came largely via an enthusiasm for geothermal hot springs. While researching the history of hot springs development I discovered that Vitruvius pontificated on the subject of Roman baths in his “The Ten Books on Architecture” which was written about twenty centuries ago. I was startled to read the rest of the book that revealed that there were centuries-old basic principles of community building that we were no longer using in American society.2HegemannPeets

Why? What happened?

This led me to a fascinating text called “American Vitruvius” by Hegemann and Peets which is a compendium of centuries of town planning and architecture that was written in 1922 and helped usher in the “City Beautiful Movement” of the early 20th Century. Again, dozens of tried and true principles of town planning and architecture were documented, that were now being nearly completely ignored - but really only in the last 50 years of civilization.

The book that first completely explained this phenomenon and brought the subject up to date for me was “Suburban Nation” by Andres Duany – one of the founders of the Congress for the New Urbanism. That book completely explains in layman3suburban terms why people have come to despise the word “development”.

And this was further expanded upon by other texts and resources by other New Urbanists: “The Long Emergency” by James Kunstler, and many, many more.

Once you begin to understand what happened and why, you begin to see the world around you in a wholly different way. You’ll actually see streetscapes, building types, plazas, open space; and you’ll often ask “What were they thinking when they built it that way? Couldn’t they see how horrible it would be?”4kunstler

And you’ll also see people enjoying much-loved neighborhoods and understand why.

And following that, you’ll be compelled to action. You’ll want so badly to do something positive. And anything that you do will help to widen the circle. Whether it’s by building something worth having, or teaching someone a basic principle, or loaning a book, attending a seminar, joining an organization.

You’ll find a way to contribute. Because you’ve found a piece of truth and are compelled to pass it on.