New Urban News

A professional newsletter for planners, developers, architects, builders, public officials and others who are interested in the creation of human-scale communities.

October/November 2008,

Vol. 13, No. 7

Economic turmoil alters development landscape

The US lending crisis has cut homebuilding nearly everywhere, but walkable, transit-oriented developments are suffering least.

Beachtown shrugs off Hurricane Ike

Traditional neighborhood development benefits from designers’ experience after Katrina and Rita.

‘Shared-space’ streets cross the Atlantic

Cities in the western and eastern US are starting to let motorists and pedestrians deal with one another more intuitively.

Getting along with homeowners

For developers of new urban communities, having good homeowner relationships is not something that comes naturally. It takes effort and the process is not entirely intuitive. Attorney Doris Goldstein gives some specific suggestions for founders to cultivate and improve relationships with homeowners.

Commentary: For a green economy,

create incentives for smart growth

Robert Steuteville comments on the need to remove economic incentives in the US which require dumb growth, and force developers to either build sprawl or plead for permission to do something better.

Available in print only:

California adopts anti-sprawl law

Its impact will partly depend on yet-to-be-determined greenhouse gas reduction targets for new development.

An exemplary project loses its financial footing

Vickery, a prominent new urbanist project in greater Atlanta, enjoyed rapid absorption of residential units until last year, when the economy turned downward and sales started slumping.

How one development copes

Gale Communities, developer of Longview, a new urban development about 20 miles from downtown Kansas City, continues to build and sell houses despite a national downturn.

Two-family units shield against downturn

Home sales fell more precipitously in Queens in the past year than in any of New York City’s other four boroughs. One major exception to Queens’ drop-off has been brisk sales activity in Arverne by the Sea, a 127-acre mixed-use development that has been under construction for the past five years.

Groundbreaking anticipated for TND and campus

Texas A&M University hopes to start work early in 2009 on a San Antonio campus that would be the centerpiece of a $2 billion traditional neighborhood development (TND) called Verano.

Village inspired by Seaside rises on Pacific coast

Since 2004, Casey Roloff and his Seabrook Land Company have managed to sell 120 houses, at prices as high as $3 million, in Seabrook, an upscale new urbanist beach town development, a 3-hour drive west of Seattle in an economically depressed part of the Washington coast that’s soaked by nearly 80 inches of rain a year.

Austin launches ‘Alley Flat Initiative’

Affordable-housing advocates in Austin, Texas, are promoting “alley flats” as an answer to the city’s escalating housing costs.

Report: Need for ‘visitable’ housing growing

Fifty-one million Americans — 18 percent of the population — had a disability as of 2002; twenty-one percent of households will have at least one disabled resident in 2050.

Book reviews:

Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution — and How It Can Renew America

By Thomas L. Friedman

Visioning and Visualization: People, Pixels, and Plans

By Michael Kwartler and Gianni Longo

Also: CNU Update

Plus: Tysons Corner • Columbia Town Center •  Twinbrook Station • “Honey, Who Shrunk the Wal-Mart” • a joint effort to counter the effects of global warming • Brytan • The Health Line • Ray Gindroz • Robert A.M. Stern •