Randal O'Toole compares smart growth communities with 1960's-era communist planning.
"American suburbs are 'a chaotic and depressing agglomeration of buildings covering enormous stretches of land.' The cost of providing services to such 'monotonous stretches of individual low-rise houses' is too high. As a result, 'the search for a future kind of residential building leads logically to' high-density, mixed-use housing.
This sounds like typical writings of New Urbanist or smart-growth planners. In fact, these words were written nearly forty years ago by University of Moscow planners in a book titled The Ideal Communist City. The principles in their book formed a blueprint for residential construction all across Russia and eastern Europe. With a couple of minor changes, they could also be the blueprint for smart growth.
...Like the New Urbanists, the soviet planners saw several advantages to such high-density housing."
Thanks to Chris Steins
FULL STORY: Smart Growth and the Ideal City
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