Laserfiche WebLink
<br />~ <br /> <br />- =-- . -. <br /> <br />- = <br /> <br /> <br />I <br />( <br /> <br /> <br />t <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />. <br /> <br /> <br />IX <br /> <br />s <br /> <br />e <br /> <br />Most of us actually know what we want in a neighborhood-we just don't <br />know how to get it, because developers have been building the wrong thing <br />for 50 years. Here's how to get our communities back on track. <br />. ' <br /> <br /> <br />JOH": HUMBLE <br /> <br />Moving day at Kentlands, the neotraditional suburb in Maryland where hQuses are close to the street and to each other <br /> <br />OR DECADES, ANTON NELESSON OF RUTGERS <br />University has been using the tools of science <br />to pursue that most elusive and subjective <br />quality, happiness. When a developer comes <br />into a community, humbly seeking pennission <br />to re-create ancient Pompeii on the site of an <br />old Go Kart traCk, the town's planners com- <br />mission Nelesson to survey the populace and <br />detennine if that's what they'd actually like <br />there. Using photographs, models and questionnaires, Nelesson <br />has surveyed people all over the country, and these are some of the <br />things he's found: <br />. "Everybody will call for a green open space in the middle- <br />that's automatic. They will put the major community buildings <br />around the plaza. then group the houses on relatively narrow <br />streets. Ninety-nine percent don't want streets that are more than <br /> <br />two lanes wide. At the edges of the village they leave open space," <br />. "With two working spouses, [smaller lots} make a lot more <br />sense. You don't want to mow that big lawn," <br />. "People have a fundamental, psychological, spiritual <br />response to nature. If you show them recently built multi- <br />family housing or office parks, they go negative. A small, tra- <br />ditional neighborhood is what people want. They don't know how <br />to get it." <br />Well, of course they don't: most of them haven't even seen a <br />"small, traditional neighborhood" in years, if ever. But they in- <br />stinctively choose it anyway. The premise of the new urbanism is <br />that people can have the kinds of neighborhoods they say they like. <br />Architects know how to design them, developers can build them. <br />banks can make money on them, All it takes is a measure of <br />political will to overcome the inertia of 50 years of doing things the <br />wrong way , , . and the application of a few simple roles. · I <br /> <br /> <br />46 NEWSWEEK MAY 15.1995 <br />