New Urbanism has been given a bad rap, according to co-founder Andres Duany. In this piece for Metropolis he sets the record straight.
Arguing that the goals and the impact of the New Urbanism have been misconstrued and misrepresented, Duany offers a rundown of the movement's accomplishments.
"The otherwise omniscient Kenneth Frampton was recently heard to say, "The New Urbanists are they still around?" "They make porches for white Southerners, don't they?" is Rodolfo Machado's joshing version. Unfortunately, architecture students from our elite schools believe this more easily than the truth: New Urbanists wrote HUD's HOPE VI standards and are thereby responsible for about 111,000 new and renovated units of affordable housing-virtually the entire supply of the last 15 years, with a good proportion designed by CNU members. As far as the idea that the New Urbanists have been relegated to small-bore housework, Calthorpe and John Fregonese's firm alone is responsible for virtually all of the regional planning west of the Alleghenies-which is to say most of the regional planning in this country."
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