Make "New Towns" to Create Walkable, Bikeable, Transit-oriented Places
Most cities and towns in the U.S. are zoned almost entirely “single-family residential”. Which means that when they are fully built-out and every farm, field, and forest is developed, these communities will always be car-oriented, sprawling, and too low-density to support public transit.
There is another way: instead of zoning most of America for single-family homes, let’s create by-right zoning that allows for entire new towns. This kind of zoning will need to consider the range of transportation, water/sewer, electricity, waste, safety, educational, and other infrastructure needed to support a new town, but it will also allow for the creation of places that are mixed-use, walkable, bikeable, and dense enough to support public transit. It will allow the creation of places that people will want to live in, that will encourage active transportation, and that will endure.
Here is an example of a “new town” built in the early 2000s in New Jersey:
With a town center (bus stop, apartments, offices, and retail), surrounded by medium-density townhomes and duplexes, and ample parks, with single-family homes on the periphery, this prototypical “new town” can accommodate a few thousand people in just about 100 acres.
Consider the Town of Grafton, Massachusetts (see below), which is largely zoned for single-family housing. This map shows all large, undeveloped parcels of land, most of which are more than 100 acres.
Now, take that Robbinsville new town (this image is at the same scale as the map):
and paste a bunch of them into that map:
Instead of a sprawling, low-density, auto-oriented development pattern, Grafton gets new places that each have their own community that can be connected through public transit, that can support active lifestyles through walking and biking, with a mix of shopping, employment, and public facilities.
I wrote about all of this in an essay for Planetizen, check it out: “New Towns” Are the Answer to Affordable Housing Challenges.
Best,
Justin
These have been built around Williamsburg. They wind up being masses of paved surfaces for the most part. None are particularly beloved. Perhaps “new urbanism” should actually come up with something new. As they say, everything old is new again. For example, why not provide spaces for people to build for themselves? We used to do that in this country. I live in a house built by a family in 1959. Next to a house built by a family in 1956. Now, housing like “new towns” are exclusively the domain of massive corporations and government funds. Which is why people push back, though the results quite often speak for themselves.
[slow clap]