New Urbanism makes inroads; still out of academic mainstream

ROBERT STEUTEVILLE

Looking at academia from a new urbanist perspective is like stepping through the looking glass. The top schools according to new urbanist practitioners — the Universities of Miami, Notre Dame, and Maryland, in that order — barely register in the overall national ranking of design schools by the monthly journal DesignIntelligence. The disregard is returned; the schools that lead DI’s architecture rankings for 2006 — Harvard (graduate) and Cornell (undergraduate) — are not rated highly by the new urbanist practitioners we queried.

Architecture schools produce most of America’s new urbanist practitioners — New Urban News’s survey indicates that 69 percent of recent hires have architecture degrees — and the top-ranking programs are in schools of architecture. Yet the majority of the nation’s architecture schools are openly hostile to New Urbanism, according to new urbanists inside and outside of academia. Academia as a whole remains largely New Urbanism-phobic, even as the real-world fields of urban design, planning, and development are increasingly influenced by its ideas. This anti-New Urbanism sentiment runs highest in architecture departments. “The dominant culture in architecture schools is still about individual creativity rather than teamwork or contextual design,” notes Doug Kelbaugh, dean of the A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. “This is a 75-year entrenched system and deeply held set of values. It is the same at almost every school.”

New Urbanism, because of its multidisciplinary nature, is affected by more than schools of architecture, however. Urban planning and landscape architecture programs play key roles in the academic dissemination of new urbanist theory and practice, as do urban design programs (which are usually taught within architecture schools).

Some argue that urban and regional planning schools — which train only a handful of new urbanist practitioners — actually will play a more important role in spreading New Urbanism in the long run. These schools are training the next generation of municipal planners.

New urban training and practice run counter to the sometimes rigid separation of disciplines in academia, which generates more ironies. One could argue that the Universities of Miami and Notre Dame are the best physical planning schools in the US right now, at least from a new urbanist perspective. And the New Urbanism dominates mainstream physical planning practice at the moment — witness plans for redevelopment of the Gulf Coast and sessions at major planning and development conferences. Yet from an academic perspective, neither Miami nor Notre Dame even teaches planning. They don’t have planning “programs.”

The best urban and regional planning programs, on the other hand, are starting to teach their students to draw and to include architects on their faculty. “That’s a new trend, and it’s reviving an old practice,” says Ellen Dunham-Jones, director of the architecture program at Georgia Tech.

New Urban News sent the survey to 50 people, mostly in noted new urbanist firms — a handful were experts in the field but not currently in practice. Thirty-one responses were received, a 62 percent rate. Those surveyed were asked which schools provide good training for new urbanist practitioners. They also were asked to list where their most recent hires — up to 10 — went to school and what degree they earned. New Urban News also interviewed practitioners outside of the academy and new urbanists within the academy for their personal views. These interviews were especially helpful in evaluating urban planning programs, which did not show up to a large degree in the survey because planners mostly work in the public sector rather than private practice.

Students who are looking at this survey as a guide in deciding where to go to school should take the findings with several grains of salt. The limited size of the survey means that some programs may have been missed. Also, programs are changing and those that lately have devoted significant attention to New Urbanism may not have garnered as much attention from practitioners as they will in years to come. This survey did not consult developers — a segment of the new urban job market that hires a variety of real estate specialists in addition to architects, planners, and other professionals. Those interested in this subject should also consult a list — put together by the International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture, & Urbanism — of schools in the US and abroad that teach New Urbanism and/or traditional design; see www.intbau.org/academic.htm.

SURVEY HIGHLIGHTS:

• The top six schools attended by recent hires at new urbanist firms also ranked the highest in the subjective “best schools” category. The ranking was almost identical for both categories: Miami, Notre Dame, Maryland, University of Michigan and Andrews University (tie for fourth), and University of California/Berkeley in the “recent hires” category; and Miami, Notre Dame, Maryland, Michigan, California/Berkeley, and Andrews and University of Pennsylvania (tie for sixth) in the “best schools” category.

• Of recent hires where the academic discipline was specified, 69 percent had degrees in architecture, 14 percent in landscape architecture, 12 percent in urban planning, 4 percent in urban design, and 1 percent historic preservation. Graduate degrees slightly outnumbered undergraduate degrees. At all of the top design schools identified in this survey, new urban principles are taught far more intensely at the graduate level. Furthermore, urban planning degrees are usually master’s degrees.

• Out of a long list of higher education institutions — 117 currently are accredited in architecture, 70 in urban planning, and 64 in landscape architecture — only nine received more than two endorsements from new urbanists in the “best schools” category.

• New Urbanism is an integral part of the curriculum in at least five schools — the top three listed above plus Andrews University’s architecture program and Virginia Tech’s urban affairs and planning school at Alexandria — and specialized programs at schools such as Michigan, University of California at Berkeley, and Georgia Tech. Elsewhere, it’s mostly isolated professors. The best one can hope for in most schools is that one or two faculty members have an interest in urbanism, notes Seth Harry, a new urbanist architect based in Woodbine, Maryland. “It’s hit or miss — if you happen to get the right professor, you might be exposed to it, if not, you probably won’t.”

It’s less important to have “a couple of great programs” like Miami and Notre Dame, Harry says, than for urbanism to be taught across the academic spectrum, regardless of ideology. “Teaching urbanism should be part of every architecture and planning program,” he says. “It’s a valuable way to teach contextual design.”

• Perhaps the most positive trend, noted by nearly everyone interviewed in the academy, is a strong interest on the part of students in smart growth and New Urbanism. “I like to be hopeful and think that [academic interest in New Urbanism] will come from the bottom up rather than the top down,” says Emily Talen, an associate professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “The students are clamoring for skills — eventually the planning faculty will have to respond to the need out there.”

Dunham-Jones finds new architecture students immediately engaged and enthusiastic when she brings up the themes of smart growth and New Urbanism. But many of these same students are turned off by the traditional styles they associate with New Urbanism, she adds. “They want to be innovative, they want to be leaders,” she says. “To students, designing a town that looks like it could have been built in the 1920s seems almost like cheating.”

KEY SCHOOLS:

University of Miami’s school of architecture, led by dean Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, a co-founder of the Congress for the New Urbanism, was mentioned by 81 percent of the survey respondents. A total of 357 students, 305 undergraduate and 52 at the graduate level, are enrolled in the program. While all architecture students get training in new urban theory and practice, the postprofes-sional master of architecture in suburb and town design provides the most intensive training. This year the school moved into a new building designed by renowned new urbanist theorist Leon Krier (see photo on page 1). The Knight Program in Community Building, a coveted fellowship that allows 12 multidisciplinary professionals annually to study New Urbanism-related issues, is run from Miami’s school of architecture.

University of Notre Dame’s school of architecture specializes in classical design and urbanism and has many new urbanists on its faculty. Seventy-four percent of respondents said Notre Dame provides good training for new urbanist practitioners. The undergraduate program, which ranked 12th on DI’s list, has about 220 students who are taught to think of architecture in the context of urbanism and who all spend a year in Rome. The graduate program, led by Philip Bess, is in the process of a significant expansion through the addition of a 3-year program (2-year graduate degrees are also offered). There were 16 graduate students in the fall of 2004; by 2007 there will be 40 to 50, Bess says. Graduate students are taught the tenets of urban design and can specialize in classical architecture or urban design.

University of Maryland, recommended by 39 percent of respondents, has about 300 students in architecture and historic preservation, and another 75 in urban planning. Urban design is a core value of the undergraduate architecture program, and is taught at all levels of the graduate program. The National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education is located at the university, affiliated with the department of planning.

University of Michigan’s school of architecture and planning is led by dean Douglas Kelbaugh, a supporter of New Urbanism. The school has a strong urban design program open to 18 students who already have a professional degree. The urban planning program, with 100 students, is taught by faculty that agree with the principles of New Urbanism, Kelbaugh says, although they do not call themselves new urbanists. The university recently began offering a real estate development certificate program open to 25 students in architecture, planning, law, business, and public policy, and taught by new urbanist Christopher Leinberger. “I think it will be the go-to program for progressive real estate in the country,” Kelbaugh says. Faculty in the architecture program, with 400 students, are mostly opposed to New Urbanism.

University of California/Berkeley has a strong master’s in urban design program, with professors including CNU cofounder Daniel Solomon and Allan Jacobs. The urban planning program includes well-known researchers respected by new urbanists, such as Robert Cervero and Michael Southworth. As at Michigan, a student is likely to find little support for New Urbanism among architecture faculty.

Andrews University, a Seventh-day Adventist institution, includes one of the few architecture departments in the US that directly incorporates new urbanist principles and practice into the curriculum. The school offers a five-year master’s program with 120 students, a number that has grown in recent years. Students are taught architecture within the context of the Transect, learn about form-based codes, read key texts of New Urbanism, and take part in a charrette for an actual client.

Georgia Tech offers an architecture program that teaches a mix of high-tech modern and classical styles, historic preservation, and urban design. The director of architecture is Dunham-Jones, who is active in the Congress for the New Urbanism. This year the school began offering a new master of science of urban design degree. The urban planning program offers a variety of ways for students to acquire urban design knowledge. Planning students are currently not required to draw, but the school is now putting together a drawing class for these students, Dunham-Jones says.

Other design schools where at least some members of the faculty are receptive to New Urbanism include the Carnegie Mellon University, Judson College, University of Minnesota, and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Additional design schools with CNU members include Catholic University, Connecticut College, Hampton University, Miami-Dade College, North Carolina State University College of Design, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, University of Georgia, University of Illinois-Chicago, University of New Mexico, University of South Florida, University of Tennessee, University of Washington, University of Texas-Austin, and Yale University. The Universities of Washington and Pennsylvania, which both received more than two recommendations in this survey, are mentioned in the article below on planning schools.