In an age where sprawl has seriously affected air quality, water quality, travel efficiency, agricultural opportunities and the sense of community, a number of challenges to conventional planning methods have come forward that deserve consideration.
A New Planning Philosophy
The neo-traditional new town movement of the early 1980’s lead by Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Stefanos Polyzoides, Elizabeth Moule and Dan Solomon sought to create new towns. This new town concept would utilize many traditional development strategies of smaller buildings fronting the street and a mix of land uses.
The neo-traditional philosophy soon underwent rapid changes in focus and name. As a result of these changes, the philosophy of New Urbanism evolved reflecting a rethinking in the shape of community. Instead of concentrating on building new towns, New Urbanists focus on suburban infill and redevelopment, the steady work of upgrading the urban fabric to provide for walkable town centers, mixed-use neighborhoods and public space.
The New Urbanist movement, lead by Berkeley California architect Peter Calthorpe, began to redefine the nature of land use planning by reintroducing concepts of neighborhood design and fitting those concepts into a variety of development settings.
“Some simple and basic design principles are to create places that are walkable and human-scale, that are diverse in population and varied in use, and that are shaped around public spaces that are meaningful and memorable.”
- Peter Calthorpe
New Urbanism also promotes a strong public transit orientation and a focus on a community’s physical infrastructure in the belief that community design can influence social interaction.
Robert Fishman writes in the Foreword of The Regional City by Peter Calthorpe and William Fulton;
“In his first book, Sustainable Communities, A New Design Synthesis for Cities, Suburbs, and towns, Calthorpe had already formulated many of his leading ideas: that suburban sprawl was not only ecologically but socially destructive; and conversely, that the compact urban designs that were most ecologically sustainable were also potentially the most socially valuable. This insight led him to extensive research into the design of pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use communities. Working with architect and educator Doug Kelbaugh, he put forward the plan for what he called a pedestrian pocket, a simple cluster of housing, retail spaces and offices within a quarter-mile walking radius of a transit system. The pedestrian pocket exemplifies Calthorpe’s critical relationship to the older regionalists.”
While not yet part of mainstream planning thinking, many planners and policymakers view the New Urbanism as a realistic and practical alternative to sprawl.
Creative Zoning Solutions that Work
The Clermont County Community Planning and Development Department, as part of its education and outreach effort, has assembled text excerpts, illustrations and advice from a variety of planning experts and organizations. The full text of each of these cited materials credited in this publication is directly accessible via the world wide web.
Local zoning boards, planners, and builders in both urban and rural areas can implement these flexible strategies to create innovative developments which would establish a new generation of communities in Clermont County with designs that preserve open-space, help protect surface and groundwater quality, lower infrastructure costs and save taxpayer dollars in road repairs. The application of these development concepts may even be a catalyst for strengthening the sense of community that commonly-practiced suburban strategies may have weakened.