A word of caution before CNU 21

I wanted to attend the in Salt Lake City this year (coming May 29-June 1) but, alas, I can’t. As a municipal planner, it seems my ability to go to conferences is directly tied to my City’s prosperity.

How’s that for irony? As my City gains problems, the ability to venture out and find solutions decreases. In the same way, the hardest time for me to get to a mechanic’s shop is when my car is broke. Funny, right? But my City’s situation isn’t humorous; it’s part of a vicious cycle—one bad thing leading to another.

And vicious cycles are the reason I wanted to attend CNU 21 this year. There are perpetual signs of a vicious cycle within its ranks: the more New Urbanism plumbs the depths of its theories, the more rigid its espoused practices seem to become. This is a bad sign for any group or idea. It produces fragile dogma and orthodoxy. Then come the provocateurs shouting like carnival barkers about what’s “right” and what’s “wrong” on such a small, granular level that it’s foolish to even discuss.

This is unfortunate because I and most others still believe in The New Urbanism. At the core, anyway. Indeed, when New Urbanists stick to their core principles, it’s hard to argue with them.

The Charter? We love it. Form over function? Why not? But beyond this basic level, things take a bad turn rather quickly. Much like the conversations I always suffer at a party. I meet someone, we discuss a topic, establish some general agreements, and then the person goes off on some obscure point that is as trivial to the world as it is infuriating to them.

It doesn’t just make for a boring conversation; it leads to a frightening attitude.

Similarly, I’ve read a recent series on how one can “fail” at form-based code. The pretense is that form-based codes are misunderstood, misused, and, when done improperly, can cause a city harm. To prove the point, the series argues against certain things (e.g., applying a code city-wide, designing transects a certain way) according to a predefined logical construct (also known as an “unscientific theory”). This is what fuels the vicious cycle. The deeper the theory gets, the more rigid the application becomes. Or rather, the more someone thinks about it, the more certain they become.
Perish the thought.

But here’s what is really scary: these absolutes of “right” and “wrong” are based on unscientific theory instead of what’s actually happening on the ground. Case in point: I’ve read and listened to critiques of policies in Nashville, Tennessee for almost a year now; it’s something to the effect of “Nashville’s transects are done at the wrong scale; they’re too big.” Or maybe they are too small. I forget. Meanwhile, at this very moment, excellent development is happening in Nashville. I suspect these results haven’t been caused by a “bad” transect any more than they would have been caused by a “good” one.

Like so many things, The New Urbanism is vulnerable. It can be captured by an orthodoxy that yearns for A Single Way of Doing Things. Does the disease infect the whole group? I don’t think so. But as such attitudes grow, groups either become irrelevant or fragmented. In this case, I predict fragmentation. New Urbanists will sprout detractors; detractors will form denominations. Soon, we could see a Church of First Urbanists against the Church of First United Urbanists. The same thing happened decades ago with what we now know as the APA.

So I’ve decided to join the tedium. I propose the first splinter group: The New Normanism. This group shall embrace The New Urbanism’s charter and leave the rest to everyone’s imagination. Our slogan shall be “The Charter? This we know. The rest is anyone’s guess. Good luck and let us know how it goes.”

Our motto will be the following: “It doesn’t matter how you get there so long as you arrive. We’ve got enough to worry about as it is.” There will be no absolute “right” or “wrong” beyond the Charter. Zoning won’t be excommunicated; hybrid codes won’t be burned on the altar. Everything will be put on a universal spectrum of “more right” or “more wrong”. So long as the needle leans 0.5 millimeters to the right, we will be happy. We will determine “more right” and “more wrong” by looking at physical results.

And theories? Talk of theories will get you run out of our meetings. Or rather, if one wants to talk of theories, one must first place a minimum $10,000 wager against “The House” (i.e. the rest of our club). Once the wager is placed, we will test the theory’s falsifiability (i.e., we will attempt to prove it wrong). This way, we not only settle the bet, we also satisfy our lingering physics envy through critical rationalism. Money collected from the losing theories will allow us to fund what
are sure to be very lush conferences.

Humor aside, one thing is clear: everyone supports The New Urbanism. But only to a point. We know its Charter is a good expression of what cities should be. After that, we recognize there are countless means to achieve the end. Such is the essence of creativity, the spirit of the practitioner. I think it’s also the spirit of today’s American Planning Association, boring as it may seem.

So to those who are lucky enough to attend CNU 21, I wish I could join you. We all do. It’s a great conference. But like all conferences, enter with a heavy dose of skepticism; guard thyself against Puritanism, absolutism, and dogma. Avoid those who posit theories with passion instead of proof. Laugh at those who argue for complexity over simple truth.

There is much to learn at this conference when you understand how little we know. But until one gains this understanding, the search for beauty and truth will often turn ugly and dishonest. It will often become a vicious cycle. Stay curious. Stay doubtful. Stay hopeful.

Norman Wright, AICP, is director of development services for the City of Columbia, Tennessee.

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