Critics collide over ‘urban network’ proposal
Intense debate has erupted over whether Peter Calthorpe’s proposed “urban network” is an effective way to civilize the wide arterial roads that disrupt communities in the US and elsewhere. Everyone drawn to New Urbanism seems to agree that the broad arterials produced by state and local transportation departments are a problem — they make it hard to knit communities together and to create comfortable, pedestrian-scale town centers. But whether the Berkeley-based planner’s proposed alternative is a good solution has been strenuously argued since Calthorpe presented the urban network to CNU X in Miami Beach in June.

The devil in the details
Municipalities in the Toronto area are promoting New Urbanism — but struggling to get the details right. Metropolitan Toronto is growing by 100,000 people a year and is the site of some of the most ambitious New Urbanism in the suburbs anywhere in North America. Much of this is happening in the City of Markham, which has changed its development pattern more radically than just about any other suburban municipality. And yet, some critics see an almost mechanical uniformity to the Toronto region’s New Urbanism.

Watersheds benefit from new urban development
Researchers in North Carolina have found that in greenfield development, New Urbanism is far better than conventional development at protecting watersheds, mitigating the impact of runoff, and restoring degraded streams.

Sustainability and NU converge at Denver’s Stapleton
Are New Urbanism and environmentalism potentially strong allies? One place to look for an answer is Denver’s Stapleton Airport redevelopment. Not only does the 4,700-acre project offer a combination of housing, employment, shopping, and neighborhood gathering places for an eventual 30,000 residents; it is also becoming known as a model of sustainability.

DPZ creates venture capital fund
With funding from an investor, the architecture and town planning firm Duany Plater-Zyberk (DPZ) & Company has created a $5-million venture capital fund to plan and permit new urban communities throughout the US. The Fund for New Urbanism seeks to partner with municipalities that are eager to foster new urban development.

Rebuilding for a badly burned Santana Row
Exactly one month before it was to open, Federal Realty Investment Trust’s Santana Row project in San Jose, California, suffered a massive fire that destroyed its centerpiece building, covering a city block. The August 19 fire, the largest in the city’s history, wiped out a six-acre, four-story building that contained 36 shops in various stages of construction, 242 luxury apartments and townhouses, and a health club. Federal announced that it would rebuild.

Benjamin Thompson dies at 84
Until Benjamin C. Thompson applied his imaginative touch, urban markets in the US mainly were somewhat grubby, underappreciated places that sold fish, meat, produce, and other necessities of life. The St. Paul-born, Yale-educated Thompson, who died August 17 at the age of 84, changed that with his 1976 transformation of Boston’s old Quincy Market into the attraction known as Faneuil Hall Marketplace.

The long wait for Octavia Boulevard
A caption on the front page of the September New Urban News said Octavia Boulevard in San Francisco is “soon to be built.” This turns out to be not quite accurate. The project now has a completion date of 2005, according to the city.

Making mixed-income housing work:
the low-income units must look good
Raymond Gindroz, principal in Urban Design Associates in Pittsburgh, and Willie Jones, senior vice president of The Community Builders in Boston, offered recommendations during an August 20 audio seminar on affordable New Urbanism, sponsored by New Urban News.

Making big boxes more civil
Two Denver area shopping centers--Quebec Square and Englewood--show how large-scale retail, when subjected to strong community planning, is evolving toward designs that are more accommodating to pedestrians and better integrated into public transportation systems.

Also: The Technical Page looks at urban vistas, and Philip Langdon reviews the books The Seaside Debates: A Critique of the New Urbanism; Habitat for Humanity: How to Build a House; Smart Growth: Form and Consequences; and The Designer's Eye: Visual Problem-Solving in Architecture.

New urban update:
North Boulder Village, Providence, Reservation 13, McLeod Village, Broad Creek.

Public policy:
Fannie Mae mortgages, Texas Department of Transportation funds.

Main street retail:
Carpenter Village.

Transit & Development:
Study shows public transportation reduces pollution.

Resources: Great Planned Communities, A Modern Arcadia, Repairing the American Metropolis: Common Place Revisited, Association for the New Urbanism in PA web site.

Congress for the New Urbanism:
Brewing up TEA3, Urbanists hit the street, Organization news