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Reports: Market trends

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Study: demand for urbanism is higher than supply
$2.99

New Urban News Article with images and tables, 12/1/2004
Atlanta analysis shows substantial gap between where people live and what people want.
If you live in the Atlanta area, the odds are very high that you live in sprawl. And, there is also a good chance you would prefer to live in a different sort of neighborhood but simply can’t find it within your price range. “In many instances, the preferences of consumers don’t match the choices available in the market,” says researcher Lawrence Frank of the University of British Columbia, who in collaboration with Dr. Jonathan Levine of the University of Michigan and James Chapman, formerly with Georgia Tech, conducted the $4.6 million SMARTRAQ project.

Marketing
$5.99

Chapter 19 of the New Urbanism Best Practices Guide
How best to brand and market smart-growth communities? This chapter brings together writings and presentations by two new urban marketing consultants — Jackie Benson of J. Benson Marketing and Monica Quigley of New Urban Connections — and architect-planner Andres Duany. Benson emphasizes the importance of understanding what you’re selling: “It’s not a town center; it’s greater convenience and social interaction. It’s not a pocket park; it’s eyes on the street and playing Frisbee on a Sunday afternoon.”

Who will opt for a green community?
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New Urban News Article, 1/1/2008
Andres Duany identifies four main target groups and their outlooks.
To produce sustainable buildings and communities, it’s important to know who would like to live in them. Andres Duany identifies four target markets, which differ in outlook and personality. At the Green Architecture and Urbanism Council, he presented profiles of the four groups and discussed how to appeal to each of them:

How to calculate demand for retail
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New Urban News Article with sidebar, 3/1/2004
By one estimate, roughly 1,500 new housing units are needed to build one new block of stores.
Many communities hunger these days for “Main Street retail” or “neighborhood retail.” Few, however, know how many households — and shoppers’ dollars — are needed to make a shopping area successful. Retail has posed a persistent challenge for new urbanists.

Market demand
$5.99

Chapter 13 of the New Urbanism Best Practices Guide
Demand for walkable, mixed-use, compact neighborhoods will likely run strong for at least the next 20 years. This chapter looks at changes in perception, demographic shifts, attitudes toward density, and other factors influencing the prospects for New Urbanism.

Market trends favor NU
$2.99

New Urban News Article with graph, 4/1/2007
As national real estate sales slow, demographic and preference trends make smart growth and New Urbanism a good bet.
At a time when real estate in its sprawling forms appears to be losing value more quickly than compact urban development, analyses of the market for New Urbanism and smart growth are relatively favorable. GfK Roper Consulting recently released a report called “Modern Communities” that stated that new urban neighborhoods are the most desirable places to purchase homes. Meanwhile, Arthur C. Nelson, codirector of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech in Alexandria, asserts that every house built between today and 2030 will have to possess smart growth/new urbanist characteristics if we are to meet consumers’ demands.