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RESIDENTIAL DISTRIBUTION |
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New Urbanism
- Different housing types—apartments, row houses, detached homes—occupy the same neighborhood, sometimes the same block.
- People of different income levels mingle and may come to better understand each other.
- A family can “move up” without moving away—say, from a row house to a single-family home.
- Property values don’t necessarily suffer when housing types are mixed. New-urbanist neighborhoods are generally outselling neighboring subdivisions, and some of the United States’ most expensive older neighborhoods—Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown, Boston’s Beacon Hill, for example—are marvels of mixed housing.
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Sprawl
- Developers often fill whole subdivisions with one type of residence—say, $300,000 ranch houses.
- Zoning often outlaws apartments and houses in the same development.
- Sequestered in a narrow sliver of society, people may develop or maintain intolerance of those outside their ilk.
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PARKING |
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New Urbanism
- Parking is concentrated alongside curbs, in lots behind shops, and in garages off rear alleys.
- Parking behind, rather than in front of, shops allows buildings to be at or near the sidewalk’s edge—more welcoming and pedestrian friendly than a store in a sea of asphalt.
- Placing garages and driveways behind houses allows the houses to be brought closer to the sidewalk, enlarging backyards and adding interest and a feeling of enclosure to the street—a feeling that new urbanists believe adds to a walker’s sense of comfort.
- On-street parking insulates pedestrians from traffic, encourages street life by requiring drivers to walk the final steps to their destination, and lessens the need for parking lots and garages.
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Sprawl
- Store and office parking is in lots in front of businesses, pushing buildings back from the street and farther away from each other.
- Residential parking is generally on street-facing driveways, which requires that the house be far back from the sidewalk. The resulting, rarely used front yard may offer a feeling of estatelike spaciousness but discourage neighborly interaction.
- Parallel parking is often discouraged as a hazard to moving traffic.
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