The New Urbanism: Toward an Architecture of Community [Hardcover]

Peter Katz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1993 | ISBN-10: 0070338892 | ISBN-13: 978-0070338890 | Edition: 1

The move to liveable communities--ideal ``small towns'' and neighborhoods where people work, live, play, and walk from place to place--is on. Profit from what a visionary group of architects leading this movement has learned about designing new ``small towns'' in Peter Katz's The New Urbanism. You'll discover the amazing potential for this kind of work as well as case studies, site plans, project analyses, and 180 beautiful photographs. This unique reference also tackles--and answers--the critical issues of crime, health, traffic, environmental degradation, and economic vitality and opens a startling window on the look and feel of future communities. Every designer can profit from this guide to building the utopias of tomorrow--today!

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Professional; 1 edition (October 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0070338892
• ISBN-13: 978-0070338890
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 1 x 10.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #493,495 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The New Urbanism is a movement that seeks to restore a civil realm to urban planning and a sense of place to our communities. It is a tangible response to the failed Modernist planning that has resulted in unchecked suburban sprawl, slavish dependence on the automobile, and the abandonment and decay of our cities. Katz, who heads a marketing and design firm, brings together in this informative and accessible book the voices and case studies of the young architects and planners who practice the New Urbanism--Peter Calthorpe, Andres Duany, and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, among them. They gear their designs to the scale of the pedestrian and seek to promote a symbiotic relationship between urban development and public transportation. An often published example of this movement is the community of Seaside, Florida. Extensively illustrated with plans, diagrams, and color photographs and renderings, this highly instructive book is a must for architecture and urban planning collections, and suitable for general readers.
- Thomas P.R. Nugent, New York
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

``. . .informative and accessible. . .the highly instructive book is a must for architecture and urban planning collections, and suitable for the general reader.'' (Library Journal 1993-10-01)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Professional; 1 edition (October 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0070338892
• ISBN-13: 978-0070338890
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 1 x 10.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #493,495 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Milestone book quickly becoming coffee-table classic September 17, 1998

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

In the first half of the 1990s, this book culminated the beginning of the most influential postwar stream of thought about American cities and city life, New Urbanism. It was intended to be the coffee-table conversation starter for suburban yups feeling just uncomfortable enough with their time-stressed lives to admit that, yes, their street is bleak, their house a cartoon, their strip-malled "planned community" a joke.

By starting the national conversation, the book has succeeded spectacularly, and continues to serve the purpose. With solid, workmanlike graphic design, it shows the way forward by depicting and decoding a handful of places both designed and built as successful alternatives to suburban sprawl.

Behind the scenes, the book became the flagpole around which a genuinely new intellectual movement rallied. At the time of publication, several of these projects were just on the drawing board. Today, only a few years later, over 150 such projects are blooming nationwide. New Urbanism today is the organizing question in the serious architecture and planning schools, in the development community, and in land-use "smart growth" politics. Developers are either running scared of it, or ripping it off, or putting big money into it. New Urbanism is a powerful set of ideas, and you can find them all here. This is the book that focused the disparate efforts of a score of highly talented, individualistic practitioners into a coherent beam. This is the book with the irrefutable visual argument in favor of building good places to live.

It is good, then, that the book's examples have been outrun. The book appears now almost quaint to those who, on the front lines of the land-use wars, have internalized New Urbanism's basic principles.... The book is silent on, for example, the practical, tough, messy, political imperatives needed to reverse a half-century of mad sprawl. Reading "The New Urbanism", one would conclude that healthy places to live are bestowed as if by magic from the brow of one or another luminary planner. A second edition, incorporating successes and lessons learned, will be needed soon. The Playa Vista example in particular appears likely to vanish embarrassingly from the drawing board into the thin air where good ideas go.

However, the basic visual argument remains solid, almost timeless. I use the book constantly to introduce new allies to the cause and to silence critics. I recommend it to anybody interested in America's lousy excuses for cities, which are, after all, our civilization itself. Read more ›

26 of 32 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars New Urbanism: This is how/where I want to live December 11, 1998

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

The basic principles presented in this book are the stuff that dreams are made of. I have shared the ideas presented in this book with many of my friends and they all want to live in communities such as this. We've been strip-malled, mega-malled and automobilized to near-death. New Urbanism as presented here is like a million breaths of fresh air.

It is best to read the basic principles presented in the front of the book first. It may look like dry reading at first but as you get into it, your interest will be piqued at first, then grabbed, and you won't want to put it down till you've read it all. Having read this part you will be armed with the knowledge that, to date, no development or developer has had the guts to follow the principles completely. All of the projects presented include some elements of New Urbanism but none of them have it right. One of the other customer reviewers of this book, Ken Wing, missed this entirely. Hey Ken, there is no people in the Seaside pictures because they want the reader to see the architecture! Those who don't get it, or are afraid of change, tend to trivialze New Urbanism and mis-represent it.

Once you have read this book, you, like myself will want to immediately pack up and move to a New Urbanist community. Better ones are coming out of the ground each year and I hope to see one near me real soon.

28 of 37 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Every library in the country should have this book! August 12, 1999

By Jeff C. Goolsby

Format:Hardcover

I have only had the book a day and already it has given me great pleasure and joy. I love the fantastic pictures and diagrams. The computer digitalizations on a few existing towns today and what they could be like were truely fasinating. I couldn't help not liking the indepth descriptions of numourous cities, towns, and villages from around the country and canada as well. This book had colorful photos and diagrams, this book to me is pure genus!

94 of 135 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Dangerous Ideas That Must Be Read November 24, 1998

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

This is a good book about bad ideas which-because of their influence-simply must be read. The problems with New Urbanism stem from five implicit premises it shares with other approaches to city planning. Consider them in turn.

1. The same design approach is appropriate for both cities and suburbs.

Peter Calethorpe claims the application of urban design principles "regardless of location: in suburbs and new growth areas as well as within the city" is a "simple but unique contribution of this movement." City planning, however, has often applied suburban principles-such as buildings as islands in a sea of grass-in both cities and suburbs. New and old share the underlying belief that the design problem of cities and suburbs is similar. Yet 40 years ago, Jane Jacobs showed us that cities were places where people had to feel safe amidst strangers, which fundamentally distinguished them from suburbs and small towns. The result when premise meets reality is laughable.

For example, the chapter on the upscale, private golf community of Windsor, FL devotes four full pages to the castle-like entrance building where visitors must pass a security checkpoint. Perimeter walls form an important design element of South Brentwood Village, CA. The text and captions don't mention them, but they show clearly in the illustrations. Unless New Urbanism's model is the medieval walled city, it is hard to see these as urban.

2. Community is primarily a matter of buildings and their arrangement.

Those who have not received years of professional training easily fall into the trap that community has to do with people. Planners know better. Community is about buildings and the spaces they enclose. The planners' view is most apparent in the illustrations they choose.... Seaside, FL's chapter is typical. Seaside requires front porches, because they supposedly encourage sociability. Seaside's front porches appear in 17 photos. Exactly one porch is in use. Of the six photos showing Seaside's public pavilions and gazebos, but one is in use. The photo of the pedestrian-friendly sand walkway is empty. The planners are proud of their porches, pavilions, paths and gazebos. They constitute "community." Who needs people?

3. Appearance is more important than functionality.

Planners design and evaluate with primary reference to aesthetic standards. The design must work at some level, but that limits rather than drives what the planner does.

For example, the proposed conference center entrance in Montreal is a grand staircase, but it is hard to imagine anyone using it except joggers seeking a challenging exercise regimen. A large stair is also proposed for a park in Communications Hill, CA, not to get up and down, but to "terminate the view from a nearby street."

The plan for part of Brooklyn, NY, shows a seven block length of Atlantic Avenue taken up by five buildings with nearly identical facades, three one-block long, and two two-blocks long, blocking two cross streets. The centerpiece of this stretch? A two-block-long parking garage. Does anyone really believe vibrant street life could exist here?

4. Inside the boundary, plan. Outside, ignore or conquer.

A convention of the planning field concerns how the area surrounding that planned for is portrayed in plans and renderings. Of course, the planner's work is always shown in living color and full detail. Two basic approaches are followed in showing surroundings. In one, surroundings are simply left out, as if the planned area were a space station, or the sole settlement on a virgin continent. In the second, surroundings appear in monochromatic outline, making the viewer aware there is a context, but giving little information about it. Whether this convention is cause, effect, or coincidence, what is clear is that it strongly parallels planners' values and thought process.

This premise can be seen in action in what is perhaps the worst single design feature in the book. A "major goal" for the Clinton area of New York City was preservation of the few remaining low-rise buildings, including a corner gas station. To the planner, this meant the gas station was "outside" the planning area. Not content with surrounding it with an eight-story building taking the rest of the block along both street frontages, the planner proposed building a canopy on air rights over the gas station, thus engulfing it, amoeba style. Such bizarre design makes sense only when one starts from the planner's premise that what is outside the plan is at best something to be ignored, and at worst an obstacle to be overcome.

5. Give planners complete control. They know best.

The desire of planners for complete control is evident from the opening essays, where the wants and ideas of "businesses and public officials" are referred to as "hurdles," and the changes a planner makes to incorporate others' ideas are called "accommodations" and "compromises." Examples of building codes to limit architects and builders to the planners' vision grace several chapters. The pinnacle of control is achieved in Mashpee Commons, MA, where the developer retained ownership of streets to avoid zoning setback requirements.

The premise that we would all be better off if we would just do what the planners want stems from their deep seated belief that they know best. I hope it is apparent by now that this hubris has no basis in ability or performance.

As horrifying as these five premises are, it hasn't stopped New Urbanist planners from getting plenty of work, and in many cases getting their plans built. For suburban developers trying to create a simulacrum of pre-WWII, small-town America ala Disneyland's Main Street, the New Urbanism is probably harmless. For cities, the stakes are considerably higher. Cities have already suffered immensely at the hands of planners, and in their current state can hardly afford another round of arrogant ignorance. New Urbanist planners have already been to work on New York, Los Angeles, and Montreal. Read this book before they come to a city near you. Read more ›