New Urbanism

New Urbanism refers to an architectural style developed in the United States around the twentieth century. It may also be addressed as Neotraditional town planning. This style focuses on laying emphasis on the need for walkable neighbourhoods, complexes infused with pedestrian walkways, concentration of civic, institutional and commercial activity and designs that cater to the masses, be it of any age, financial or religious category.

The third listing for the definition of sprawl in the Merriam-Webster’s dictionary is as follows: “to spread or develop irregularly”. Unfortunately, this is the pattern, or lack thereof, with which America’s development is following. Every single day the world population rises, and these new babies have to live somewhere. Due to the fact that the birth rate is larger than that of the death rate in America (http://www.bartleby.com/151/a24.html), new homes and communities must be developed to accommodate all of the incoming people. This fundamental concept is coupled by another very powerful driving force prompting people to live in the suburbs of America, and that is greed. The economy makes

In the book The Great Inversion, author Alan Ehrenhalt reveals the changes that are happing in urban and suburban areas. Alan Ehrenhalt the former editor of Governing Magazine leads us to acknowledge that there is a shift in urban and suburban areas. This revelation comes as the poorer, diverse, city dwellers opt for the cookie cutter, shanty towns at the periphery of American cities known as the suburbs. In similar fashion the suburbanites, whom are socioeconomic advantaged, are looking to migrate into the concrete jungles, of America, to live an urban lifestyle. Also, there is a comparison drawn that recognizes the similarities of cities and their newer, more affluent,

The implementation of gentrification as an economic strategy exhibits a break from the liberal urban policy present in the United States up until the 1970s, as well as a restructuring of the relationship between capital and the state. This departure from liberal urban policy occurred due to the development of a new neo-liberal urbanism¬– an urban form where the state becomes a partnered agent of the capitalist market rather than a regulator. This transformation was made possible through the disempowerment of original liberal urban policy. Public policy constraints on gentrification were replaced by a subsidized private-market shift of the urban built environment. As a result, neo-liberal urbanism has fueled gentrification through a systematic partnership of public planning with private capital.

As urban development progressively changes people’s living behaviors, gentrification has created new urban movements for everyone to follow. It refers to the special migration in population who is seeking either a better living space and/or a better employment environment through an intra-city moving. As many studies have discovered, the future global population growth will only take place in the urban area. It is projected to be a 70% of the 9 billion future populations to live in cities in 2050. (Maarten Hajer 61) As the observable trend along with the major bus routes in San Francisco and Oakland, it makes people believe that gentrification will become an unpreventable force to

Cities in the United States have begun the process of de-urbanization, the transition from urban to suburban living. This has caused an increased demand for suburban housing, these houses take up more land expanding the city boundaries, this is the concept of urban sprawl. According to Britannica, Urban Sprawl is defined as “the rapid expansion of the geographic extent of cities and towns, often characterized by low-density residential housing, single-use zoning, and increased reliance on the private automobile for transportation” (“Urban Sprawl”). There are many effects of urban sprawl, both positive and negative; though the negative outweigh the positive in quantity, but not necessarily in importance. Whether or not urban sprawl is a good

In studying the different concepts of urban development, both the Chicago and the LA Schools have make distinctive but yet contrasting impacts on the fields of New Urban Sociology and Socio-spatial approaches to urbanism. The ways that these two schools make their respective contributions but yet with opposing ideals are as follows: The Chicago School 1). focuses on connecting social phenomenon with spatial patterns and the linkages between the central business districts (CBD), spatial distribution, and social life; 2). the Chicago School takes into account an interactionist perspective where individuals were studied in interaction with others, and the emergent forms of socialization that came out of that interaction. This school of thought focused on the individual in urban socio-spatial locations and tried to show patterns of human adjustment to socio-spatial location (environment). This approach developed along the biological laws of survival of the

The process of urbanization in the United States “proceeded rapidly during the Industrial Era”. More so, “as more and more opportunities for work appeared in factories, workers left farms to move to the cities”. Evidently, this led “the industrial era [to see] an influx of poor workers into U.S. cities”. Likewise, “post-Civil War southern Blacks to more recent immigrants, have made their way to urban centers to seek a better life in the city”. The growth of urban populations worldwide “was a growth spurt”. This is due to the fact of “the development of factories [that] brought people from rural to urban areas, and new technology increased the efficiency of transportation, food production, and food preservation”. Furthermore, “global favorites

Throughout history, there have been dozens of kinds of civilizations. In said civilizations, there are subsets of districts in which only certain sets of people reside. Between World War I and now, many changes in these areas have occurred that we can observe. Whether it be a strong economy, rapid postwar growth, change in class, or simply new architectural designs for cities, there are several factors that contributed to the rise of what we now know as suburbia.

Urban sprawl is the rapid expansion of a city toward low-density surrounding areas. It occurs when rural land is developed faster than necessary to support population growth. When urban sprawl occurs farmland and natural habitats disappear, while developed, areas are abandoned. This unplanned sprawl harms the environment because it results in the wasteful consumption of natural resources and other harmful consequences.

Urban sprawl or urbanization is an environmental risk that affects people and their farmland. According to the article, “What is Urban Sprawl”, “The end result is the spreading of a city and its suburbs over more and more rural land”. This quote explains that urban sprawl is the spreading of a city over rural land. Spreading over rural land is bad because it ruins crops and animals that once lived there have to go somewhere else. Another example is, “As number of people in a city grows beyond capacity, the local communities continues to spread farther and farther from city centers” (What is Urban Sprawl?) This quote explains how when the population grows, cities start to expand and grow onto farmland. The text states, “Cities will usually

During the 20th century technology had become more advanced, World War II had taken place, and suburbanization had quickly fallowed. When World War II ended families began to have more children and the economy boomed. Houses were built just outside the cities to accommodate the population shift allowing people to escape the dirty city life. Once the automobile had become accessible, allowing people to commute to work, people had began to move out of the cities they worked in and into these surrounding areas. This created the suburbs. Those who moved out of the city and into these suburbs tended to be white middle class families that could afford the larger houses in the more secluded areas. Different areas with different types and sizes of

There are many fundamental infrastructures in America that we rely on day to day. When I hear the word infrastructure, the first thing that comes to mind are networks of transportation such as roads, bridges, highways, rails, and airports. But infrastructure is so much more. From the water infrastructure that provides a clean supply of water as well as the removal of water waste, to the generation and distribution of power infrastructure, or even gas for those who need to heat their homes and cook on stoves. All of these have their respective purposes and functions in society, but the focus of this is going to be on the telecommunications infrastructure. The internet is a powerful system and infrastructure that many people and their technology depend on. Even many other infrastructures have the internet woven into its core in order to effectively operate. Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the world wide web, once said, “I myself feel that it is very important that my ISP supplies internet to my house like the water company supplies water to my house. It supplies connectivity with no strings attached.” Sadly, connectivity to the telecommunications infrastructure is showing symptoms of splintering urbanism in many American cities.

This language has given the world some of it’s greatest urban spaces around the world, be they Paris or Copenhagen, Marrakesh or Mumbai. The new world certainly hosts a few as well, however, America’s cities were still relatively new when the automobile took hold of the American imagination and market unlike any other product and the growth of cities evolved to incorporate as well as to cater to this new invention. Rings of suburban development began to surround urban centers of America’s cities, collector roads feeding from one development to another, past the first strip malls further and further away from the walkable core that once defined communities large and small. Urban centers fell into neglect as businesses and those with the means moved to the shiny suburbs where two car garages, shiny new kitchen appliances and a yard to mow awaited. In a reversal of this trend, urban centers have once again become desirable as generations of young Americans seek an alternative to the suburban lives they were raised in, preferring instead the vibrancy and culture of a city. The problem, there simply isn't enough of this sort of real estate to go around and many have been priced out of the market. So for many, the satellite suburbs and seas of asphalt in between remain the only

Once upon a time, sprawl was a fairly neutral term to describe car dependent, low-density economic growth beyond the bounds of older suburbs. Now it is used almost exclusively to describe the dark side of that growth: unbearable traffic, vanishing open space, increasing levels of air and water pollution, and higher taxes to perpetuate the cycle of new schools, sewers, and roads. And that's just what the residents of older suburbs are feeling. Sprawl is even less attractive to urban residents who are left behind and involuntarily subsidize the outward migration