Traditional Neighborhood Design (TND) in Franklin: Who will step up?

"New Urbanism" is a term I've never been comfortable with. Former Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist  - now president and CEO of the Congress for the New Urbanism - was a very "city-centric" spokesperson for the principles of New Urbanism while he was mayor; he was no fan of the suburbs.

"Traditional Neighborhood Design" (aka TND) is a less distressing name for a community-building, anti-sprawl ethic that is much more suburb-friendly, and I'll be discussing it quite a bit in the days and weeks ahead.

Why? Because Franklin has room, opportunity and need for a TND development, yet we see bleak subdivision after bleak subdivision go up, accompanied by malformed commercial developments that serve vehicles and shun people.

Bleak in Oak Creek: OfficeMax in sight of Target, but separated by acres of asphalt that you are not welcome to walk on. The model for Franklin's Shoppes at Wyndham Village.

The drumbeat begins today; I'm advocating for a large scale planned TND community and a resultant gradual end to the piecemeal pod development that has brought us to where we are today.

And where are we? The picture below is a street (dead end, of course) here in Franklin, created about five years ago. It's in proximity to... nothing. It has connectivity to... nothing:

Now, here's a picture of a street created about five years ago in the TND community of Middleton Hills. Multiple parks are in walking distance, as well as a grocery store, coffee shop, dry cleaners, etc. built along with the subdivision. The lots sell as soon as they are offered; Middleton Hills does no promotion or advertising because demand is so high.

Almost exactly the same amount of houses on both streets with much, much less space expended on the Middleton Hills street. Where do you want to live? And, guess which houses are worth more per square foot?

Once again, SITE PLAN is very, very important (though the design of the houses in a TND community is integral as well); I'll discuss specific elements of TND site plans here in days ahead.

Click to see "Providence" in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin (website here)

To get things started, here's an overview of TND excerpted from a presentation by architect and designer Andres Duany to the American Institute of Certified Planners:

NEOTRADITIONAL NEIGHBORHOOD -- PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES:

• The Neighborhood is a comprehensive planning increment: When clustered with others it becomes a town, when standing free in the landscape, it becomes a village.
• The Neighborhood is limited in size so that a majority of the population is within a 5-minute walking distance of its center (1/4 mile). The needs of daily life are theoretically available within this area.
• The streets are laid out on a grid or network, so that there are alternate routs to every destination. This permits most streets to be smaller, with slower traffic. They are equitable for both vehicles and pedestrians.
• Streets are spatially defined by buildings which enfront the sidewalk in a disciplined manner uninterrupted by parking lots.
• The buildings are various in function, but compatible in size and in disposition on their lots. There is a mixture of houses, large and small, outbuildings, small apartment buildings, shops, restaurants, offices and warehouses.
• Civic buildings (schools, meeting halls, theaters, churches, clubs, museums, etc.) are often placed on squares or at the termination of street vistas. By receiving important locations, these buildings serve as landmarks.
• Open space is provided in the form of specialized squares, playgrounds and parks.

SUBURBAN SPRAWL -- PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES:

• Sprawl is unlimited in size, disciplined only be separate "pods" dedicated to single uses such as "shopping center", "office parks" and "residential clusters", all of which are inaccessible from each other except by car. Housing is strictly segregated into large clusters of equal cost, hindering socioeconomic diversity.
• Open space is often provided in the form of "buffers", "pedestrian ways", "planters" and other ill-defined residues.
• Vehicular traffic controls the scale and form of space, with streets usually being wide and dedicated primarily to the automobile with parking lots dominating the public space. Civic Buildings do not normally receive distinguished sites.
• Buildings are often rotated on their lots and set back from streets with the result that spatial definition is lost, thereby destroying the sense of place.

THE TRADITIONAL NEIGHBORHOOD -- POSITIVE CONSEQUENCES:

• By bringing most of the activities of daily living into walking distance everyone, but especially the elderly and the young, gain independence of movement.
• By reducing the number and length of automobile trips, traffic congestion is minimized, the expenses of road construction are limited, and air pollution is reduced.
• By providing streets and squares of comfortable scale and defined spatial qualify, neighbors, walking, come to know each other and to watch over their collective security.
• By providing a full range of housing types and work places, age and economic classes are integrated and the bonds of an authentic community are formed.

SUBURBAN SPRAWL -- NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES:

• By assuming that the people will drive to and from all activities, the need for large streets and parking lots is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
• By the construction of an excessive asphaltic infrastructure, the natural landscape is destroyed.
• By consigning the bulk of the available public budget to pay for asphaltic infrastructure, the human infrastructure of excellent schools, post offices, fire stations, meeting halls, cultural buildings and affordable housing is starved.

CERTAIN CITIZENS WHO SUFFER PARTICULARLY FROM THE PATTERN OF SUBURBAN SPRAWL:

• The middle class is forced into multiple automobile ownership. The average yearly cost of car ownership is $4,500 which is the equivalent of a $40,000 mortgage payment. The possibility of owning one car less is the single most important subsidy that can be provided towards affordable housing. Furthermore, by forbidding mixed use areas, the investment of personal time in the activity of commuting is mandatory. A person who drives two hours a day spends the equivalent of 8 working weeks a year in the car.
• The young who, below the legal driving age, are dependent on adults for their social needs. They are bused from schools, from which they cannot walk, and isolated with TV at home until their working parents arrive. The alternative is to relegate on parent to a career as the child’s chauffeur. The single family house with the yard is a good place for childhood only if it is structured as part of a Neighborhood, where the child can walk or bicycle to school, to play, to the store, to the movies and to friends.
• The elderly, who lose their self-sufficiency once they lost their drivers’ licenses. Seniors who may continue to live independently within a Neighborhood are consigned to specialized retirement communities in sprawl.