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This Essay serves as a critique of the New Urbanism in general and of form-based code <br />in particular as a tool of the New Urbanism. It may be true that form-based code offers more <br />flexibility than traditional zoning schemes and thus may offer some respite from acknowledged <br />ills such as social and racial divisions created by exclusionary zoning and other tools, and from <br />the relative inutility of single or limited use districts. However, I will argue that these benefits <br />are eclipsed by some of the problems of form based code. Form-based code is frequently hailed <br />as a"back to the future" approach to both urban and suburban living which will cure numerous <br />ills such as the physical decay, racial segregation, and economic downturns that are endemic to <br />many United States cities and towns, but it may not be an effective means of addressing the <br />decline of civic life. I identify three reasons for this. <br />First, form-based code, in advocating for norms to re-create the city of the past, seeks to <br />implement by design what was essentially a spontaneous and self-generated form of social <br />organization driven largely by economic concerns rather than social or political concerns. Next, <br />Urbanism, which is purportedly at the heart of New Urbanist planning schemes such as form- <br />based code, is itself a contested notion, subj ect to many alternate visions of the city of the past. <br />As a result, the implementation of form-based code premised on New Urbanism may lead to an <br />ersatz Urbanism. Finally, and perhaps most salient among the critiques I present, form-based <br />code's reliance upon the "community" to formulate design standards through the charrette <br />process has the potential to further isolate those who are already disadvantaged. While form <br />based code is not intended as a tool to forward political interests in and of itself, in the context of <br />urban planning the charrette may easily be transformed into a mechanism of <br />"responsibilitization"—the politically inspired move away from formal systems and the thrust of <br />� <br />