Will There Be Another 'Urban Reset' and What Will it Look Like?

Some might have thought that a great "urban reset" was sure to follow the foreclosure crisis and Great Recession in 2008. Some think an "urban reset" is still sure to come.

1 minute read

February 27, 2018, 7:00 AM PST

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


Sprawl

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Kevin Adams predicts a major "urban reset" is on the horizon in the United States. Writing for the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), Adams predicts that organization and its members have been preparing for the next urban reset through mechanisms like form-based codes and neo-traditional neighborhoods. The question Adams raises is whether CNU is prepared for the next great reset.

Before answering the question, Adams provides a history of American resets, starting with the Jeffersonian period before the Industrial Revolution and continuing on to the Mid-20th Century switch to Modernism. Adams predicts the next urban reset is due soon because of modernism's destructive economic tendencies, and when it arrives, he warns of two of threats to the future resembling on that might resemble the Congress for the New Urbanism's vision for the future. As for that vision, Adams writes, "Jefferson’s 1795 Land Ordinance is instructive for the next reset, not in its details but rather in its broad strokes."

Monday, February 26, 2018 in Public Square: A CNU Journal

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I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching. Mary G., Urban Planner

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

Mary G., Urban Planner

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