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ills such as the physical decay, racial segregation, and economic downturns that are endemic to many United States cities and towns, but it may not be an effective means of addressing the decline of civic life. This is first because form-based code, in advocating for norms to re-create the city of the past, seeks to implement by design what was essentially a spontaneous and self- generated form of social organization driven largely by economic concerns rather than social or political concerns. Next, Urbanism, which is purportedly at the heart of New Urbanist planning schemes such as form-based code, is itself a contested notion, subject to many alternate visions of the city of the past. As a result, the implementation of form-based code premised on New Urbanism may lead to an ersatz Urbanism. Finally, and perhaps most salient among the critiques I present, form-based code's reliance upon the "community" to formulate design standards through the charrette process has the potential to further isolate those who are already disadvantaged. I. Introduction Since the 1980s the notion of "New Urbanism" has taken hold as a theory for designing and redesigning towns and cities in the United States and elsewhere. New Urbanism argues for a return to the "traditional" pattern of cities, one that is characterized by mixed uses in densely populated neighborhoods that are pedestrian friendly and offer easy access to workplaces, shopping, and recreation all while maintaining a fixed and widely shared aesthetic sensibility. i This eclectic intermingling, it is argued, results in both economic and social vitality. The New Urbanism grows from Urbanism, a movement first seen in the 1920s and 1930s which sought to offer a systematic account of human settlement in dense "urban" living and commercial spaces as opposed to rural, suburban, or exurban areas.2 Proponents of New Urbanism believe that this is because the vital mix that defined the cities of old is no longer in i For a discussion of some of the explicit goals of New Urbanism, see Rutherford H. Platt, Land Use and Society: Geography, Law, and Public Policy 273-274 (2004). � See, e.g., Lewis Mumford, The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects 2-10 (1968 Harvest Books) (1961). In his book Mumford seeks to return to the beginnings of the city and calls for an "organic" city in which technological innovation should not take precedence over the essential humanness of civilization: "... We need a new image of order, which shall include the organic and personal , and eventually embrace all the offices and functions of man." Id. at 4 2