International Editor

Ever since Prehistoric Man emerged from caves, humans have endeavored to create new living space. The New Urbanism: Toward An Architecture of Community by Peter Katz is about the current trend toward alternative developments, which eschew suburbia for that old-fashioned small town feeling. Katz's motivation to seek new urban design solutions for some of our society's problems -- transportation gridlock, decayed housing, and suburban sprawl -- yields a book that advocates a passionately practical agenda for the building, rebuilding and evolution of our cities, towns and neighborhoods. The emphasis is on the latter, as it is the building block of community; whereas the Levittown cookie-cutter style of subdivision lacks that sense of viable community.

Author Katz uses the proven method of well-documented case studies, with photos (the one of Seaside, Florida on the dust jacket is appropriately rosy in Steven Brooke's dawn shot), diagrams, detail drawings and urban design/zoning codes. In a section on "Establishing the Urban Pattern" the innovative new communities of Seaside, FL/Laguna West, CA; Kentlands, MD; South Brentwood Village, CA; Bamberton, BC; Windsor, FL; Communications Hill, CA; Rosa Vista, AZ; and Wellington, FL are examined. (Maybe the next edition of the text will include the new Florida towns Cold Springs Village, Abacoa, Rivendell, and Celebration. The last is a Disney effort near Orlando.) As the harbingers of the neo-traditional movement, each is an example of the revolution.

The revolutionaries have formed an army called "Congress for the New Urbanism" (CNU) with Katz, Miami architect Andres Duany, and about 200 other planners, architects, lawyers and developers. These troops want zoning and development laws changed to make neo-traditional communities easier to build and finance. They also seek educational changes in planning schools, so that graduates are skilled in community design rather than the bureaucracy of administration and politics. They seek the power to change a system that frustrates approvals. (The 600-home, 379-acre Sarasota community of Rivendell took a year longer than the normal time for permitting! The average local developer won't spend the money or time. Gainesville lawyer and CNU member David Coffey says, "It's as expensive as h--- and you don't know whether it's going to be approved or not." Yet, he is a strong advocate.) If approvals were easier, demonstration communities would beget even more, though the housing market may be a hard sell.

The public seems to love quarter-acre lots, pools in the backyard, gated security, and golf courses. Prof. Jay Stein, chair of the University of Florida Department of Urban & Regional Planning is also skeptical. He says, "I don't think it's a major solution. I think only a smaller segment of the market will move into that." Another skeptic is Prof. Roger Lewis of the University of Maryland, quoted in The Washington Post: "Even designing a million acres 'according to new principles' -- traditional principles -- is unlikely to have much of an impact on pressing environmental, transportation, housing, employment or racial issues."

Yet, if you would rather be a visionary than a critic, if you think that the American Dream does not lie in suburbia, and if you would rather make urban design a part of the solution rather than the problem, then this book can be your guide. The section on "Reconstructing the Urban Fabric" shows that once decay is removed, even inner cities can shine, like a new cap on a tooth. If "community" means walkable tree-lined streets, public squares, houses mixed with offices and shops, and distinct centers and edges -- then join the revolution by reading this excellent manifesto.

A study for Downtown Los Angeles (a city in search of a center) proposes radical change for the City of Angels, which was founded as a Spanish pueblo in 1781. (Back then, Angelenos walked a lot.)