Creating a close-knit community

New Urbanism involves planning a more traditional and inter-connected landscape

In the first half of the 20th century, Toronto residents - like urban residents across North America - worked and shopped close to home. If work was not within walking distance, it was usually a short street or trolley car ride away. When the dust had settled following the mid-century housing boom, our cities became metropolitan areas. Following principles of modernist urban design theory, Toronto and other large North American cities grew larger by establishing separate zones for residential, commercial and industrial needs. This shaped our city and served us well in the years before challenges to the environment and to the capacity of local roads and highways appeared.
In the 1980s, Miami architects Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk created a planned community in Seaside, Florida, that challenged conventional urban planning theory and gave birth to an urban design movement: New Urbanism. It was based on old ideas of community, however, and was reminiscent of North American cities of the early 20th century, which were naturally based on classical European models.
New Urbanist community design - also referred to as smart growth - focuses on several key features, including walkability, a coherent street grid, mixed housing, increased density and quality public space. The ideal is a centralized community with workplaces, commercial areas and community facilities within an easy walking or short driving distance from home, fostering a sense of community. The family car would become less of a necessity - an environmental benefit - and commuter trains would fill the gap for longer trips. The increased use of home offices would allow many to work, shop and play within their local community.
Duany and Plater-Zyberk have planned hundreds of New Urbanist communities across North America, including the new neighbourhood of Cornell in Markham. Despite following conventional 20th-century city planning theory, in some respects Toronto has been supportive of new urbanist ideals. When the rush to build subdivisions was at its peak in the 1950s, Toronto architect Gerald Robinson countered with The Colonnade, one of the continent's first downtown buildings to include housing, retail and even a theatre under one roof. Its continuing strong presence on Bloor Street is testament to the success of Robinson's design. The city has also prided itself on communities such as The Beaches and Kensington Market, which were new urbanist before the term was coined. Revered architectural critic and long-time Toronto resident Jane Jacobs railed against the dismantling of American inner cities with books such as her 1961 classic, The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
While New Urbanist proponents are no doubt seeking greater public awareness of their community-building principles, some of the movement's key features can also be found in developments that are not strictly new urbanist in design or marketing. Densities, for example, are rising in the condo towers of downtown Toronto and outlying areas. Toronto architecture firm Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg has designed a new Vaughan civic centre, which emphasizes a strong sense of community spirit and pride. In Port Credit, an award-winning live/work building by Toronto firm Giannone Associates Architects creates a strong sense of the new urbanist ideal of citizens committed to their neighbourhood.
In planned New Urbanist communities, often modest houses with minimal front yards hug sidewalks and narrow streets leading to a vibrant community core. That may be too much community for some, but history tells us we've been here before.

Publication Date: 2005-02-13
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=4928