Coping with economic crisis: how new urbanists are responding
New Urban News Article with images, 7/1/2009
Subdividing homesites, writing form-based codes, and assigning white-collar staff to blue-collar jobs are three of the many courses of action.
Roughly 10 months into the world economic crisis, hardly anyone in the new urbanist fold remains unscathed. Architects, builders, developers, planners, lawyers — many have seen their work decrease, their incomes shrink, their projects cut back or cancelled.
The expectation — voiced by market analysts Zimmerman/Volk Associates and the University of Utah’s Chris Nelson — is that when real estate activity rebounds, the demand for lively, mixed-use urban settings will be strong, and will become more pronounced as long-term demographic trends take hold. There has been a scattering of hopeful signs lately, but no one knows how soon the revival will gain momentum.
Meanwhile, the great majority of new urbanists are finding ways to persevere. New Urban News looked into how individuals and firms across the new urbanist spectrum are responding to the worst real estate depression in decades. Here are some of their tactics:
