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By mail: New Urban News Publications, PO Box 6515, Ithaca, NY 14851
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08/12/08
“Agricultural Urbanism”: Deeper Roots... Room to Grow
Some might argue that the origins of Agricultural Urbanism lie at the edge, where ‘city’ meets ‘country.’ Interestingly enough, the New Urbanism traces its alternative roots to the same place, where the steamroll of sprawl paves its way across the North American landscape, converting farm and forestland into another single-use suburb. And while the New Urbanism has evolved significantly since its origins as an alternative to sprawl, it has yet to find an elegant and deliberate means of addressing the relationship between urbanism and agriculture... and so sprawl continues, the edge continues to move.
Not surprisingly, our present-day urban-agricultural edge is defined by a decades-old dysfunction: where suburbia meets industrial agriculture, our food is grown in a hinterland, in a manner that is no longer compatible with human-scaled activities. It is no wonder that the model of New Urbanism – based on the fundamental building block of the human-scaled, walkable neighbourhood – has struggled to understand its own relationship to these landscapes.
It is only within recent years that our re-examination of the post-war American Dream has given new perspective to the way in which we grow our food: with rising energy costs, ‘the Oil We Eat’ has become increasingly an issue of national security. Even more recently, the alternative, human-scaled model of intensive organic agriculture has proven economically profitable… and completely compatible, even desirable, within the context of neighbourhood design.
In the context of physical design, the power of a transect-based approach is that it provides an intelligent framework for the understanding of a given program across multiple scales and gradients. Moreover, the New Urbanist understanding of the relationship between urban and rural landscapes creates a sort of figure-ground relationship between ‘city’ and ‘country.’ Agricultural Urbanism approaches this same transect-based design approach, albeit through the looking glass, as a means to more deliberately explore the role of food systems and how it is supported by our development of excellent urbanism.
A common misunderstanding of Agricultural Urbanism results from an oversimplified ‘scaling up’ of urban agriculture where often-underutilized parcels are reprogrammed for the purpose of community amenity, education and/or food production. In this model, agricultural systems fit wherever they can... typically in remnant spaces, where the ‘free hand’ of the market has yet to identify a ‘higher and better use.’ In contrast, Agricultural Urbanism is an altogether re-informed model of urbanism that considers the health of the local food system – from land security and production of food to processing, marketing and distribution – within every aspect of physical planning & design, across multiple scales.
This is the context within which the Southlands project rests (June 2008, “Newest eco-development model: ‘Agricultural Urbanism’”), as informed by the writings of the Neo Agrarians (Berry and Wirzba) as by the design of the New Urbanists.
In the end, we must be deliberate in the type of urbanism we propagate. With Agricultural Urbanism, our intentions transcend the celebration of local nature and culture as it pertains to built form to reflect the most fundamental merger of these two bedfellows in the noblest of professions: agriculture. It is our hope that, in understanding an evolution of ‘mixed-use neighbourhood’ to respect our most fundamental relationship with the land as represented by our local food systems, we are developing a new generation of the New Urbanism: this is our design for Agricultural Urbanism.
For more information on Agricultural Urbanism, including links to additional resources, please visit: www.agriculturalurbanism.org
Edward Robbins Porter
Designer | Project Manager
EKISTICS
Vancouver BC
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08/01/08
Editor,
I just read your article and tried to comment on the draft scoping plan. I got the message: “You don't have permission to access /cc/scopingplan/ on this server.”
I agree with your comments about reducing VMT, but how do we comment on the scoping plan?
Bruce Liedstrand
Mountain View, CA
The production staff replies:
Mr. Liedstrand,
You were not the first person to catch the url change; we apologize for the confusion. It is now updated online as follows and you may comment using the following url: http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/scopingplan/spcomment.htm.
I hope you will try again to comment on the plan, and thank you for taking the time to send your comment to us as well.
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07/24/08
Editors,
The article on the Southlands design charrette (Newest eco-development model: ‘Agricultural urbanism’, New Urban News, June 2008) neglected one important piece of information – the site is within the Green Zone of Metro Vancouver’s Livable Region Strategic Plan approved in 1996. The Green Zone allows non-urban uses and is intended to protect the region’s natural assets and establish the urban growth boundary. While the design presented in the article may be innovative, location is important if new urbanism developments are not to become just good looking additions to the urban sprawl problem.
Regards,
Hugh Kellas
Manager, Policy and Planning Department
Metro Vancouver
4330 Kingsway, Burnaby, BC V5H 4G8
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07/11/08
To the Editor:
This is in response to an article in the June 2008 issue of your publication entitled “Newest eco-development model:‘Agricultural urbanism.’” I am a lifelong resident of the community that this development is planned for. The use of Bob Ransford, a communications and design consultant for the Century Group (the development proponent), as a source in the article produced inaccuracies. For one, Mr. Ransford's statement “(The Southlands are) a greenfield site surrounded by residential suburban development on all sides.” This is untrue, over half the property borders regional parkland, forests and a golf-course. This is followed by the quote “‘The property is the last great undeveloped property outside the Agricultural Land Reserve in the Lower Mainland’ of British Columbia, the Vancouver Sun reported.” This quote is also from Ransford from an article he wrote for the leisure section of the Sun. While fairly meaningless, it is also false. There are larger tracts of farmland slated for development within ten miles of the land in question, recently removed from the Land Reserve through treaty settlements. But my greatest issue with the article is not with the use of Ransford. It is the heedless use of the phrase “self-sustaining communities.” What is meant by this? The developer and his planning committee have been unable to define it but have had success getting media outlets to parrot it. Your article suggests if the development could feed its own residents, it would be self-sustaining. But basic statistics of agricultural production show this claim to be untenable. The B.C. Ministry of Agriculture and Lands calculates that, given the production technology available today, 1.29 acres of land are needed to produce enough food for one person for one year. Let's give the developers their most utopian projections and say that with the methods they propose, only half an acre of land is needed to achieve that same goal. The Century Group plans foresee 5,000 new residents to be phased in over 20 years, thus requiring at a minimum 2,000 acres of land to achieve self-sufficiency. Under 250 acres are set aside in the plan. We in Tsawwassen live in a peninsular town of 24,000, separated from centers of employment by thousands of acres of farmland and a river traversed by a heavily congested tunnel. Mr. Duany's plan envisions an almost 25% increase in population. However you define self-sustaining, this development will not meet the criteria.
Sincerely, Dave Staniforth
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06/20/08
Mr. Steuteville,
I have practiced as a landscape architect and community designer for over 28 years now, and would concur that “nimbyism” is typically the single biggest challenge that I face in achieving entitlements for infill community developments. I also have come to believe that the greatest weakness of the new urban movement is a belief that there is a new, “one size fits all” formula for community design, the new urban movement has perfected it, and any dissenters should be summarily dismissed.
More shocking to me than anything I have read in a long time was your reference to NIMBYs as “a societal plague.” [see June 2008 Commentary: We can’t let NIMBYs sink reform] Later on you suggest that new urban reform will require “dead NIMBY bodies.” “Nothing noble, or even rational fuels their opposition...” In the final paragraph you refer to a World War II level challenge, requiring a can-do American spirit. To suggest that dissent is a plague and that dead bodies, “so to speak,” may be required to achieve a noble end is, quite frankly, chilling. Who is inciting what mob here? This sounds nothing like World War II can-do American spirit to me. It sounds more like excerpts from Mein Kampf.
In reality, many of the NIMBY’s you seem to fear so much are, in fact, “walking the walk” of urban living. They live in the urban condition every day, right outside their front door. They know the traffic, noise, air pollution and other realities of “real” urban living first hand. Real mixed-use neighborhoods have trash trucks at 3 AM and everything else that comes with the “real” urban lifestyle. When we stop for a moment and actually listen to residents concerns, we can create even better urban neighborhoods as a result. It certainly has worked in my practice and in my neighborhood of 25 years.
I recently returned from Chongqing, P R China, where our firm is working on a residential community. It is striking how quickly China is moving toward greater personal liberties and choice in work, home and personal expression while in America we are busier than ever telling people to “get in line.” As Thomas Friedman has so eloquently conveyed, “The world is flat.” The New Urbanist movement will achieve nothing lasting by putting up walls between people and contributing to an un-flat world.
Sincerely,
Craig Karn
886 S. Pennsylvania
Denver, Colorado 80209
Robert Steuteville replies: My commentary reference was to a figure of speech: "over my dead body." That's my take on the attitude of many who oppose zoning reform locally — not a suggestion that anyone literally step over dead bodies. I agree that we can create better urban neighborhoods. Too often, however, designs that would create better neighborhoods are not given a chance to be built — mostly because of fear of density and mixed use. If we are to survive as a culture and civilization in an age of energy scarcity and global warming, we are going to have to get over this fear.
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04/30/08
To the Editor,
Excellent commentary piece in this month’s issue. Libertarian’s need to be reminded of the following:
First, in The Communist Manifesto (1848) Karl Marx and Frederich Engels called for the “abolition of the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the population over the countryside.” i.e. – sprawl is a communist plot!
Second, in The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith maintained the system of natural liberty leaves the state three legitimate duties: the defense of the country, the administration of justice, and the maintenance of certain public works. As we know, for the past 60 years the public works built for transportation has placed extreme emphasis on the automobile. This in turn has had major implications for private investment and the built form of the private realm.
Finally, in his 1973 work For a New Liberty – A Libertarian Manfesto, Murray Rothbard, considered by many as the father of the Libertarian Party, offers a good synopsis of the problem:
"It is now widely recognized that federal and state governments, spurred by the lobbying of automobile companies, oil companies, tire companies, and construction contractors and unions, have indulged in a vast overexpansion of highways. The highways grant gross subsidies to the users and have played the major role in killing railroads as a viable enterprise. Thus, trucks can operate on a right-of-way constructed and maintained by the taxpayer, while railroads had to build and maintain their own trackage. Furthermore, the subsidized highway and road programs led to an overexpansion of automobile-using suburbs, the coerced bulldozing of countless homes and businesses, and an artificial burdening of the central cities. The cost to the taxpayer and to the economy has been enormous."
As you rightly point out, “Libertarians are supposed to admire small government. But it’s the federal government that mostly built and maintains Houston’s enormously costly freeway system with 66 percent more lanes than the national average.” Libertarians are probably as confused as the average Republicrat or Demoplican when it comes to planning and policy issues. However, Randal O’Toole and others like him need to be called out on their blatant hypocrisy and turned to help us fight the good fight.
Vince Graham, President
I’On Group
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04/23/08
It is unfortunate that your newsletter has let itself become a spokesman for the VSI. Despite the pieces at the back of the article [Vinyl makers push for New Urbanism market, March 2008], the first part of the article reads like a press release from the White House on weapons of mass destruction.
Perhaps it is telling that vinyl siding and some of the negative aspects of New Urbanism match up: Fake plastic siding on fake traditional houses in fake plastic communities. What a market!
All the aesthetic issues aside, vinyl becomes brittle with age and cracks like an egg after it has been exposed to UV over a long period of time despite how much UV inhibitors have been added to the toxic chemical mix. You should expose the myth of longevity and durability and no maintenance. Yes it looks good at first (if you discount the waviness, distortion and pseudo wood grain texture), no you really can't paint it but you have to throw it in the landfill way before wood siding gives up the ghost and politely rots into the sunset. Wood has its issues too along with coatings, sealants, stains and preservatives not to mention harvesting, but they pale in comparison to vinyl. Vinyl is a really useful material and it is great to see the industry investigating cleaner manufacturing processes and ways top recycle the material but this type of marketing speaks for itself.
The Vinyl Institute has tried to make inroads in LEED and the USGBC as well as the AIA, the USGBC has at least been able to repel theirs and other lobbying efforts so be careful what it does to the good cause of New Urbanism.
Please tell me that the VSI is not an underwriter of your newsletter! And by the way go watch the documentary "Blue Vinyl" www.bluevinyl.org.
(would be great if you had a letters or response to the editor section either in print or online)
Daniel F. Hellmuth, AIA
Principal, hellmuth + bicknese architects
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03/28/08
Dear New Urban News:
I want to comment on the absence of the technical page; no issue has featured this since April/May 2007. As a CNU member who thoroughly enjoys this feature of New Urban News, I fear this long gap means NUN has discontinued the tech page. I want to continue to see this succinct but instructive feature by Andrés Duany, Michael Morrissey and other contributors. They artfully use sketches to elucidate the meaning of the text, and often the text has character thanks to Duany. They do so much to bridge the sheer detail of new urbanist practice and the generalities of design and planning theory. Bring back the tech page!
Sincerely,
Colin Cortes
Planning Division, City of Tualatin
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