The recovery of urbanism

New Urban News Technical Page by Andres Duany, Michael Morrissey, and Patrick Pinnell

What is the difference between New Urbanism and traditional, “old” urbanism? The answer has to do with one big systemic thing — the rise of suburbia — and with one ubiquitous technical thing — the response to suburbia’s technological icon and instrument, the automobile.

Because conditions have changed so much in the past 100-plus years, the New Urbanism must position itself to compete against conventional suburbia. “Old” urbanism did not have to do that; there was no competing model to the way traditional villages and urban neighborhoods were made and grew. Manhattan (from which magical island have emanated many harebrained, if amusing, nontraditional urban theories) is the signal case in point. Manhattan is dense and transit-saturated and it boasts continuously excellent frontages because its structure contains virtually no explicit technical provision for parking. Manhattan is a product of “old” urbanism. For most of the history of Manhattan’s development, no model insisted on accommodating vehicles as is now commonly mandated in the suburbs.