Is New Urbanism A 'Last Gasp' Attempt to Reform Suburbanism?

"In the Lower Mainland's urban fringes, we still take New Urbanism seriously, in the same way we still lust after Ford Explorers. My own view is that history will regard New Urbanism as a last-gasp attempt to reform suburbanism from within, before high energy prices and new respect for land compels much denser development."

"This new wave of high density combined with high amenity is homegrown. It has turned the very word 'Vancouver' into a verb and an ideology: progressive cities now 'Vancouverize' because they believe in 'Vancouverism.'"

"We Vancouverites sell American planners and developers high density, high amenity urban development attuned to the needs of the new century. Then local developers like the Century Group go consultant shopping in Miami and end up buying the terminally pleasant nostalgia of New Urbanism. Go figure."

"Actually, checking the figures helps puncture New Urbanism's claims, especially the spiel that schemes like the one for the Southlands development present a radical increase in suburban residential densities. While this may be true by the standards of the sunbelt United States, Canadian cities have historically developed at higher densities, largely because we lack such sprawl-inducing public policies as the tax deductibility of mortgage interest and the federally funded interstate highway system."

"New Urbanism is dangerous because it claims to cure the very sprawl and social class separation that it causes."