04/08/08
Conservativism and New Urbanism -
Categories: The conference last week in Austin of the Congress for a New Urbanism covered a wide range of topics: design, development, planning, form-based code, transportation, green construction, and many others. One subject that surprised me but one that I couldn't imagine not attending was "Conservatives and the New Urbanism."
CNU's Ruth Walker has posted her recap of the session at her blog on the CNU website (links above). The session was open to anyone that wanted to attend, member or not. The panelists reached to the top echelons of the New Urbanist and Conservative movements, and of the Texas House of Representatives. Although there were other speakers to help bring perspective and range, Andres Duany spoke for the New Urbanists, Bill Lind, of the Free Congress Foundation, for the Conservatives, and Mike Krusee, R-Round Rock, chair of the House Transportation Committee, spoke as a Conservative and New Urbanist.
As I headed to meeting room, I couldn't help but wonder if I'd be the only person there. No worries, the room held about 200 chairs and a sizeable majority were filled. Realize also that other sessions were being simultaneously held and it was the lunch hour, so I considered it to be a large audience.
I've captured Ms Walker's post below because I don't know how long it might be available on the CNU site:
Conservatives and the New Urbanism
Submitted by Ruth Walker on Fri, 04/04/2008 - 9:04pm
The Congress for the New Urbanism isn't a political organization in the same sense as that other Congress, the one whose headquarters are in Washington instead of Chicago.
But seeing in the CNU XVI program a listing for a session called "Why Conservatives Should Support New Urbanism" made clear that there's an implicit assumption that New Urbanism is a liberal movement.
At the session itself, though, William S. Lind of the Free Congress Foundation made clear that there's much for cultural and political conservatives like him to love in New Urbanism.
Lind, whose heroes include Edmund Burke, said, "I’ve been coming to CNU for some time." He added conservatives "like to retain old ways of doing things because they work better than the latest cockamamie ideas coming out of the academy."
He also observed, "There's very little [in New Urbanism] that conservatives need to disagree with."
The Free Congress Foundation has just released a paper (copies of which were available at Thursday's panel) entitled "Conservatives and the New Urbanism: Do We Have Some Things in Common?" Lind is one of the authors, along with Paul M. Weyrich, another eminence of the American conservative movement, and Andres Duany, whose role was to make sure the two conservatives had correctly interpreted the Charter of the New Urbanism.
The paper marches through the 27 principles of the Charter and responds to each. For instance, for No. 6, "The development and redevelopment of towns and cities should respect historical patterns, precedents, and boundaries," the paper's comment is "This argument is conservative in itself."
The two main sticking points in the Charter for Lind and Weyrich are No. 7, the diversity principle, and the call for regional cooperation in No. 9, "to avoid destructive competition for tax base."
Lind blasted "diversity" as one of the mantras of the "cultural Marxists" and suggested it was mainly cover for the idea of "moving in crime" from "the inner city."
Lind suggested that the traditional norm in American cities was diversity at the metropolitan level but homogeneity on the neighborhood level – hence the "Polish neighborhoods" of cities like Cleveland and Chicago. He got some pushback from the audience on this point, including from Emily Talen of Arizona State University, who protested that diversity is "foundational" to urbanism.
But conservatives and liberals alike seemed to be of one mind on the subject of auto-scaled sprawl. Lind stressed that it wasn't a "free-market outcome" but rather the result of government subsidies for highways over other forms of transportation. (The paper notes that he commutes to work on a bicycle.) The Free Congress Foundation has done a number of studies on transportation over the past several years, which have been able to make the case for rail to conservatives in terms they can understand. "You can't use liberal arguments with conservatives," Lind said.
Thursday's session suggested that in the same fashion, Lind and his colleagues may be able to make a case for New Urbanism to their conservative brethren. Lind advocated a system of dual codes and "letting the market decide" which is better. "We are convinced that if we build a level playing field, New Urbanism will do just fine."
Here's a thought: It may be that liberals and conservatives can both see New Urbanism as "back to the future." It's just that liberals stress the "future" in that formulation, and conservatives stress the "back."
The 27 Principles of New Urbanism that Mr Lind referenced are the heart of the CNU Charter. Those principles coupled with this self-description of CNU should give a clearer understanding of the planning movement that is starting to be embraced across the Metroplex and the country:
| The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) is the leading organization promoting walkable, neighborhood-based development as an alternative to sprawl. CNU takes a proactive, multi-disciplinary approach to restoring our communities. Members are the life of the organization – they are the planners, developers, architects, engineers, public officials, investors, and community activists who create and influence our built environment, transforming growth patterns from the inside out. Whether it's bringing restorative plans to hurricane-battered communities in the Gulf Coast, turning dying malls into vibrant mixed-use neighborhoods, or reconnecting isolated public housing projects to the surrounding fabric, new urbanists are providing leadership in community building. Our relationship with our members allows us to do more than just talk about the problems of the built environment. Together, we are creating tools that make it easier to put New Urbanism into practice around the world. |
Last year, I posted on my attendance at a workshop for the SmartCode. Andres Duany, a CNU founder and mentioned above, was the main presenter at the three-day workshop. He advised having the SmartCode and our current Euclidean zoning codes available to a developer, to let the market decide, so there has been philosophical agreement for some time. Ms Walker's observance that many might consider New Urbanism a liberal movement probably resonates with some, but Mr Lind's contention that there really isn't a difference with conservativism seems to balance the philosophical scale.
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