Often forgotten amid the Truman Show jokes and architectural disdain are the iconic New Urbanist community's contributions to planning history, and its many innovations. Two new works are helping to reframe how the Florida town is understood.
"It’s easy to mock Seaside, and plenty do, for being overplanned, a neo-traditional artifice too consumed with nostalgia for an idyllic past that never quite existed as reconceived," writes Kaid Benfield.
"But the story is so much more good than bad. One has to remember, as the video below reminds us, that the compact, 80-acre town was conceived over 30 years ago, when almost no one was building walkable communities. If it wasn’t sprawl, it didn’t sell, or so people thought. Seaside may have been built on decades-old premises, but it was downright radical for its day."
A new book by Dhiru Thadani, Visions of Seaside, "tells the complete story of Seaside's conception and evolution." And the short documentary below, produced by Chris Elisara for the American Makeover series, explores several of the innovate ideas that form the foundation of the plan, and situates the pioneering development within the context of planning history.
Read the full story: Reconsidering Seaside, Florida
The Health of Cities Depends on Place-Based Development More than Big Projects
Cities take a physical form that either supports or is stressful to people outside of a moving vehicle or building. Witold Rybczynski, in his critique of New Urbanism, forgets that lesson.
Book Review: Visions of Seaside
A new anthology tells the story of Seaside like we've never heard it before–on its own terms.
The Unbuilt Origins of Seaside
Seaside, Florida is well known as the proving grounds for new urbanism, the place where Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk made a development into a town. Dhiru Thadani documents the early experiments and unbuilt designs in a new book.
Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.
‘Going backwards:’ Baltimore mayor, students rally against state's transit funding plan
Maryland's proposed six-year plan provides no funding for Baltimore’s BMORE bus program and reduces its road maintenance funding.
Detroit to transform waterfront with $2.2 billion investment
Developers will convert about 18 acres of unused parking lot space into civic spaces.
Data center developers are using lawsuits, cash offers to ‘overwhelm’ rural America
Newsrooms in five states worked together to uncover the tactics big tech developers use to buy land from reluctant communities.
U.S.-Iran war may have ‘devastating’ impact on cost to warm homes
Vermont and Maine residents may see a 76% increase in the cost of warming their homes this winter.
Senate bill would ‘overhaul’ environmental permitting laws
Under the proposed act, government agencies would also not be able to suspend or rescind permits after granting them.
FREE Course: Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?
After describing his path towards focusing on walkability as the essence of good planning, Jeff Speck marches through his five principal reasons for making more walkable places.
Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold
The course focuses on the opportunities and imperatives that shape reinvention of mall sites.
One Hundred Miles
County of Mendocino
planning NEXT
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
Montrose County
Northern Illinois Transit Authority (NITA)
The Pocatello Development Authority