The War Over 'Landscape Urbanism'

Andres Duany speaks openly about the threat he sees from the growing influence of Landscape Urbanism, which aims to prioritize the natural ecology of a site over the built environment. Duany and the New Urbanists say this approach leads to greater sprawl. Charles Waldheim at Harvard is leading the Landscape Urbanism side, and has admitted that it is intended to unseat New Urbanism as the leading thought of the day:

Neyfakh writes:

"The underlying argument between the groups goes beyond the relative merits of density, or the question of whether you should start a planning project with the buildings or with the watershed. It's an argument about whether human beings should adapt to the conditions in which they find themselves, or try to change them. Is sprawl inevitable, or isn't it? At what point does it make sense to come to terms with it and try to find pragmatic, incremental solutions that don't rely on any paradigmatic cultural shift."