Confusion in the Ranks

I spent the evening at a function for people trying to start a North Texas chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism, of much previous discussion. The speaker, the author of the stillborn first version of the Snider Plaza Redevelopment Plan, back when it dealt with something other than parking, epitomizes the confusion in the NU ranks. Points of interest from the presentation:

a) proposals to link neighborhoods through trails and open space. This was followed by a D/FW study showing that property values increased with proximity to parks / open space. Fine. Good. However, doesn’t that undermine the whole idea of the “walkable” neighborhood? Doesn’t open space by definition mean places where retail and offices and other housing aren’t? This has been a popular idea running through parts of the movement (notably in California,) but seems to run contrary to the economic viability of the whole enterprise. (i.e. more open space = fewer people in the pedestrian catchment area = less viability in walkable community function and retail. – Ask a resident of Greenwich Village.)

b) description of the inevitable demographic trends toward denser housing. Lots of basically unsupported assertions here. Sure, the population is aging. Sure, child-onset is delayed. However, families with children still seem to evidence a demand for the single-family house with yard, etc, etc. You either have multi-generational neighborhoods or you don’t. Trying to say that empty-nesters moving out of the suburbs will result in lifelong community if families with children won’t move in town with them is trying to have your cake and eat it too. The housing-demand doughnut hole is still the most important demographic.

c) impending population increase numbers (it’s a Dallas thing, Detroiters wouldn’t understand.) He showed a study assuming present growth rates, and assuming present development patterns, and then asked “where are all these people going to go?” I wonder if this guy has ever seen Southern California. Conventional “sprawl” is a story of the multi-node landscape spread across miles and miles and miles of area. North Texas, keep in mind, has no natural geographic barriers to development. There is no inevitable reason that Dallas-Fort Worth can’t become Dallas-Fort Worth-Frisco-Irving-Sherman-Denton-Bowie. Sure, the Ennis to Denton commute would be a killer, but so is the San Juan Capistrano to Santa Barbara one.

Questions asked and unanswered: How does large-scale retail fit into the neighborhood? (by yours truly,) and Doesn’t the whole school district thing throw a wrench the in the whole issue?

Let us gently suffer the romantics.

I think I’ll join.