Lifestyle

What is Traditional Neighborhood Design?

Traditional neighborhood design is an emerging movement in urban planning and real estate development. It's also known as new urbanism or neo-traditional design, but there's really nothing "new" about the concept at all. Traditional neighborhood design marks a return to the original methods and practices that created the small-town America of the early 20th century.

In those days, communities were designed as self-contained, mixed-use developments. Homes, offices, schools and shops were organized in close enough proximity that most of a family's daily needs were within walking distance. Neighborhoods had narrow streets arranged in regular grids, which slowed vehicles through residential areas and created multiple routes for traffic to flow in and out. The individually designed and built homes were characterized by front porches facing the sidewalk, instead of garages. All of these factors contributed to a pedestrian-friendly environment where neighbors knew each other well and interacted on a regular basis. Communities had a sense of identity, and residents could feel a high level of comfort, safety and belonging in the place where they lived.

This traditional neighborhood pattern began to change after World War II, transformed by the dominance of the automobile, the new urban planning principle of zoning areas for single uses, and the introduction of production home building. These powerful influences spawned the modern phenomenon known as urban sprawl, characterized by the proliferation of rigidly segregated residential, commercial and industrial areas around the undeveloped outskirts of an established urban center.

As it came to be taken for granted that people would be driving nearly everywhere in the course of routine activities, communities came to be designed on a vehicular level instead of a human level. Walking as a form of transportation became impractical not only because of the greater distances created, but also from the hazards of high-speed traffic.

Production houses strayed from the culture of front-porch socializing, and their architectural conformity and cul-de-sac configurations encouraged people to stay isolated. With fewer opportunities for natural face-to-face interaction, neighbors became more likely to be strangers. People feel less of a bond with their community, confronted with increased cynicism, crime and general dissatisfaction with their chosen home.

As an antidote to the problems of urban sprawl, the new revival of traditional neighborhood design emerged in the 1980s. The idea is a simple one: creating new communities that return to the organizational principles of years past, updated for modern times as necessary, to promote true neighborhoods bound together by personal interaction. Traditional neighborhood design strives to create environments that accommodate pedestrian traffic and bicycles on equal terms with trucks and cars, where identity and individuality triumph over faceless detachment.

How have traditional neighborhood design ideas influenced Kitts Creek?