The suburban public realm II: Eurourbanism, new urbanism and the implications for urban design in...

Journal of Urban Design, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1997

The Suburban Public Realm II: Eurourbanism,New Urbanism and the Implications forUrban Design in the American Metropolis

MICHAEL SOUTHWORTH & BALAJI PARTHASARATHY

ABSTRACT While the first part of this two-part essay portrayed the bleakness of thesuburban public realm in the USA, the debate over how physical planning cancontribute to making it more vibrant is the subject of this second part. Eurourbanism,or the practice of looking to European cities for a design paradigm, has been criticizedon the grounds that the USA has its own distinct public realm which is eithernon-spatial in character or is located in 'non-traditional' public spaces, such as shoppingmalls, in contrast with the more 'traditional' European sites such as streets and squares.But there are questions about whether the distinctive 'American public realm' is asdemocratic, or can offer the diversity of experience of the 'traditional' public realm. Amore recent addition to the debate has been 'new urbanism' or 'neotraditionalism', whoseproponents have put forth a set of planning guidelines for suburbia by drawing ondesign principles embodied in the traditional American small town. The essay criticallyevaluates these guidelines by examining their application in two neotraditional develop-ments and proposes a research agenda to move the debate ahead.

The first part of this essay examined how historical forces, including planningand design practices, have shaped suburban form in the USA and how that, inturn, has rendered the suburban public realm bleak. Although the bleakness ofthe suburban public realm is widely acknowledged, there is much debate overhow physical planning could contribute to making it more vibrant. It is thisdebate that will be the subject of this second part.

As the lack of public amenity in the suburban public realm in the USA isespecially heightened when comparisons are made with Europe, many plannershave tended to look across the Atlantic for their design paradigms. But thistendency to look to Europe—'Eurourbanism'—has been criticized on thegrounds that the USA has its own, distinct public realm which is eithernon-spatial in character or, at least, not 'traditional' public spaces such asEuropean-style streets or squares. However, the claims about a distinct 'Ameri-can public realm' also suffer from limited validity. Intrinsic limits to 'publicness'in the non-spatial public realm, as in the case of the electronic media, andcontrols exercised on public behaviour in 'non-traditional' public spaces, which

Michael Southworth & Balaji Parthasarathy are with the Department of City and RegionalPlanning, 228 Wurster Hall, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA. Email:[email protected]; [email protected]

1357-4809/97/010009-26 © 1997 Journals Oxford Ltd

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10 M. Southworth & B. Parthasarathy

are mostly privately produced or managed consumption spaces such as shop-ping malls, distinguish them from the sites of a truly democratic public realm.

While a lively debate has served to clarify many aspects, it has reached animpasse as it fails to provide any immediate guidance to physical plannersattempting to contribute to a vibrant public realm. Recent conceptual effortshave made a definite attempt to overcome the impasse by developing a set ofprinciples and guidelines for physical planners from a critique of contemporarysuburban form and the public realm. One such effort will be critically scruti-nized here: the new urbanism or neotraditional development. Many proponentsof neotraditional development argue that though the private realm in theAmerican suburb is extremely comfortable, its public realm has been destroyedthanks largely to automobile-centric planning and design. For an alternative tothe solutions provided thus far by planning bureaucracies and traffic engineers,they turn to the traditional small town in the USA to derive a set of planningand design principles to restore the suburban public realm.

To evaluate the efficacy of neotraditionalism, this essay compares two neotra-ditional developments, Kentlands, Maryland, and Laguna West, California, withthe Elmwood district in Berkeley, California, an early twentieth-century streetcar suburb with a lively public realm. Though Elmwood has a better physicalstructure to support its public realm, neotraditional development is nonethelessa welcome addition to the debate, providing a refreshing alternative. However,it is argued that instead of accepting neotraditional design as a final solution tothe question of restoring the suburban public realm, it should be treated as apoint of departure in the debate. This is because the guidelines of neotraditionaldesign, which attempt to influence suburban form in order to achieve a set ofsocial goals that will collectively restore the public realm, are based on a generalset of hypotheses about the relationship between suburban form and thesuburban public realm. The underlying premise is that a change in the physicalstructure of the suburb will suffice to bring about a change in the public realm.Such a premise is highly problematic as it reduces the public realm to aphysically determined entity, overlooking much of its social complexity. Tomove the debate ahead, therefore, there is a need for empirical studies tospecifically evaluate the relationship between suburban form and the suburbanpublic realm in various contexts. Toward that end, the essay concludes with anagenda for further research.

The Debate on Planning for the Recovery of the Public Realm

Eurourbanism and the Distinctiveness of the Public Realm in the United States

The portrayal of a rather dismal public realm in suburban America in the firstpart of this essay is brought into focus more sharply when transatlantic compari-sons are made. After an extensive comparison of suburban lifestyles in the USA,Britain and Sweden, Popenoe (1989, p. 82) conclusively states that, thoughAmericans have bigger houses than most Europeans, they "live in an environ-ment of private affluence and public squalor". As the transatlantic differences inthe quality of the public realm are accompanied by differences in urban form,some physical planners in the USA have chosen to look to the old, more denseand organic European cities for a design paradigm that will help stem thedecline of the public realm at home. This is especially because public spaces in

The Suburban Public Realm II 11

Figure 1. Piazza in Bergamo, Italy. European public spaces may not provide anappropriate model for the American suburb.

the much-admired older sections of European cities, such as the piazzas ofmedieval and Renaissance towns, offer a sense of enclosure and a setting fordiverse public activities (Figure 1). Whether by design or accident, theseopen spaces were woven into the urban fabric, whereas the two-dimensionalapproach to the layout of cities in the USA (Gutman, 1986) meant that publicspaces were, more often than not, weakly defined.

'Eurourbanism' has, however, come under attack and a debate has ensuedover planning and design approaches and the nature of the public realm in theUSA. According to Martin (1990, p. 37), urban designers in the USA who look upto European models invariably tend to draw up a wish list of "animated civicspaces, opportunities for people watching and gathering in the city centre, anda vibrancy difficult to specify". But these wishes are difficult, if not impossible,to grant as they ignore fundamental differences in the social and economiccontexts.

As one instance of these differences, Martin points out that, unlike manyEuropean nations, the USA is a much more heterogeneous society. It might beunrealistic to expect such diversity to congregate and create the kind of publicrealm that exists in a more homogenous society. That people have turned theirbacks on public spaces is probably an indication that proximity with people ofwidely differing backgrounds can be socially problematic. To Martin, thoselooking to Europe fail to see class uniformity in public spaces and, thus, whatthey are envying is essentially "middle class and unproblematic" (1990, p. 38).This, she argues, gives rise to a narrow conception of urban liveability that is


elitist and a tendency to ignore basic issues, such as jobs and infrastructure, thatare not uniformly available for people of different backgrounds. The issue ofhomogeneity is especially pertinent at a time when there is rising violenceagainst immigrant workers in countries such as Germany and France.

The reference to the USA as a heterogeneous society, however, must beinterpreted with some caution as there does exist widespread class homogeneitythanks, in part, to physical planning. Though the origins of zoning regulationslay in public health considerations, it is widely recognized that when suchregulations prescribe limits such as minimum lot sizes, they often become anindirect means for the exclusion of certain sodoeconomic groups. Similarly, Cox& Nartowicz (1980) provide an alternative perspective to the argument formetropolitan fragmentation on the grounds of efficient provision of differentservice 'bundles' (Ostrom et ah, 1961). To them, differentiation in service pro-vision is little more than an apology for income-based segregation. They arguethat the coming together of homogenous populations or classes in such jurisdic-tions is grounded in a desire to preserve the exchange value of their properties,a logic similar to that behind many zoning regulations.

Cox & Nartowicz go further to explain why class homogeneity by itself hasnot provided an adequate basis for generating an active public life. They arguethat, since the rationale for living with similar people is based on consumptionpatterns, there is a "splitting off of community from individual in the form ofpublicly provided services..." leading to a "concomitant decline of mechanismsof social control..." (1980, p. 206). Popenoe provides a similar explanation as towhy, despite class homogeneity in most communities, there is little in commonbetween people of diverse backgrounds. Though "Americanism may generate amodest cultural integration...the meanings and values thus shared often areshallow, and the integration itself is fragile and easily upset" (1989, p. 103).Popenoe argues that, in the USA, the strongest tie is to place of work. That tieis also insufficient to generate 'publicness' because of the tendency to see workas a means to consumption rather as an end in itself.

As the very different social context in the USA has failed to generate sufficient'publicness' and European-style public life, critics of Eurourbanism argue thatthere has been no opportunity for similar (sub)urban public spaces to emerge. Tobe sure there were instances of settlements in the USA with public spacescomparable to those in Europe. Early examples include the commons in NewEngland towns which served as a multifunctional gathering space for citizens,and the public square in the settlements of the West and the Southwest whoselayout was influenced by the directives of the Laws of the Indies (Figure 2). Buteven in such cases, Jackson (1984) argues that public spaces in towns in the USAhad a more relaxed atmosphere and lacked the same civic or political characteras those in European towns.

While early cities in the USA were compactly organized, and thus sharedsome of the physical characteristics of European counterparts, in the latenineteenth century they began to spread because there was plenty of space andtechnology allowed it. It was precisely at this time that a nation that had beenlargely rural until then became predominantly urban. The timing, then, made acrucial difference in terms of the kind of public life and public spaces thatdeveloped subsequently. As a result, as Martin (1990) argues, Americans are nota very public people, at least in the way Europeans are, simply because they donot have to be.


(b)

Figure 2. Early American towns contained public squares as in (a) Greenfield,New Hampshire and (b) Santa Fe, New Mexico.

New possibilities emerged with technologies such as the automobile, tele-phone, television and, lately, the Internet, dramatically improving communi-cation and human capacity to conquer space and time. People were no longerconfined to the local plaza or street corner either for information or other


requirements and, in general, there was less need for frequent contact with thosein immediate proximity. As growing affluence ensured the extensive penetrationof these technologies into their society, Americans began to enjoy the conve-nience of driving to various destinations for their daily requirements, of commu-nicating over the telephone, or of listening to the news or being entertained athome by television. The convenience derived in part from being able to selectfrom a variety of choices that became available. Thus, people could choose totalk to only whomsoever they wished, regardless of distance, or switch betweensources of news and entertainment. To give one instance of the extent ofpenetration of these technologies, Popenoe (1989) points out that Americans arethe most avid television viewers in the world whereas fewer channels maketelevision less attractive in Europe. The extensive penetration and convenienceof the new technologies made it possible for Americans to withdraw from'traditional' public spaces such as the street. It also made it unlikely that theywould give up possession of such technologies voluntarily, at least as long astheir affluence persisted. Venturi (1966, p. 133) sums up the situation by statingthat "Americans feel uncomfortable sitting in a square. They should be workingat the office or home with the family looking at television."

Since it became possible for Americans to withdraw from public spaces,thanks to electronic media in particular, the public realm was no longer locatedconceptually in a physically bounded space. In effect, a diverse society withdistinctive social characteristics has taken advantage of technological advancesand its affluence to reconstitute itself from being a society of territorially boundcommunities into a society of communities without propinquity that are heldtogether by shared interests (Webber, 1963). Whereas territorially bound com-munities tend to have an active public life in 'traditional' public spaces, thepublic realm in interest-based communities tends to be primarily non-spatial.

Even where the public realm is spatially rooted, it is not necessarily to befound in the same locations as in Europe. Instead it is to be found in what maybe broadly classified as consumption spaces. As examples of a distinct Americanpublic life and its associated spaces, Brill (1989) cites watching a ball game androoting for a team with other fans at a ball park or shopping at the suburbanmall at almost any hour (as opposed to more restricted shopping hours inEurope). To Martin (1990), shopping malls have become de facto communitycentres and Birmingham (1978) describes how many of them attract hugecrowds by creating an atmosphere of small-town America. This atmosphere iscreated by designing circulation areas in shopping malls to seem like a town'sstreets and squares and by hosting symphony orchestras and similar shows inthese areas (Figure 3). Birmingham goes further to argue that shopping malls notonly meet old psychological needs for convenient availability of a wide range ofgoods at one spot but also new psychological needs for displaying wealth andsocial status.

In the context of the unique character of American society, its public activitiesand public spaces, Brill (1989) finds the lament about the loss of the public realm,and the obsessive concern of urban designers with European prototypes, to beno more than nostalgia for a way of life that is an anachronism. He accuses'Eurourbanists' of failing to realize that Italian piazzas, for instance, weredesigned for a different age to serve functions largely irrelevant in contemporaryAmerican society. He also suggests that the decline in neighbourhood life isconfused with, and interpreted as, a decline in public life.


Figure 3. Horton Plaza, San Diego. Many would argue that the shopping mall hastaken over the social functions of the town square.

7s There a Distinctive 'American Public Realm'?

If there are strong arguments against looking to Europe for urban designmodels, there are also strong arguments against the claim that there is adistinctive public realm in the USA. Basically, the argument is that there aredefinite limits to communication and encounters in the non-spatial public realmand in the more contemporary or 'non-traditional' spaces such as shoppingmalls and ball parks. While the 'American public realm' has given people widechoice in deciding with whom to communicate or what they want to encounter,it has also allowed them to experience public life very selectively. The argument


is not so much against choice but, to the extent that certain aspects of public lifeare excluded, claims about a truly democratic public realm are difficult tosustain.

In the non-spatial public realm, especially as it is constituted by electronicmeans, it is useful to distinguish between technologies that permit one-waycommunication and those that permit two-way communication. Broadcasting,including radio and television, is probably the best example of the first category.In this case, it is self-evident that it is the broadcaster who decides on whatimages and sounds to transmit and the viewer or listener is no more than apassive recipient for pre-programmed, and increasingly institutionalized, trans-mittals. Viewers and listeners are unable to react and simultaneously play anactive part in the affairs of the world they are supposedly a part of, whichaccording to Arendt (1958), is the essence of being public. In this respect,technologies permitting two-way communication are an improvement. But heretoo, as in the case of the telephone, communication is, at best, selective. The caseof the Internet is more interesting as it permits one, in common parlance, to'cruise the net', thus opening up opportunities for unplanned encounters withstrangers in cyberspace. But cyberspace is also not immune to a key drawbackthat afflicts the non-spatial public realm, regardless of the technologies constitut-ing it. The non-spatial public realm is a monodimensional world bereft ofmultisensory information. In contrast, presence in a public space means beingexposed to a variety of psychological and sensory encounters. Note that whenwe argue that a person must be prepared for a range of experiences in the publicrealm, including unpleasant ones, we are aware that many would find a morecontrolled environment attractive, especially for the safety and cleanliness it mayoffer. Though safety and cleanliness are values that we also cherish, what we arearguing against is an extremely sanitized Disneyland-like urban environmentwhich presents a distorted view of the world. At the same time, we believe thatpublic spaces with 'eyes' (Jacobs, 1961) can prevent uncontrolled encounters andensure a vibrant but safe public realm.

While experiential limits are intrinsic to the non-spatial realm, such limitsresult from conscious control in the case of consumption spaces. To term spacessuch as malls or ball parks, or golf clubs and fitness centres, as public spaces is,strictly speaking, a misnomer since most of them are no more than privatelyprovided or managed commercial spaces. They are public only in so far as theyattract large numbers of people as business patrons. In the case of malls, apartfrom their retail displays, creating an atmosphere of small-town America, asmentioned earlier, is just one of the means by which they attract people. Whatwas not mentioned, however, is that the conscious control of 'publicness' is anequally important means to the same end. Consequently, the analogy betweena shopping mall and community centre, or a mall corridor and a public street,or a 'plaza' and a town square, has but limited validity. If anything, it onlyobscures the distinction between the sites of a truly democratic public realmand those that are no more than "ornamental appendages of commercialism"(Popenoe, 1989, p. 117).

On one hand, we would argue that the very attempt to draw such analogiesonly reinforces the importance of the original public spaces. For instance, themall corridor or 'plaza' is a public space, not in its own right, but only becauseit is somehow similar to the public street or town square. On the other hand,others highlight the definite limits on civil liberty in privately produced or


managed public spaces. They argue that these spaces are obsessively concernedwith their image, especially with their security and cleanliness, and its impact onbusiness (Whyte, 1988). In their efforts to project a pro-business image, themanagers of many spaces hire private security forces to police their premisesand to control the presence and behaviour of people they consider undesirable(Frieden & Sagalyn, 1989).

As an instance of what is considered undesirable activity, Frieden & Sagalynpoint out that political activism has been strongly discouraged, or is at bestlimited and selective, in most malls. Though, in 1980, the United States SupremeCourt upheld a California ruling that allowed political petitioning in malls undera state constitutional guarantee of free speech, according to the authors, "Eventhe decisions most favourable to political activity leave the malls far less openthan public streets" (1989, p. 231). Any political activity in malls is underconditions dictated and controlled by property managers who have the courtsbehind them maintaining that other fora exist for political expression. Forinstance, a 1994 ruling of the New Jersey Supreme Court held that thoughshopping malls may have replaced traditional downtowns, and the public has aright to free speech there, it is only within reasonable limits: handing out leafletsis permissible, whereas placards, bullhorns and demonstrations are not. Thus,Frieden and Sagalyn conclude that "the public has traded some rights of politicalexpression for quiet Saturdays at the mall" (1989, p. 233).

Frieden & Sagalyn also point out that in its efforts to screen people who seempotentially annoying to business patrons, private security tends to apprehendsuspects without informing them of their constitutional rights. In a morescathing critique of the growing tendency to privatize the production andmaintenance of public spaces, Davis (1992) argues that those who are screenedin such spaces usually belong to the disadvantaged sections of society. To Davis,the very visible presence of security guards and cameras, and the use of designelements such as reflective glass, in privately produced and managed spaces, isall part of the "archisemiotics of class war" (1992, p. 231). The symbolism"insinuates violence and conjures imaginary dangers. In many instances, thesemiotics of so-called defensible space are just about as subtle as a swaggeringwhite cop. Today's upscale, pseudo-public spaces—sumptuary malls, officecentres, cultural acropolises, and so on—are full of invisible signs warning offthe underclass 'Other'. Although architectural critics are usually oblivious ofhow the built environment contributes to segregation, pariah groups—whetherpoor Latino groups, young Black men, or elderly homeless white females—readthe meaning immediately" (1992, p. 226). Davis contrasts what he sees as urbanapartheid with the more liberal views of early designers of public spaces, likeOlmsted, who created parks for "mixing classes and ethnicities in common(bourgeois) recreations and enjoyments" (1992, p. 227). Thus, to Davis, a centraltheme of privatization as a sociospatial strategy, in combination with decreasingpublic spending on spaces such as public parks or public toilets, is to 'kill thecrowd'.

Davis's point about killing the crowd in the late twentieth century is similarto the reference that Sennett (1977) makes to nineteenth-century bourgeoisperceptions about crowds being the setting for all things undesirable. If Sennettwas right about such perceptions having played a role in the decline of publiclife in the past, Davis's point hardly augers well for the public realm today. Thisis especially so as spaces provided by the private sector—shopping malls, golf


(a)

(b)

Figure 4. Privately owned golf courses, health clubs and other recreationalfacilities are among the few social spaces in suburbia but they are not accessibleto all members of the public. Even children's play is becoming privatized, with

many businesses that rent managed indoor settings for entertainment.

and tennis clubs, health and fitness centres—seem to be increasingly taking oversome of the social roles of public space. Here, the risks of encountering strangersare minimized and the costs of providing and maintaining such settings are nota burden to the local government (Figure 4). For the recovery and restoration ofthe public realm in American suburbs in the twenty-first century, it thenbecomes imperative to stop glorifying the distinct 'American public realm' and


Figure 5. Empty parking lots and streets are regularly converted to farmers'markets and flea markets, attracting large and diverse crowds.

to pay more attention to improving the quality of 'traditional' public spaces,such as streets, within the distinct historical and social context of the USA. Thefrequency with which parking lots and streets, for instance, are regularlyconverted to weekend flea markets, farmers' markets or street festivals, attract-ing large and diverse crowds, only indicates that the use of public space ishardly an anachronistic practice (Figure 5).

Furthering the Debate

New Urbanism and Neotraditional Development as an Alternative Design Paradigm

Although the debate on planning for the recovery of the public realm raisesmany issues, it fails to answer an important question. It is clear that, given thevery different social and historical trajectory of the USA, looking to Europe forready-made planning and design solutions is hard to justify. Highlighting thelimits to claims about a distinctive 'American public realm' also indirectlyreinforces the importance of 'traditional' public spaces such as streets in foster-ing the public realm. However, the question of what physical planners shoulddo while designing suburban environments, and public spaces within them, topromote a vibrant realm has not been answered. While transatlantic socialdifferences are spelt out in the critique of Eurourbanism, their implications forphysical planning are not. Similarly, the critique of the non-spatial public realm,on the grounds that it fails to provide a full range of sensory and psychological


encounters, and the critique of the publicness of privately provided or managedpublic spaces, on grounds of civil liberties violation, also fails to provide anyimmediate guide to physical planners. In other words, the value of the debate isrestricted to its pointing out where to seek the public realm and what designstrategies to avoid rather than providing tangible guidelines to physical plan-ners. In recent years, however, alternative paradigms have been put forward toguide physical planners and to move the debate ahead.

To the 'new urbanists' or 'neotraditionalists', American suburbs, especiallypostwar suburbs, are an experiment gone awry. Echoing Popenoe (1989), Duany& Plater-Zyberk (1992) argue that though Americans have a very comfortableprivate realm—be it spacious houses equipped with the latest appliances orconvenient and well-managed shopping areas and workplaces—suburbansprawl has destroyed the public realm. The "classic suburb is less a communitythan an agglomeration of nouses, shops and offices connected to one another bycars, not by the fabric of human life" (Duany & Plater-Zyberk, 1992, p. 21). Theabsence of well-conceived public spaces in such suburbs almost forcibly confinespeople to their houses and cars while discouraging activities such as strolling,walking or mingling with neighbours. "The only public space is the shoppingmall, which in reality is only quasipublic, given over almost entirely to commer-cial ends...The suburb is the last word in privatization, perhaps even its lethalconsummation, and it spells the end of authentic civic life" (ibid., 1992, p. 21).

As an alternative to the physical environment that has emerged from thecollective wisdom of planning bureaucracies and traffic engineers, the newurbanists draw inspiration from the traditional American small town which ischaracterized by the compactness, interconnectedness and the finite size of itsneighbourhoods. Duany & Plater-Zyberk justify their model by arguing thatAmericans find the traditional small town extremely attractive and point to thehigh property values in these towns as proof of what people are willing to payto live in such an environment. They also argue that, but for misguidedplanning, the real estate industry would have also preferred such developmentsto sprawling suburbs as the former are cheaper to service with infrastructure.

Since compactness is a distinguishing feature of the traditional small town,neotraditional development advocates densities that are higher than the prevail-ing norm in the sprawling suburb. It is critical of zoning practices that rigidlyseparate different uses in space. Duany & Plater-Zyberk point out that smallestablishments, such as corner stores, are very much a part of residentialneighbourhoods in the traditional small town. This mix of functions affordspeople an opportunity of meeting at least some of their routine needs withindistances that do not force them to make an automobile trip. Duany & Plater-Zyberk are also critical of inflexible land-use requirements that lead to segre-gation by class. Arguing that "economic segregation is not the American way"(1992, p. 29), they recommend mixing housing types so that affluent enclaves ormiddle-class neighbourhoods are not demarcated from the ghettos of the poor.Putting apartments over small commercial establishments to house employees isa technique they borrow from the traditional small town to incorporate afford-able housing.

The inability to house different age-groups without segregating them isanother aspect of the inflexibility of prevailing land-use regulations. Duany &Plater-Zyberk argue that since the very old and the very young tend to berelatively immobile, in terms of being able to travel independently the long


distances to meet their needs in a sprawling suburb, they ought to be integratedwith the rest of the community in mixed-use neighbourhoods. To achieve theintegration of different age-groups, they want zoning codes to permit outbuild-ings, in the form of either compact backyard cottages or garage apartments. Oldpeople, especially those whose children have moved out, may no longer requirelarge single-family homes. The outbuilding could be used by the elderly whilethe main house is either occupied by younger members of the family or rentedout.

The biggest paradox of suburban America, according to Duany & Plater-Zyberk, is that despite its sprawl and low density, high levels of traffic are apervasive feature. One reason so much traffic is generated is, of course, zoningpractices that functionally partition the suburb and force people to drive for alltheir requirements. Another reason is the hierarchical and disconnected streetpattern which minimizes route options and channels those driving between anytwo functional zones in the suburb along arterial roads and freeways. In contrastwith recent suburban street patterns, the orthogonal grid is the predominantstreet pattern in the traditional small town and, as a result, its residentialneighbourhoods are "seamlessly connected to the rest of the town..." (Duany &Plater-Zyberk, 1992, p. 23). This not only provides multiple route options butalso reduces traffic concentration on particular roads. Better route connectivityalso does not make driving the only option for residents when visiting nearbyresidential or commercial neighbourhoods.

Besides changing the street pattern, the key to sustaining the public realm,according to Duany & Plater-Zyberk, is to appropriate the street effectively foruse by people instead of it being a mere channel for efficient vehicular move-ment. However, people are unlikely to use the street unless they have a sense ofplace. Thus, the new urbanists pay a lot of attention to the design of thesuburban streetscape. Laying an orthogonal street grid is a first step as itprovides a clear sense of direction to those on the road. In contrast, the constantchange in direction that a user experiences on the curving streets that havedominated suburban street patterns since the Second World War can be terriblydisorientating. But a curving street is not without its advantages. It affordsconstantly changing vistas whereas travelling on an unending straight roadcan be visually tiresome. To provide the visual interest, the new urbanistsrecommend locating landmarks, particularly well-designed public buildingssuch as libraries, at strategic junctions in the grid.

Visual interest on a street is also provided by human activity. Thus, in thecontext of residential streets, Duany & Plater-Zyberk emphasize the need to"project the human presence within the house to those passing on the street"(1992, p. 38, original emphasis) so that people can see other people. But this isnot possible if garages overwhelm the street fagade of the suburban house. Inorder to open the house to the street, they propose to relocate the garage in rearalleys. Such alleys used to be provided in traditional small towns to facilitatetrash disposal. In addition to providing a less visible location for garages, alleysalso provide the necessary easements for locating service lines. By cutting downon mandatory service easements on the main street, it becomes possible toreduce the street width.

Reducing street width is important to the new urbanists, who contend thatpresently streets are too wide. Though greater street width may accommodatehigher levels of vehicular traffic by allowing for more lanes, it fails to define and


enclose the street in a manner that will provide a sense of place. To providedefinition and enclosure, they suggest that the width of the street should not bemore than six times the height of the buildings that line it. Since Americans tendto prefer low houses with deep yards, Duany & Plater-Zyberk say that treesshould be planted along the street in existing suburbs to achieve an appropriateheight-to-width ratio. The sense of definition and enclosure is further enhancedwhen the buildings line the street to form an unbroken wall instead of beingdiscontinuous, isolated objects.

Neotraditional planning guidelines pursue certain social objectives in order tosustain a vibrant public realm. Lennertz (1991, p. 102) summarizes those objec-tives as:

1. The compact organisation reduces the requirements for infrastruc-ture, automobile use, and pollution, and facilitates public transit.

2. The full range of housing types and workplaces helps to integrate allage groups and economic classes.

3. The provision of comfortable public places allows residents to cometo know each other and watch over their collective security.

4. The provision of most of the necessities of daily life within walkingdistance allows the elderly and the young to gain independence ofmovement.

5. Suitable civic buildings are intended to encourage democratic initia-tives and the balanced evolution of society.

Two Neotraditional Developments and a Streetcar Suburb

To evaluate the efficacy of neotraditional development, two such developments,Kentlands and Laguna West, are compared with Elmwood in Berkeley, Califor-nia, a district with a lively public realm. Kentlands is planned as a communityof 1600 dwelling units with a projected population of 5000 at the south-westernedge of Gaithersburg, Maryland. Located 12 miles south of downtown Sacra-mento, California, Laguna West is a 1018 acre development designed for 3300dwelling units and a projected population of about 10 000. The origins ofElmwood can be traced to the housing boom following the San Franciscoearthquake of 1906. Though Elmwood was initially a streetcar suburb locatedaway from the central city, urban expansion and infill over the century havenow made it an integral part of the Oakland-Berkeley metropolitan area. Thedistrict has a population of about 5000 and is home to 2300 dwelling units in anarea of 225 acres. This gives Elmwood a gross density of 10.24 dwelling units peracre. In contrast, at build-out, Kentlands will have 4.78 dwelling units per acrewhile Laguna West will have 3.24. While these figures compare favourably withprevailing suburban densities, which range between one and five units per acre,they are clearly lower than what has been achieved in Elmwood.

Both Kentlands and Laguna West try to improve on the typical suburb byattempting a mix of land uses as well as housing types. Kentlands includes onemillion square feet of office space and 1.2 million square feet of retail space alongwith other facilities including two places of worship, an elementary school, aday care centre, a community recreation centre and a library. There is a mix ofsingle-family detached houses, row houses, condominiums and apartments.There are also living units, or granny flats, above some garages. In Laguna West,a community centre with civic, retail and office space, a church, a day care centre


and an elementary school are incorporated along with the residential compo-nent. There is also a light industrial zone adjacent to the project site. The mix ofhousing in Laguna West is similar to Kentlands except that there are no rowhouses. Instead, there are closely spaced zero-lot-line houses. Nor is a mixtureof dwelling types to be found in a single street or block as in Kentlands.

Despite the effort to provide a mix of land uses and housing types, the grainof uses at build-out in Kentlands and Laguna West is much coarser than it is inElmwood (Figure 6). This difference in grain, along with higher density, makesit far easier to walk to nearby stores and other requirements in Elmwoodwhereas in Kentlands, and especially in Laguna West, "distances to many of theretail and service centres...are too great to expect most residents to walk to themon a regular basis. Thus, for most residents these communities are likely toremain auto-oriented like other suburbs" (Southworth, 1995, p. 31).

The street pattern in both the neotraditional developments, and especially inKentlands, shows greater interconnection of streets and a less pronounced streethierarchy than in conventional suburbs (Figure 7). Kentlands has a warped grid,in part to accommodate a gentle hilly terrain, with culs-de-sac and loops in a fewlocations. The development also has alleys, where garages are located, and anetwork of pedestrian and bicycle paths. The high level of interconnectednessamongst roads, alleys and pathways offers numerous route options. The streetpattern in Laguna West is dominated by three strong axial boulevards radiatingfrom the centre. Otherwise there are few straight streets and numerous culs-de-sac. In this respect the street pattern in Laguna West is not too different from thetypical street pattern in post-Second World War suburbs. The street pattern inElmwood is an irregular grid with blocks of different sizes. There is high streetconnectivity and most street intersections are four-way. Though the original gridhad very few loops or culs-de-sac, more of these have been created by installing'Berkeley barriers', large concrete planters installed at intersections to regulatetraffic flow so that residential streets remain safe and quiet. It is important tonote, however, that Berkeley barriers decrease street connectivity only formotorists; for the pedestrian or bicyclist continuity is maintained.

While Elmwood has the least street length among the three areas, bothneotraditional developments have reversed the post-Second World Wartendency toward decreased street lengths (Figure 8; also see Figure 1, Part I).Thanks to its alleys, Kentlands has the highest street length and the largestnumber of intersections and blocks. Though Laguna West has more blocksand intersections than in postwar suburbs, there are fewer than in Elmwood.With fewer loops and culs-de-sac than postwar suburbs, both Kentlands andLaguna West have better connectivity within their boundaries. Kentlandsand Laguna West also have far more access points to the surroundings thanpostwar suburbs. However, it is Elmwood that has the best connectivity withits surroundings as it is now an integral part of a larger metropolitan area,whereas Kentlands and Laguna West are both insular developments at the urbanperiphery.

Both Kentlands and Laguna West move away from the garagescape ofpostwar suburbs in an effort to open up houses to the street. In Kentlands thegarages are located in alleys whereas in Laguna West they are either set to theside or to the back of the house. As the garage moves away from the front of thehouse, the porch takes its place in both developments and dominates the streetfacade. In Elmwood too, the street facade is dominated by porches which,


KENTLANDS

.,,. if il l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l H I III I l l l l l l

LAGUNA WEST

SINGLE FAMILY DETACHED

SINGLE FAMILY ATTACHED

MULTI-FAMILY

MULTI-USE

RETAIUDOMMERCIAL

PROFESSIONAL OFFICE

LIGHT INDUSTRIAL

CIVIC/INSTITUTIONAL

0 500' 1000' 1/2 MILE

ELMWOOD

Figure 6. Land-use patterns: Kentlands, Laguna West and Elmwood.


0 500' 1000' 1/2 MILE

ELMWOOD

Figure 7. Circulation patterns: Kentlands, Laguna West and Elmwood.


StreetPatterns

Intersections

Lineal Feetof Streets

Number ofBlocks

Number ofIntersections

Number ofAccessPointsNumber ofLoops &Cul-de-sacs

ELMWOOD(1905)

id+ + +J-V1

18,000

23

20

17

1

KENTLANDS(1989)

LAGUNA WEST(1990s)

HiT+T > X '

-< f 7- •< •* .

v * ,24,000

(alleys 7,000)

24(w.o. alleys 14)

41(with alleys)

22

10

V JLJJJ.

19,000

16

20

14

15

Figure 8. Comparison of street patterns: Kentlands, Laguna West and Elmwood.

however, tend to be larger than those in Kentlands and Laguna West. Mostgarages in Elmwood are located at the back of the house due to narrower lotswhich range typically between 30 and 40 feet wide, compared with 22 and 88feet in Kentlands, and 35 and 60 feet in Laguna West.

The narrow lots in Elmwood also mean that houses are more closely spaced.Along with mature trees that shade most of the narrow streets (30 to 34 feetwide) there is a sense of definition and enclosure on the public spaces of thedistrict. In Kentlands and Laguna West too, an attempt has been made to definestreet space. Streets are narrower than in postwar suburbs: as against the 60-footright-of-way recommended by the Institute of Transportation Engineers, streetsin Kentlands have a 50-feet right-of-way while alleys are 26 feet. In LagunaWest, though major streets match postwar standards, local streets are only 30feet wide. Sidewalks are found on both sides of all streets and pedestrians are


protected from traffic by parking lanes. All sidewalks are planted with treesthough it will take several years before they mature and provide the kind ofdefinition and enclosure that is available in Elmwood (Figure 9).

In addition to the framework of streets, public open spaces are a major designfeature in both neotraditional developments. In Kentlands, about 100 acres, or28% of the site, is devoted to public open spaces and they come in many sizesand forms including village greens, a pond and a recreational park. In LagunaWest, public open spaces account for about 205 acres or 20% of the site.One-third of this area consists of shallow lagoons with the rest being allocatedto parks. Public open spaces in both developments are accessible and have beenprovided much more plentifully than in most suburbs or traditional neighbour-hoods. In Kentlands, these spaces are numerous and comfortably scaled,whereas.in Laguna West they are large and empty. Despite the expense that islikely to be involved in maintaining them, these spaces, in their present state atleast, lack the character of well-defined sites for community interaction (Figures10 and 11). However, things could change over time with landscape design. Insharp contrast with these two neotraditional developments, there is very littledesignated public open space in Elmwood. There are virtually no parks orplaygrounds within the district although there are major city and regional parkswithin half a mile.

Assessing Neotraditional Development

Though Elmwood emerges with superior physical characteristics in our com-parison, as a conceptual initiative challenging the hegemonic control thatplanning bureaucracies and traffic engineers have had on suburban planningand design, especially since the Second World War, neotraditional design is awelcome addition to the debate on planning for the recovery of the public realm.This is especially because it demonstrates a pragmatic understanding of theproblems with contemporary suburban form. The pragmatism is probably bestevident in the attempts to integrate man and automobile in the suburb. Thoughthe present state of the suburban public realm is clearly an outcome of planningpractices that have been most strongly influenced by the needs of an automobile-owning society, any effort to segregate people and automobiles, much lessbanish the latter from the suburb, is impractical. Indeed, it must be recalled thatthe hierarchical and disconnected street pattern came about only because of aneffort to cater to the needs of suburban residents and automobiles separately:arterial roads were meant to allow automobiles to move efficiently whilekeeping them out of local streets which would remain safe and quiet forresidents. The initial separation of the domain of man from the domain of theautomobile in the suburb was followed by the shrinking of the former as theautomobile came to play an important economic and cultural role in Americansociety. It is precisely because of this important role that the automobile cannotbe wished away. But instead of posing the planning issue in terms of 'manversus the automobile', the new urbanists have chosen to 'tame' the automobileand subordinate it to the needs of the suburban public realm.

Integrating the automobile without allowing it to overwhelm the suburb alsotakes the sting out of arguments that 'traditional' public spaces no longer matteron the grounds that the public realm in the USA is either non-spatial in characteror is located in 'non-traditional' public spaces. Again, instead of taking an


(a)

(b)


(c)

Figure 9. Comparison of neotraditional and traditional street designstreetscape: (a) Kentlands, (b) Laguna West and (c) Elmwood.

and

approach that characterizes the public realm as being entirely spatial or non-spatial, or entering into endless arguments about the relative importance of'traditional' and 'non-traditional' public spaces, neotraditional design recognizesthat of the range of human activities which may somehow qualify as beingpublic, some may be conducted in the non-spatial realm, others in 'non-traditional' public spaces, while there are others that remain firmly rooted inpublic spaces such as streets and parks.

Despite the critique of the publicness of consumption spaces, such spaces ashuge shopping malls, to which people need to drive, are unlikely to vanish fromthe suburban landscape in the foreseeable future as they are institutionalarrangements that effectively cater to certain human needs. Similarly, technolo-gies like the telephone or the computer, which provide Internet access, are hereto stay in contemporary society for the same reason. Thus, any realistic designstrategy to alter suburban form must accommodate these institutional andtechnological innovations. At the same time, there is nothing intrinsic in thewidespread social penetration of these innovations which a priori diminishes theneed or desire for such things as unplanned encounters, or socializing on thestreet with others in the neighbourhood, or being able to access conveniencessuch as a grocery store on foot or by bicycle.

While the conceptual novelty and the pragmatism of neotraditional design arewelcome, they can also be limiting. Compromises result as a novel conceptbattles for acceptance with the inertia of deep-rooted ideas and attitudes. Butwhen the compromises are made, the results may not be terribly novel. In

30 M. Southworth & B. Parthasamthy

KENTLANDS

LAGUNA WEST

0 500" 1000" 1/2 MILE

ELMWOOD

Figure 10. Public open space patterns: Kentlands, Laguna West and Elmwood.


(a)

(b)

Figure 11. Public spaces: (a) Kentlands and (b) Laguna West.

Kentlands, for instance, the initial plan integrated the shopping mall withresidential neighbourhoods so that the retail space would serve both a regionalclientele arriving by car and neighbourhood residents arriving on foot. The ideawas to allow anchor stores to face a street that would allow pedestrians accesswithout having to cross parking lots. But the shopping centre developerdemanded a more conventional, automobile-oriented plan that forced the mall tolocate across a major arterial road, separate from the residential neighbourhoodsand significantly compromising pedestrian access (Southworth, 1995).

When deep-rooted ideas border on social prejudice, they may prove evenharder to overcome. Audirac & Shermyen (1994) point to widespread negativeperceptions of social integration and higher densities amongst suburban resi-dents. Arguing that "zoning and its spatial manifestation in suburbia are theevolutionary outcomes of a long tradition of exclusionary middle-class Americanvalues" (1994, p. 169), they refer to numerous studies that clearly demonstrateopposition to socially and ethnically diverse neighbourhoods, and high-density


developments that contain a large proportion of rental units. And plannersworking in the increasingly politicized environment of local government de-cision making, whether they are employed in bureaucracies or are independentconsultants, may have little option but to accept planning outcomes influencedby such prejudices.

Even if a project is built following neotraditional principles, there is still thepossibility of residents modifying it in a manner that defeats the concept. Forinstance, in Seaside, Florida, the very first neotraditional development whichbrought critical acclaim to the concept, all houses have front porches to providea transition between the private and public realms. But many residents allowedshrubs to grow and screen their porches from the street to obtain more privacy(Audirac & Shermyen, 1994). A few residents also requested rear porches whichwould allow them to spend time overlooking their private backyards rather thanthe street in the front of the house. A similar demand for privacy and security,along with a desire to protect property values, led Seaside residents to post signson streets discouraging vehicles from passing through—this despite high-connectivity and multiple-route options being important design goals.

If prevailing notions and prejudices about suburban form and social relation-ships impede the acceptance of new urbanism, to argue that widespreadacceptance and a consequent improvement in the quality of the suburban publicrealm will follow, once these impediments are removed, is to ignore its concep-tual flaws. The case of Seaside residents modifying and using their surroundingsin a manner contrary to the intentions of the planners highlights the mostglaring flaw: the concept presumes that its social goals will necessarily followfrom an altered physical environment. An answer to the question of whatdetermines social outcomes in a given context is a very complex one, and toassume that altering suburban form alone will ensure a transformation of thesuburban public realm will only trivialize the whole debate without moving itahead. That a change in physical form will alter social relations or behaviour hashistorically been an underlying assumption for numerous urban designparadigms. However, it is useful to remember that, in reality, few of theparadigms have met their lofty and egalitarian goals in any context, be it theNew Towns in the USA (Audirac & Shermyen, 1994) or Modernism and theplanning of Brasilia (Holston, 1989). Although the quality of the built environ-ment is a necessary condition to restoring the suburban public realm, it is not asufficient condition.

Research Directions

While the planning strategies of the new urbanists are quite compelling, webelieve that they should represent a point of departure for further investigationand not be treated as a final solution to the question of restoring the publicrealm. Presently, the strategies are based on a general set of hypotheses whoseunderlying premise is that an alteration of suburban form will improve thequality of the suburban public realm. However, since the public realm is acomplex sociospatial entity, and prejudging the relationship between physicalform and human behaviour has historically proven hazardous, these generalhypotheses need to be tested and refined to gain a more nuanced understandingof the relationship between the form and use of suburban public space. Thus,patterns of encounter and communication in public space cannot be assumed to


be identical for all sectors of the population. In other words, more specificinsights into the variations in these patterns across social and age-groups areessential. Such insights are urgently needed in various development and neigh-bourhood contexts to show how differences in density, zoning and land-use, andstreet patterns and streetscapes affect the use of public space.

To gain the insights needed to move the debate ahead, the techniques ofmorphological and behavioural analysis, such as those developed by Whyte(1980, 1988), Moudon (1986) and by Banerjee & Loukaitou-Sideris (1992) areextremely important. The results of such studies will help to refine the hypoth-eses of neotraditional design so that its principles can be applied more meaning-fully to promote the public realm in diverse contexts. Even in existingneighbourhoods, which experience changes in social and demographic structureover time, the results of such studies will be useful in adapting existing form toits users. In recognizing the suburban public realm as a subject worthy ofinvestigation, planners and designers can break from the stereotypes of Euro-urbanism or the limited claims to a distinctive 'American public realm' and,in the process, discover new norms and forms for public space more suited tothe cultural, economic, political and social milieu of the twenty-first centuryAmerican metropolis.

Acknowledgements

This research has been supported in part by the Committee on Research atthe University of California, Berkeley. Mathew Henning and Adrienne Wongprepared the analytical maps for Kentlands, Laguna West and Elmwood.Andrew Keller took the photographs in Figures 4b and 5; the other photographsare by Michael Southworth. Figures 6-11 are reprinted by the permission of theJournal of the American Planning Association, Winter 1997.

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