Planning, Pet Rocks and Psychobabble

Richard H. Carson's comments slamming new urbanism are far more revealing of his lack of grasp and insight than any flaws with the basic common sense of New Urbanist design. Carson's ham-handed plea for attention has succeeded in only that regard. Certainly in all of his years in planning he must have absorbed even a smattering of intuition regarding basic urban design. He attacks New Urbanism as trendy and as much a fad as "pet rocks." Any cursory review of human development history would quickly reveal that the sprawling, stratified, garage-dominated cul-de-sacced subdivision designs that he finds so worthy are the true short-term designs whose time has passed. Only in the middle half of the 20th Century did developers and planners deviate from time honored city designs that had served man quite well for 10,000 years. Human settlements flourish when they benefit from a mix of uses, densities, ages and incomes. Carson's suburban moonscapes fly in the face of the very social fabric of our species. New Urbanism is not truly a new trend, rather it is a return to the roots of human villages and the way mankind has traditionally coexisted. Certainly there are examples of New Urbanist designs that resulted in "false-front" wealthy enclaves. And it is true that some consultants have been made wealthy by touting New Urbanist philosophies. But that is not evidence of some basic flaw in the New Urbanist design model. And it is certainly no excuse to return to the bad old days of Mr. Carson's post-World-War 2 curvilinear tracts. If Mr. Carson's resume is accurate, and if he is intelligent and observant, then maybe he just has an awkward method in expressing his frustration with Disneyesque manifestations of New Urbanist projects. Otherwise, he is little more than a distracting contrarian who clearly tossed out the baby with the bathwater on January 2 last year.

Yeah, really funny trick. Give me a break.

In case you haven't noticed, 98% of everything being built today is still not New Urbanist. Auto-oriented, low density, suburban development still dominates our landscape.

It has taken the almost fanatical devotion of some of the nation's brightest planners, architects, developers, elected officials, and authors over the past 20+ years just to make the small amount progress that has been made in the field of New Urbanism. We are all better off for the Seasides, Kentlands, and Portlands of the world.

But sprawl still rules. Highways still receive the bulk of transportation funding; most zoning codes still require low densities and segregated land uses; and most banks won't give loans to a developer trying anything else. It is amazing that anything else has been built at all! New Urbanist projects that have been built have usually (if not forced into a weak hybrid by rigid zoning or narrow minded banks) been very successful and popular. Yet they are still a struggle to accomplish, despite their growing popularity and financial track record.

For every quality New Urbanist neighborhood that overcomes struggles with zoners, bankers, traffic engineers, bankers, and NIMBYs and actually gets built, there are 10,000 strip malls, cul-de-sac housing subdivisions, and office parks that get built with ease.

For those of us who dislike spending all day in a car, dislike breathing air filled with auto emissions, and dislike monotonous, homogeneous suburban housing pods this situation can be a bit frustrating. So forgive us for falling into the "trap." I would never want to deprive anyone of their opinion, but it is downright infuriating to be called hippies and potheads and have the movement that we care about so much be likened to pet rocks -- even if the essay is some sort of lame joke.

Good trick Rich. By my reading of the comments to your article I see that you have caught some people in your sanctimonious speed trap. There are only a few that have made it through.

For those who have clearly been busted, I have the following suggestions: Get a hobby. Do something outside of work. Go to parties and don’t talk about your work or what you do for a living. Broaden your horizons in life. Get involved in your faith community. Do some volunteer work, but not in the Planning field. Coach a youth sports team. Take acting classes. Learn to play a musical instrument. Lighten up. In summary, outside of work…find other things in life to enjoy besides preaching planning concepts.

I have enjoyed reading these comments, because they are so funny. Some of the reactions are absolutely hilarious. I might be afraid to be on the opposite side of the counter from many of you if I had an opposing opinion. Because I am sure that you would be sure to give me a real learnin’ of the planning concepts you believe in before I left.

I have a term for pious discussion of urban design and architectural principals especially as it relates to design review. I’m probably not the only one to come up with this term. It is similar to psychobabble. I call it “archibabble”. It occurs when planners, architects, and design review board members get together and discuss, ADNAUSEAM, why they feel a particular design is not right and how it should be modified. I think this term could be used in your article and for some of the comments. Keep up the humorous work Rich.

P.s. I hope more people will continue to unwittingly fall into your trap on the way. It is quite entertaining reading the comments of the speed trap violators.

If my commentary made you rise to new heights of oratory, then you may want to realize that you have just run through the Sanctimonious Speed Trap. In other words, I love to poke fun at the pious planning priesthood. They are such an easy target. At the slightest disturbance in their religious tenants, they start calling people names. And worst they start profiling them and categorizing them. As for all of you who said nice things about my commentary, you're cool because you have a sense of humor.

To read more about what the pious priests of planning missed -- call it journalistic technique -- go to Common Sense and have a good laugh.

Lets see if I have this right -

First you insult people's beliefs by labeling them as stoners and hippies.

Then when they respond by attacking your planning RECORD and your fixation on "stoners and hippies" you accuse them of making personal attacks.

Richard do yourself a favor and discuss numbers, figures and facts. You might actually impress people with them. Insulting peoples personal beliefs will never win you converts.

Greetings from the American Southeast's hub of 'old' urbanism, Charleston, SC, a home of walkability, smart growth, density, diversity, gentrification, mallification, and any number of other planning buzz-words. What do any of these words mean? How many people outside our profession can even define "planning?" (E.g., how many landscape architecture firms have we all seen that advertise themselves as "planners" or even "town planners?") The buzz-words that Mr. Carson mentions result from the constantly evolving set of ideas that gives our profession life, while the words themselves are within the American spirit of categorizing and labelling just about everything so that it can be marketed to the public, whether in this case by the designers, planners, or media. Who can define alternative rock music? The term worked when it sounded cutting edge and differentiated the work of 1990's musicians from the then mainstream. The term will die out when enough new artists reject that label for their music and when enough teenagers believe that 'alternative rock' is passe. Smart growth is already an unusable term in the Charleston area. It has become linked with restricted growth (as well as limited growth, managed growth, and growth control) by the general public. Does this stop us from planning in the region? Of couse not. Do we listen to the objections over "smart growth" by the public? Absolutely. This is the evolution of the process. I'll let you know if we develop a new name for planning here. In the meantime, I'll just keep pointing to peninsular Charleston... and I'll point out both, examples and lessons to be found there. As for New Urbanism, it seems to face a larger set of problems, most if not all of which are at least implied by Mr. Carson. Elitist? Attempts to take lessons from peninsular Charleston to elsewhere in the region have led to backlash against 'undesirables,' those who dwell in townhouses and accessory dwelling units. Result: SF houses on tiny lots sell for twice the regional average (which is quite high for the Southeast). Aesthetically more pleasing? Yes. Demand verifies it. Yet, most developers in the area, many of whom live in peninsular Charleston, still resist building more New Urbanist communities. (Anyone read Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead?") Planners would suggest that more outreach, involvement, and education is needed. So why is the CNU so exclusive? How many members of AICP are members of the CNU? Many of us seem to believe that certain firms design unique 'new' urban(ist) communities. While the community may be unique, is New Urbanism? This is American marketplace economics. If the CNU wanted New Urbanism to become the prevailing development pattern, it would stop railing against the land use planning profession and engage it, but this would allow it to fall into the public domain rather than remain expert design. The effect is an underriding patent on New Urbanism that makes it profitable to the those that promote it. In the meantime, I'll keep pointing to the 'old' urban(ist) communities of the region, which the public embraces.

As it says in the Old Testatment, Ecclesiates 1:1-11, 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.' And, 'there us nothing new under the sun.' I believe these verses summarize what Rich is saying very well. You will have to read them to enjoy the wisdom. In saying this, I agree with Rich, in that TND/New Urbanism is a new name for an old thing, repackaged in new wrappings. Kind of like the Slinky, Creepy Crawlers, and pogo sticks every other Christmas. For young planners/architects and people new to the profession, this may seem like something new . However, if you travel and observe older traditional cities, villages, hamlets and their surroundings in the US and other countries, you will see that it is not new at all. The new feature in the old product is in its production by land use policies and development regulations, however.

I don't think Rich is saying that we should not utilize the new pet rock, but I think he is saying that we should not go overboard with its use; making ALL new developments look like something out of a TND/Smart Growth handbook. We should allow people to have some choices in life. Not everybody wants to (or can afford to) live in the Truman show. Not everybody wants to shop on Rodeo Drive (as in Beverly Hills, CA). Maybe they want to…. but can't afford it, like me.

I am also in agreement with Steve Ladd's comments. I am weary from being associated with people guilty of hubristic (lovely word indeed) attitudes and actions for more than touting the noble cause of New Urbanism, and I am also too egalitarian to feel that there is only one way to design new developments. Don't get me wrong, I believe in the principles of New Urbanism and know the benefits of good design, however, I also believe the design type is not ALWAYS appropriate in ALL places and in ALL situations throughout our vast country.

New urbanism is not cheap. Developers that practice it, don't do it for free or purely for social good. The market HAS to be there for it to work. With that said, while attending the last few National APA conferences I was amazed at the number of people touting the benefits of New Urbanism. I never did hear anyone say that it might not be something that is right for all communities and places, or that it might be easier to write new codes and policies than to actually get something built. Seeing many enthusiastic and eager faces in those workshops, I felt like I was in a get-rich-quick seminar. I felt sorry for many that would be bringing home beautiful brochures, hoping that someday, they too, may have a new neo-traditional community or towncenter. In my opinion, probably not. At least not in the lifetime of some of the 60's "hopheads".

As planners and urban designers we should strive to include these principles in our tool kits, and use them where, and when, appropriate. But let's not only use the new pet rock to create a new utopia in this vast land, especially with hubris. That will get old fast.

While I am always amused at the overly serious ways some trends are discussed in the West, I have to say that the article falls into the same discussion pattern that development has to be all this way or that way to be "right". I have lived in New Urbanist communities for the last five years and find that they do offer a great quality of life lacking in most developments built in the 80's and 90's, but fully agree that they do not serve everyones idea of the "good life". The issue from my perspective is to make sure that the market place can respond to the desires of many to live in a neighborhood that is more focused and has a variety of land uses mixed together. The rules that have existed since the 50's have more and more ruled out that possibility.

Thankfully that is changing and more variety is occurring in newer developments, many using the principles of New Urbanism. Being a Floridian I am pleased to see that my state is taking the lead in many of the trends in planning that are taking place across the country. We are actually building mixed use communities in our cities and suburbs, rather than just intellectually debating the concepts like they love to do in the West. Having just visited the San Francisco Bay area I realize that for the first time Florida is ahead of the West in actually making New Urbanism become a reality of modern development trends. We have the most communities under construction and have done the best job of incorporating the principles of Smart Growth and New Urbanism into their design.

You can rail against New Urbansim all you want, but a significant percentage of the population likes the concepts and will buy into communities that offer a true neighborhood structure. The trend is to far along to be stopped now because more and more people are seeing and experiencing the concepts firsthand. Contrary to the prevaling viewpoint of this article you can have a backyard and private space in a New Urbanist project, I guess the Californians have not been creative enough to figure out how to do it yet. Come down to Florida and we'll show you some examples.

I'm hard pressed to find any professional direction in Mr. Carson's tirade on the loss of professional direction. It seems to me that Mr. Carson's philosophical compass was spinning as he wrote the article.

Let me get this straight. The "psychology" of planning that concerns itself with how neighborhoods and pedestrian environments function has somehow ignored the functionality of planning in favor of the psychology of planning? Huh?

Let's see, there are the "professional planners" who passively "watched" planning be reinvented as comprehensive planning, growth management, neo-traditional town planning, new urbanism, and now smart growth (all, apparently "pet rocks,"; lacking any functional value), there are the "consultants"; who sold us all of this snake oil, there are the stupefied "we"; who believed "our" plans worked, and there are "these planners" who are (excuse me, many are) draft dodgers, pot-heads, starry-eyed dreamers and urban design plagiarists. One more time, who are the professional planners?

OK now, urban design decisions should be left to the marketplace, but annexation (which adds to the urban design) should not be left to the voters. Are there any voters in this marketplace?

The problem with land use planning is not that planners, architects, and other designers of our physical and social environment have tried to improve the world they live in, but that these well-intentioned professionals believe they can, through some magical mix, create a perfect world. Planners should not be chastised for trying to create a better world, but only for not recognizing early enough the unintended side-effects that their social experiments create.

The irony of planning is that neo-traditional planning tries to recreate a world that existed before there were planners. Then, market forces produced the Mayberry communities that we now idolize. But, we would be foolish to now leave urban design (including architectural design) entirely to the marketplace. Our modern marketplace is not same one that produced livable communities for Opie and Aunt Bee. Now, the marketplace will give us uniform (uninteresting) and auto-oriented (impersonal) communities designed to please proforma-focused venture capitalists.

We should not ignore that McDonald's restaurants get 50 percent of their business from driveby traffic and 70 percent of their business through the drive-through window--but keeping McDonald's out of certain commercial areas or requiring McDonald's to create a unique building should not be equated to planning fascism. To lie down and accept any type of building or development is less noble than the oldest profession. A community that prostitutes itself creates a lowest-common-demoninator world for itself and for future generations. A community that wants something better should be encouraged to find the best balance between property rights, environmental protection, economic development, and civic pride.

While its easy to pick on the planners that gave us suburbs, at least they tried in earnest to create a better world. So even though they missed the mark, I'm glad they tried.

Boy I guess nobody under 45 is a planner. Richard's whole way of life seems to be generalizations and over simplification. You (and many, not all, other boomers) need to get over the war and get over yourselves. There is nothing wrong with trying to ensure the rest of the world doesn’t look like Vancouver. Smart growth (in my mind) is about giving people options in housing, options that don’t exist when the sprawl machine is running full force creating cookie cutters houses. I have not seen any cities without cookie cutter development, I’ve seen lots of citys that don’t create anything else. Let the sprawl machine take care of itself and support and embrace the projects that have identity, affordablity and diversity.

Whew! And happy new year to you, too, Mr. Carson.... your perspective is somewhat specialized because of planning activities in the northwest. As a comprehensive planner produced by the old 'generalist planner' program once offered by the University of Pittsburgh (which unfortunately no longer offers a planning degree), let me hasten to reassure those shell-shocked by Mr. Carson that the world of planning is neither as bleak, nor as one-size-fits-all, as his readers would conclude. First: comprehensive planning is not a "pet rock" or a weirdo theory that excludes public input. The notion that the land use pattern advocated by a community --whatever pattern that is -- serves as the basis for subsequent planning for transportation, sewer, water, etc., is the heart and soul of planning, and one that I am constantly urging our state legislators and local officials to bear in mind. In Florida, our state mandated planning is not patterned after the northwest. Although the state law calls for land use patterns that avoid 'sprawl', that same planning law also mandates "concurrency", which is the requirement that services be available at the time that a development demands them. In fact, this law has actually created sprawl rather than enforced urban growth boundaries and neotraditional development -- because overloaded and unexpandable roadways through older urban areas undermined redevelopment and forced new development into western agricultural areas and ultimately into the Everglades. Public input that called for redeveloping older areas, revitalizing older schools, etc., was recorded but only now is it bearing fruit, as efforts to entice some of the growth into older areas are beginning. These efforts are likely to be stymied, however, as the state compounds its earlier errors by pushing for school concurrency. (This will have the same result as earlier roadway concurrency, as smaller urban schools cannot expand, but new land can be found in ag and wetland western areas for new schools.) I am only an average planner, but have long championed a balanced, comprehensive approach to planning that allows a community to determine its desired land use patterns (which usually would allow for both suburban single family large lot neighborhoods AND walkable urban neighborhoods), and then determining the services that are needed to achieve that pattern. This is not a "pet rock", the theory of design professionals who have decided that they have a monopoly on saving the world, or the equity approaches of social workers-turned planners who think they know better than the folks who've lived somewhere for decades. This is planning. This is the real thing. It's a lot harder than one-size-fits-all, but it works. And its about time that planners stop either beating themselves up, or begging design professionals to recognize our importance by imitating them. Let's plan.