The Conservative Case for Urbanism

Writing in The Spectator World, Addison Del Mastro makes the case for a conservative urbanism, defining the term as "an awareness of the built environment as an independent variable in human behavior, and a desire that our built environments be conducive to commerce and community at a human scale."

Del Mastro points to conservative thinker Russell Kirk, who called the automobile a "mechanical Jacobin," lamenting its effects on morality and the physical form of cities. "'Other lands,' he wrote, 'lack the space and adaptability of America, so that the popular automobile may destroy the beautiful cities of Europe and the pattern of centuries of civilization.'"

According to Del Mastro, "There is, in fact, much in urbanist discourse that should appeal to conservatives — many threads that jibe with a conservative view of human nature and society. Indeed, one can recapitulate the hubris of the automobile era in a vertical form, with the massive apartment tower, or the blocks-long, mixed-use development."

Conservative urbanism, Del Mastro argues, should focus on the potential of "very average cities and towns," the potential often stifled by "outmoded land-use regulations" and the primacy of the car. "This is the urbanism of the small backyard house, an extra means of income for a middle-income family or a starter home for a young one; it is the urbanism of the corner store, the walk-up apartment above it, the narrow street along which one can slowly drive or safely walk; the sort of built environments scaled to the person, and out of which ordinary people can fashion a local social and economic ecosystem."