Suburban Typologies

Historical Examples and Alternatives

Michael Sean Flynn

School of Architecture
McGill University
Montreal
August 2006

A Thesis Submitted to
The Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Master of Architecture

©Michael Sean Flynn 2006

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Abstract

This is an inquiry into the evolution of the North American suburb by way of review
of notable historical precedents of various types of suburban developments.

A precept of this thesis is that the current, dominant form of urbanization is of a

suburban nature, characterized by vast areas of low-density, single-use, disjointed
compartments of daily life; that suburbanization has become the physical
de-construction of community; and that suburbanization at its most extreme is
ultimately deleterious to a healthy society and environmentally unsustainable. The
suburban environment is far from the desired ideal and in fact is an aberration.

Given our seemingly innate desire for the ideal of a "home within a garden," and
through the inquiry into the successes and failures of past planned suburbs, it is
hoped that a better understanding and a melding of the ideal and an equitable reality
can be obtained, promoting a healthy, vibrant sense of community that is
environmentally sustainable.

The examples of planned suburban precedents that are examined include industrial
towns, railroad and streetcar suburbs, as weil as pre- and post-war automobile
suburbs. Aiso there is some examination of utopian and alternative planning
theories as weil as contemporary examples of successful planned communities. Ali
of which provide a greater understanding of the principles that must be applied to
address the issues of our future urbanization process, which will likely be of a
suburban nature.

It is hoped that through this inquiry into successful suburban precedents, that a
clearer understanding can be achieved of how to more closely attain the individual
ideal of a home within a garden, while balancing the collective needs of a community
and sustainability, within an inherently chaotic, fn~e-market process.
Table of Contents

Abstract/Résumé

Preface iii

1. Thesis Statement and Introduction 1

Il. Transportation and Suburban Growth Patterns 3

III. Prototypical and Exemplary Planned Suburbs

Industrial-Age Company Towns 6
Lowell, Massachusetts, 1822 8
Pullman, Illinois, 1880 11
Railroad and Streetcar Suburbs
Lake Forest, Illinois, 1857 15
Riverside, Illinois, 1869 18
Pre-War Suburbs
Forest Hills Gardens, New York, 1909 21
Post-War Automobile Suburbs
Introduction 25
Levittown, New York, 1947 28

IV. The Current Form of the Suburb

Suburbia, 1960 to Present 32

V. Past Influences, Theories and Future Alternatives

Introduction 34
The Garden City 36
Utopian Theories 40
Suburban Vitalization 48
New Urbanism and the Smart Code 52
Seaside, Florida, 1986 61

VI. Summary and Conclusions 67

VII. Bibliography 71

VIII. Illustrations 74
Acknowledgrnents

l offer my sincerest gratitude to my original sponsor, the late Norbert Schoenauer,

for sharing his unassuming wisdom and thought-provoking insights into
architecture. His lessons, which were about more than just architecture, live on.

l express my indebtedness to Professor Vikram Bhatt for sharing his valued

knowledge, keen academic observations and perspectives, under whose guidance
l humbly submit this thesis.

l convey my appreciation and gratitude as a beneficiary of the altruistic vision

and generosity of the late Clifford C.F Wong.

Innumerable thanks to Ms. Marcia King.

l dedicate this thesis to my parents, Edward and Catherine. Their love, support
and encouragement was, and always will be my inspiration.

Thanks to Maryann for her loving support, and to Scott and Logan for their
patience.
Résumé

Cette thèse examine l'évolution des banlieues en Amérique du Nord. En étudiant des
exemples remarquables de planification des zones suburbaines et en passant en revue
les principales théories sur le phénomène de suburbanisation, nous espérons réunir
les informations nécessaires pour formuler un modèle de banlieue valable.

Cette thèse repose sur le principe selon lequel notre environnement suburbain, loin
d'être l'idéal visé, est en fait une aberration. La forme actuelle de suburbanisation se
caractérise par de vastes zones d'utilisation des sols incohérente, à faible densité et
monovalente qui créent un cadre d'habitation de qualité inférieure,
fondamentalement contraire au bien social et insoutenable sur le plan social et
environnemental - autrement dit, le résultat obtenu va à l'encontre du but recherché.

Parmi les exemples de planification des zones suburbaines cités figurent des villes
industrielles, des banlieues construites autour de lignes de tramway, ainsi que des
banlieues apparues au début du XX" siècle avec l'avènement de l'automobile. Nous
examinons également les théories de planification utopistes et autres variantes, ainsi
que des exemples contemporains de planification urbaine réussie. Ce tour d'horizon
a pour but d'aider à mieux comprendre les principes de planification et de
conception devant être appliqués pour répondre aux questions qui pèsent sur l'avenir
du processus de suburbanisation.

Nous espérons que cette étude des échecs et des succès en matière de planification
des zones suburbaines contribuera à faire mieux comprendre l'idéal visé et à concilier
cet idéal avec une réalité équitable, en proposant un modèle pour créer des
communautés saines, durables, dynamiques et capables d'évoluer dans une économie
de marché.

ii
Preface

This thesis is an attempt ta gain an understanding of the North American suburban

environment and how it may be improved. Through the examination of notable
planned suburban communities it is hoped that criteria can be established in arder ta
evaluate ta what degree they are successful, and, if possible, how those criteria could
be developed into principles ta guide future suburban growth and the amelioration
of the existing suburban fabric.

Through the research, 1 realized that any solutions ta the current suburban condition
of unplanned patchworks of strip malls, office parks and subdivisions, which tend ta
drain and diffuse the collective civic vitality of the original city and surrounding
suburbs, must be found by way of analyzing successful past precedent and identifying
the positive and negative characteristics of those examples in arder to formulate
conditions for success. There is no one single profession or discipline that is
responsible for the manner of how we plan, design and construct our built
environments; however responsibility for the quality of the built environment must
lie squarely with the planning and design community. Planners, engineers, architects,
and landscape architects all must step into that void and strive to improve the quality,
accessibility and sustainability of the built environment to promote a vibrant,
healthy, equitable and enriching society. Any attainable solution must be inclusive of
politics, economics, local and regional government, and real estate development. We
must decide how to meld the selfishly narrow "Suburban Dream" into a socially and
environmentally holistic pattern of human settlement.

1 hope that this examination contributes in sorne small way to the collective process
of responsible stewardship of our natural resources and build environment.

VU? will ever strive for the ideals and sacred things of the city, bath alane
and with many;
VU? wj}j unceasingly seek ta quicken the sense ofpublic duty,'
l# will rl'vere and ohl'y thl' city laws;
VU? wj}j transmit the city nat Jess, but greateI; better and more beautiful
than it was transmitted ta us.
Oath of the Athenian State

iii
1. Thesis Statement and Introduction

Suburbs, characterized by an amalgamation of dispersed, single-story, single-use

structures likely, predate urban centers. Excavations around the biblical city Ur have
unearthed evidence of low-density development. Ancient Alexandria, Athens and
Rome each had suburban development at their fringes. Florence and Venice were
ringed about, as early as the Middle Ages, by the residential estates of the wealthy.
From their earliest settlement London, Berlin and Paris aIl had forms of suburban
growth around their perimeters, as did the New World cities of Montreal, Boston,
New Amsterdam, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston and St. Augustine.

Historically the two main categories of suburban development can be distinguished

by wh ether the economic growth and associated development were drawn to the city,
in which case it was typified by small farming plots, huts, and markets, or if the
growth emanated from within the city in the fonn of residential estates for the
wealthy escaping the city.

This examination is mainly concerned with the latter form of suburban

development, that is the development as a result of the exodus from the city. Mark
Girouard in CHies & People describes that exodus. "The whole monstrous growth
rests on a real basis of economic prosperity, but behind it lie two myths: the myth of
the city as a fabulous Eldorado, which tempts immigrants from rural poverty and
brings them flooding into city centers, and the myth of the country as a Garden of
Eden, which a few generations later sends them flooding out again to the suburbs.
(Girouard, 1985, p. 379)." This outward migration in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century was mainly a reaction to the deplorable conditions of the
industrialized city pushing those who could afford to leave the city, coupled with the
allure of the suburban myth of a private, family haven set within a garden. It also
examines the mass transformation of the suburban landscape that was made possible
by the changes in transportation, which helped to fuel the growth and shape the
suburbs, culminating with the highway and the automobile.

This outward migration taken to its ultimate conclusion is the paradox of suburbia
illuminated by Lewis Mumford, "To withdraw like a hermit and live like a prince--
this was the purpose of the original creators of the suburb. This utopia proved ta be,
up to a point, a realizable one: sa enchanting that those who contrived it failed ta see

1
the fatal penalty attached to it-the penalty of popularity, the fatal inundation of a
mass movement whose very numbers would wipe out the goods each individual
sought for his own domestic circle ... (Miller, 1986, p. (2)."

The following is presented with the conviction that an examination of suburban

planning types is appropriate at a time when suburbia, in its myriad manifestations,
desperately requires the attention of politicians, planners, practitioners and the
public. The planned suburbs examined here as case studies were selected so as to
achieve a diverse, balanced sampling to adequately represent the development of our
suburban environment. Particular suburbs were selected because of their prominence
as prototypes or because of their merit as successful examples.

Each neighborhood and every suburb is a manifestation of its particular place in the
history of our society, owing its development to social, political, economic and
technological forces. When these societal forces meld with our desire for a verdant
utopia, a variety of suburban environments evolve. Underlying each is the common
philosophical thread of suburban development: an individual coveting his or her own
private Eden.

Through this inquiry into the evolution of the suburb and suburban landscape, a
paradigm of planning might be developed as a framework from which we may begin
to address similar, yet varied, problems by referring to previous solutions so as to
create a catalog of suburban typologies of varying densities and design characteristics,
notjust in two-dimensionalland-planning idioms, but in three-dimensional
suburban streetscapes and landscapes taken from an experiential point of view.

2
II. Transportation and Suburban Growth Patterns

The means of transportation has always been an influential determinant in shaping

the physical characteristics of urban and, by extension, suburban development.
Methods of transportation have a direct affect on the commerce of any settlement.
Together, transportation and commerce influence the surrounding built
environment. A harbor town like Boston takes its form by its means of transporting
goods and services. A river trading settlement, like Montreal or Cincinnati, likewise
finds its form by how it trades and distributes goods. Similarly, suburban forms have
typically been defined based on the transportation method that delivers what drive
the economic engine. In the case of early planned suburbs the commerce was of
course affluent people fleeing the city to reside in the country. Therefore, it may be
appropriate to categorize the growth of our suburbs in relation to the method of
transportation prevalent during a particular suburb's formation.

A commonly accepted system of categorization for suburban development patterns is

by the dominant means of transport during the developments' formation.

• Horse and Carriage Era (pre-1850-1880s). Brought only the truly affluent
families out to the country estates for extended periods of time. For this small
segment of society a daily commute to the city for markets and commerce was
not necessary to sustain the household.

• Railroad and Electric Streetcar Era (1850-1920s). Brought the affluent land-
and-business owners out from the city to the train the stations or streetcar stops
nearest their estates or homes. Relatively convenient access to the city was
necessary to sustain the household. One would either walk from the station or
conne ct with a carriage to get to the residence. A village-like commercial center
often formed at the rail stop.

• Pre-War Hybrid of Streetcar and Early Automobile Era (1900-1940). Brought

commuters to and from the city on a daily basis. Interurban train or streetcar
stations and connecting transport still defined the community. This era was the
advent of widening ownership of automobiles, which became so pervasive as to
adapt the road and lot system ta accommodate the car.

• Post-War Era (1945-present). The private automobile was used almost exclu-
sively to commute daily to the city. The streetcar !ines were removed and the

3
 street systems were designed to accommodate the car. The national highway
system opened up previously inaccessible tracts of land to be transformed for the
construction of endless subdivisions.

This model will be incorporated in the following investigation of commuter suburbs,

beginning with the railroad or streetcar suburb. As with any method of
categorization of complex social phenomena, allowance should be made for inherent
generalizations.

The suburb has long had a powerful ho Id on the American imagination.

In the national mythology it is a place of status and se cu rit y; it is the
persistent dream of a green and pleasant oasis not too far from the
office, a plot of ground that offers the calm of the country with all the
advantages of the city within easy reach.

Editors of Time

The pre-industrial city was a compact settlement. It was characterized by a city center
with town square or market area encompassed and enclosed by a relatively dense
ratio of buildings to open space. Diverse functions, such as home, market,
commerce, agriculture, church and state, established an intermingling of various
socioeconomic classes, all comprising a community with a compact, small-scale
urban form. The traditional city was not characterized by vast expanses of specialized
zones with disparate extremes of function, scale and density tenuously connected by
expensive, inefficient and elaborate transportation methods.

Railroad suburbs were characteristically distinct settlements that took shape

immediately around the train station. They were intermittently spread out along the
raillines that radiated outward from the city in "the form of narrow radial corridors
that contained a linear 'rosary bead' settlement pattern of discrete nodes isolated
from the city as weil as each other (Muller, 1982, p. 28)."

The typical settlement pattern of the railroad or streetcar suburb resembled the pre-
industrial city to the extent that the scale was dictated by pedestrian limitations in
relation to the station, village center and surrounding housing.

The train station, which served as the community's link to the larger world, anchored
the village commons and included a market for daily needs. Small shops, offices,
restaurants, theaters and hotels were grouped around the village commons. This

4
comprised the heart of the community, and from this point it was generally a 15-
minute walk to most residences. Many rail or streetcar suburbs were served by more
than one rail stop, to limit the distance one must walk. The great distinction between
the traditional, pre-industrial city and the railroad suburb is that, although the
railroad suburb may appear to be an autonomous, self-sufficient settlement. it was
dependent upon the city for its formation and continued existence. The railroad
suburb was by no means capable of sustaining itself without the connection to the
manufacturing, commerce and markets of the city.

Automobile commuter suburbs are characterized by low-density land use that is

almost exclusively single-family residential and contain littIe or no commercial
activity within their nebulous boundaries. Consequently, goods, services and
commerce must be sought outside the residentially zoned suburb. The commuter
suburb is possible only with individual point-to-point transportation and is
historically dependent upon the city's central business district, which generates a
direct city-to-suburb commuter pattern. With the advent of suburban strip mails,
enclosed malis, office complexes and low-density industrial parks, the pattern of
commuting from residence to work and market has been transformed to a chao tic
crisscrossing, creating a diffused, yet increasingly congested, traffic planning
dilemma. The patterns of land development designed specifically and solely for
private automobile use preclude any practical use of mass transit or pedestrian means
of transporting people and goods.

5
III. Prototypical and Exemplary Planned Suburbs

Industrial-Age Company Towns

The industrial age company town evolved not so much to create a complete and
healthy sense of community, but to provide a dependable work force for an
entrepreneurial venture, usually coupled with a degree of paternalism on the part of
the industrialist.

Typically, industrial communities followed a narrow and rudimentary approach to

urban planning and design, characterized by the planned separation of functions,
such as manufacturing from residential. The town is more often an agglomeration of
buildings that are sited to maximize production efficiencies, rather than an effort to
create a sense of community. Residents were, foremost, employees, dependent upon
the company for their livelihood, their homes, and their community life and
consumer needs.

For the most part, industrial communities in North America did not set out ta
advance our understanding of social and urban planning issues. However what the
industrial age company town did address out of necessity was the creation of a
relatively compact, mixed-use, self-sustaining community with a variety of
commerce, warehousing, manufacturing, civic, religious and recreation, as weil as
varied housing types, including single family detached, semi-detached, row house
and dormitory.

Industrial company towns influenced one another in varying degrees in planning,

production efficiencies and social amenities. Bessbrook, Ireland, created in 1846 by
the Benjamin Richardson family, boasted a library, hotel and two town squares for its
2,500 residents. Saltaire, near Bredford, England, founded in 1852 by Sir Titus Salt,
possessed an austere urban setting save for a park for the benefit of the 4,000 textile
workers and their families. In France, at Alsace the Mulhouse Societe des Cites
Ouvrieres was founded in 1853 and offered small, but detached, workers' cottages.
George Pullman established a community near Chicago for his workers, complete
with a hote!, church, market square, promenade park, stables and recreation grounds.
Near Birmingham in 1880, the Caclbury family created a picturesque workers'
community at Bournville. Port Sunlight (Fig. 1), founded by the Lever family in

6
1888, possessed a community park connected to the residential areas, with pedestrian
walkways separated from vehicular traffic.

Fig. 1. Port Sunlight (EnglandJ, original town plan. The brainchild of soap manufacturer
W H Lever, Port Sunlight was highly innuential in popularizing the irregular street plan
and neo-vemacular architecture that found their apotheosis in English Garden Cities. The
picturesque layout seen here was amended beyond recognition in 1910 by the insertion of a
broad mall and a hemicycJe of radiallanes, both inspired by Americas City Beauti[ul
movement(Kostof, 1991, p. 73).

These industrial communities represent industrial man's desire to leave the city and
to establish an environment that is reduced and filtered to possess only the
dimensions of the urban equation that the particular industrialist found acceptable or
unavoidable. However, it is this selective filtering or reductive urbanism that is
common to ail types of planned and not-so-planned communities, whether they are
company towns, commuter suburbs or neo-traditionalist communities.

In this section two early industrial-age company towns will be examined, Lowell,
Massachusetts, and Pullman, Illinois. These two factory towns will be examined
because by their nature factory towns possess a degree of their own economic
independence and vitality, making them more than just a suburban bedroom
community. In addition to their respective core manufacturing purposes, early
industrial ractory towns included the commerce and markets required or claily lire, as
weil as civic buildings, meeting halls, churches and a mixture of income groups, al!
within a weil defined walkable area.

7
Lowell, Massachusetts, 1822

Francis Cabot Lowell, founder of the Boston Manufacturing Company and the
Boston Associates an association of industrialists sought to relocate their textile
manufacturing business from its antiquated facilities in Boston along the slow-
moving Charles River into a new manufacturing complex in the countryside, on the
banks of the faster Merrimack River, in order to power his new automated looms.

The implementation of hydraulic-powered machinery and later steam power ushered

in the industrial revolution in manufacturing and transportation and brought about
fundamental changes in the concentration and scale of the production and
distribution of goods. Industrialization in textiles transformed what had been the
quintessential cottage industry carried out piecemeal by individuals on their own
foot-powered looms into a heavily concentrated production factory and distribution
center. The scale of production with industrialization was unprecedented, which
required an equally unprecedented, readily available labor force. The concentration
and scale of manufacturing and distribution to markets during the industrial
revolution had profound effects on society and the resulting urbanization patterns.
It overwhelmingly drew poor rural folk to the city, but also allowed manufacturing
facilities like Lowell's to relocate to relatively remote areas.

Founded in 1822, Lowell, Massachusetts, originally included over 400 acres

(160 ha), sorne twenty different mills, a series of canals and locks, and a population
of 17,000. By the 1850s Lowell was the largest cotton textile producer in the world.
The town of Lowell possessed, of course, the textile mills, but also commercial and
retail stores, hotels, theaters, churches, a town hall, residential areas and public parks,
aIl in a relatively compact area. Lowell provided a mixture of housing types,
including single-family homes, semi-detached houses, row houses, boarding houses
and worker cottages.

To relocate from the city into the countryside, the industrialists had to provide an
adequate level of services and amenities to attract and maintain a work force. Relative
independence from the city was made possible by providing the necessary services
and functions. Isolation gave the industrial village its own sense of a complete
community. "Lowell realized that the industrial plant could no longer exist apart
from the community and that it was now a responsibility of industries to create the
towns in which they would be located (Reps, 1965, p. 415)."

8
 Lowell's concept of the physical plan was both simple and functional.
The factory district was to be located along the river between it and a
parallel canal that was to bring water to the mills. A major road was also
to paralleJ-the river at a distance of perhaps a quarter of a mile. Between
the canal and the road lay the area for employee housing. The road served
as the spi ne of the town and here would be the stores, churches, and
public buildings. Beyond the road the land could be developed for
private residences (Reps, 1965, p. 415).

At a point in its development Lowell nearly possessed the fleeting balance of qualities
of a livable community. Indeed, the mills were located along the river and canals,
while the company offices were centrally located. Beyond these were the shops, stores
and markets, executive and management houses, row houses and boarding houses,
meeting hall, and several churches.

This arrangement of mixed uses and variety of housing types and their corresponding
densities helped to create well-defined communal spaces occupied by a socio-
economically diverse population in the community.

~.. ,,;.
1,
,

Fjg. 2. Plan of Lowell, Massachusetts, 1832 (Reps, 1965, p. 416).

Further From the cenler of Lowell the sense of spatial definition begins to break
down. As can be seen on the 1832 map of Lowell (Fig. 2), the periphery is scattered,
with single-family homes and cottages in a seemingly chaotic manner beyond the
area of the mills and town center. Here the clear sense of an urban village form
dissipates into an aimless suburban landscape. In spite of that shortcoming, Lowell at
that time was a compact community defined and bounded by the Merrimack River,

9
canals and natural wilderness, its own greenbelt. However, it wasn't long before the
town's expansion took away from the sense of compact community, and today Lowell
is engulfed in the suburban sprawl that surrounds Boston.

Early in the industrial age a few philanthropic entrepreneurs attempted to come to

terms with the concerns of commerce and the principles of creating a holistic sense
of community and home, more from enlightened self-interest than any social
altruism or utopian vision.

The forces of evolving economies, waning fortunes and discontented labor ultimately
tested the paternalism evident in most factory towns, like Lowell, and later at
Pullman. Many of the early and more recent examples of company towns ultimately
break down as the original visionaries lose interest, pass on, or succumb to corporate
changes.

The tangible legacy left by Francis Lowell is notable, as is how the remaining grounds
and buildings have been revitalized by the Massachusetts state government.

An area of Lowell, Massachusetts, which now comprises approximately 800 acres

(200 ha), over five miles (8 km) of canals and approximately 800 buildings has been
dec\ared a state park and, with state and local seed money, has been sensitively
renovated.

Francis Lowell and the talented engineers and planners who designed Lowell,
Massachusetts, created a complete town that possessed the basic elements required of
any self-sustaining settlement to function and feel like a complete and distinct
community. Those elements inc\ude industry, commerce, civic institutions and
varied population demographics within a spatial configuration that is human in
scale, defined at its edges, centered around a high-density, mixed-use core with a mix
of varied building types that are esthetically harmonious and that create positive
outdoor spaces.

10
Pullman, Illinois, 1880
In 1880 George Pullman, a wealthy industrialist and owner of the Pullman Palace
Car Company, sought to consolidate his rail-car factories, offices, warehouses and
employees into a well-planned, efficient community. Pullman believed that an
environ ment that was both functionally efficient and aesthetically pleasing would be
conducive to a proper lifestyle and family life. In turn, this wou Id boost employee
morale and result in a sustained increase in the workers' quality and quantity of
production. To this end, Pullman purchased 4000 acres (162 ha) of land 13 miles
(21 km) south of Chicago, bordering the Illinois Central Railroad and Lake
Calumet. Pullman set aside 300 acres (120 ha) for the site of his model industrial
community. The remaining land was to offer a small green belt around the complex
to serve as a buffer in anticipation of future development, with a portion to be
subdivided for later sales.

Pullman was a company town, with al! its opportunities for exploitation of the
worker/citizen regarding housing, commerce and civic life. However, Pullman was
developed "more in the European tradition of enlightened paternalism (Reps, 1965,
p. 421)." Unlike Lowell, Pullman was designed in collaboration with professional
planners, architect Solomon Spencer Beman, landscape archltect Nathan Barrett and
civil engineer, Benzett Williams. Together they produced a plan that was sensitive to
the concerns of industrial production and distribution and created a pleasing and
healthy environment for workers and residents. The hotel, houses for management
and the 900 row houses accommodating close to 9,000 inhabitants were equipped
with gas lighting, indoor plumbing with hot and cold running water and sanitary
waste system, and a separate storm-water-management treatment system. The city of
Pullman was so well designed and executed that it received an award as the "world's
most perfect town" from the Prague International Hygienic & Pharmacological Expo
of 1896.

The designers anticipated growth for Pullman (Fig. 3) and the future encroachment
of Chicago and set the community up with borders, buffers and limited access to the
future street grid. The street configuration of Pullman aligns with the grid system of
Chicago only at key points of entry to the community. This helps to establish clearly
defined borders and a sense of ceremonial gateways upon entrance and departure.

11
This shift in grid, in conjunction with the sensitively planned ratio of the buildings'
footprint to open space, and the buildings' massing and homogeneous materials,
create a sense of contained, communal open space. "Pullman produced a three-
dimensional plan in which the design of individual buildings received as much
attention as the layout of streets, parks and building sites (Reps, 1965, p. 421)."

"MA:r Ok'
P ULL1\lA.N

Fig. 3. Plan of Pullman, lJjinois, 1885 (Reps, 1965, p. 421).

To enhance the sense of a pleasant urban space, Beman often used prominent, public
buildings to cap and enclose vistas and street space. Market Square, which is
surrounded by well-defined public space, gives focus to the community and
neighborhoods. The sense of enclosure is further supported by the layout of service
and utility alleys, which are capped at both ends of the block by the siting of
buildings that define the alley space, cap minor vistas and block views to the clutter
of an alley.

The streets cross each other at right angles, '" yet skillfully avoids the
frightful monotony of New York. A public square, arcade, hotel, market
... is often set across the street so ingeniously as to break the regular Hne,
yet without inconvenience to traffic. Then at the termination of long
streets a pleasing view greets and relieves the eye-a bit of water, a stretch
ofmeadow, clump oftrees. (Reps, 1965, p. 422)

Pullman includes a level of functional and spatial diversification not found in most
company towns or planned suburbs and certainly not any modern subdivisions. An
interspersed array of building types, social functions and mixture of in come levels
lends an authentic sense of community to Pullman. That sense of authenticity is

12
supported by Pullman's factories and warehouses, the Hotel Florence, the public
square, and the arcaded market building, which contained a theater, library, bank
and offices lining its second-story arcade. Other buildings that contribute to
Pullman's village-like urban charm include Greenstone CllUrch, the carriage house
and stables, a school, and, of course, Market Square.

The variety of residential building types and densities, from apartments to row
houses to semi-detached townhouses and single family homes, supports a sense of
diversification and urbanism. "For the 1,750 housing units Beman developed a
dozen basic types. Varying rooflines, mirroring general configurations, fenestration,
decoration and details were varied to create a balance between variety and
homogeneity. Pullman benefits greatly from this richness in variety yet with an
organizing design parti (Architecture, November 1987, p. 63)." The overall aesthetic
and planning of Pullman bestows a sense of cohesiveness upon the area. The parks,
market, streets and alleys are oriented and bordered by buildings in such a way as to
produce a comfortable neighborhood street space which is tied together in an urban
village setting, complete with home, church, market and park. "Despite the relatively
small size of the town, the whole effect remains distinctly urban in character (Reps,
1965, p. 442)."

In the early 1890s a depression in the national economy adversely affected the
Pullman Palace Car Company and the community. It became necessary to cut wages
while sustaining the original rent levels for the stores, shops, halls, churches and
housing. With no alternative markets for housing or employment, the workers lashed
out in reaction to their unforeseen predicament. The Pullman labor strike and
concurrent sympathy actions across the country greatly disrupted the nation's
transportation systems, which led to negative publicity for what is considered a
mode! community worthy of emulation. Subsequently, the Illinois Supreme Court
ordered the company to divest itself of ail rea! property not required for strictly
manufacturing operations. Overdependence on singular, autocratic management of a
community proved to be the demise of a pioneering effort in community planning.
"With different management practices Pullman might weil have set a new direction
for industry to follow in its inevitable influence on the growth of towns and cities in
the twentieth century (Reps, 1965, p. 424)."

13
More than a century later, Pullman, IUinois, continues to be a highly livable and
viable community. This is evidenced by the town's 2,000 residents and the high
percentage of long-term owners and renters who invest time and money and care for
their homes, neighborhoods and community. This community's sense of pride of
place is further characterized by grass-roots efforts to preserve Pullman. Faced with
losing their community to commercial real estate development in the 1960s,
residents formed the Pullman Civic Organization, which helped to establish
Pullman, Illinois, as a city, state and nationallandmark community.

Given the present methods of commercially inspired large-scale, single-use real estate
development, is it possible to create balanced, whole communities that aspire to the
functional and urbanistic qualities of Pullman, Illinois.

14
Railroad and Streetcar Suburbs
Lake Forest, Illinois, 1857

Lake Forest was designed in 1857 as a suburban residential retreat in conjunction

with the founding of Presbyterian College. It is north of Chicago, along a commuter
rail !ine, on the bluffs overlooking Lake Michigan. Members of the Presbyte ri an
Church formed the Lake Forest Association to purchase land and oversee the
development and improvement of 1,400 acres (567 ha), of which 50 acres (20 ha)
were designated for the college grounds and 650 acres (263 ha) were plotted for
residentiallots to be sold to church members and associates. The remaining land was
sold to provide funds for the college.

The curvilinear street configuration was laid out in the naturalist, romantic style by
Almerin Hotchkiss, a surveyor and landscape designer, who was referred by Frederick
Law Olmsted. Hotchkiss' plan for Lake Forest is influenced by the planning theories
embodied in Olmsted's Central Park in New York City and Andrew Jackson
Downing's LIewellyn Park, New Jersey, drawing heavily from their themes of the
English romantic landscapes of the pseudo-natural picturesque style. The curvilinear
street layout ... "is far more sensitive to the topography th an it is to the needs of the
casual visitor, who is likely to get hopelessly lost in its maze-like pattern (Stern and
Massengale, Architectural Design, 1981, p. 23)." This narrow, curving internaI street
pattern, enhances a human scale and bolsters a sense of community cohesiveness,
discouraging through traffic.

In its early years, Lake Forest was an isolated resort community 30 miles from
Chicago's business district. Eventually, Lake Forest was engulfed by the street grid of
metropolitan Chicago. However, it remains a distinct community, partly because
there is a sense of transition at its boundaries and a sense of place within. It is
bounded by the Lake Michigan lakeshore to the east and the commuter railroad right
of way to the west, with limited links to the encompassing street grid to the north
and south. In addition, the interface between the street layout of Lake Forest and the
opposing Chicago sLreet configurations generales peculiar street intersections and
open spaces. These non-rectilinear intersections form a boundary between Lake
Forest and adjacent development to the north and south. The boundary acts as a
transition into and out of Lake Forest, reinforcing the feel of a distinct comrnunity.
This is similar to the boundary transitions later found and more masterfully handled
at Riverside, Illinois.

15
 =fco",]
, '

Figs. 4 and 5: Figure 4. (above): Market Square

in Lake Forest. 1Jlinois. Figure 5 (âght): The
interface between the street layout of Lake Forest
and the opposing Chkago street configurations
generates peculiar street intersections and open
spaces. (Architectural Design. 1981, p. 23)

From its inception, Lake Forest was intended to be a private, residential oasis, a mix
between religious sectarian retreat and social country club suburb. The commonality
of faith, socioeconomics, race and age created a homogeneity of residents that is
characteristic of suburban environments, as is evidenced today in contemporary gated
communities. However, the college population provided a degree of diversification in
demographics, as does a small mixed-use retai! and commercial area called Market
Square (Figs. 4 and 5), designed by Howard Van Doren Shaw in 1916. These areas
provide a sense of place within the corn munit y where sorne residents work, shop and
interact with their neighbors. The commercial and shopping area of Market Square,
near the train station, is designed mainly at a pedestrian scale, but it is also mindful
of but not too accommodating to the automobile and approaching motor age.
Market Square's intimately scaled pedestrian arcades and clock towers adjoin a tree-
lined public green.

Despite serving as an upper-income bedroom community, Lake Forest possesses

qualities that foster a sense of communlty, perhaps increasing its desirability as a place
to live and therefore strengthening its economic viability. The ciesign incorporates the
natural amenities of the land, such as accentuating the natural topography to
enhance the views of the lake. The pre-automobile, curvilinear interior street layout is
accessible by car but is pedestrian-oriented, with an intimately scaled streetscape. As
is typical of railroad or streetcar suburbs, the scale of the community is reined in by
pedestrian constraints of how far people are willing walk. Lake Forest possesses

16
multiple pedestrian-scaled, communal cores like the train station, Market Square and
the coilege campus. The community-oriented commercial area, cou pied with the
coilege, helps to diversify the socio-economic levels of the community. In addition
the "soft" boundaries announcing transition into or out of Lake Forest, as weil as the
distinct pedestrian scale within, ail help to create and enhance a sense of community.

17
Riverside, Illinois, 1869

Riverside was designed in 1869 by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux for the
Riverside Improvement Company. It was situated on 1,600 acres (647 ha) of prairie
and farmlandjust ni ne miles (14 km) west of Chicago. Although no longer
surrounded by open prairie, Riverside remains a distinct, pleasant and viable
community, which can be directly attributed to its superb planning.

The generallayout of Riverside (Fig. 6) follows a naturalistic, curvilinear street

pattern, which was typical of Olmsted and has become an archetype of suburban
landscape planning. The gracefully curved roads and generous open spaces planned
by Olmsted continue to suggest the ideal of the village in a park, a place of family-
oriented leisure and tranquility. The streets f10w into each other while
accommodating a graduai change in direction. This approach allows for generous
amounts of public open space in the form of landscaped boulevards and traffic
islands and establishes the sense of the rural or village green.

Originally the roadbed was depressed two feet below the f1anking curb grades. When
viewed from a distance, the roads virtually disappeared, accentuating the illusion of
the natural, rolling country estate uninterrupted by streets and man-made
boundaries. This arrangement accentuates the already extremely low densities, large
private yards and expansive common areas.
Fig. 6. Plan of the subllrb of
Riverside, lJlinois, 1869. FredeIick
Law Olmsted and Clavin VÉux
weil? farned for their collaborative
wO!* on New YoI*S Central Pal*
at the time they received the
commission to plan a suburban
real esta te venture nine miles
(14. 5 km) !rom Chicago. Theil'
design for Riverside bottowed
heaviJy !rom the vocabulaq of the
pélI* Jandscapes. The curved, tll?e-
Jined residentiaJ streets bracketing
the towns commuter railroad
llelpeel tu eleflIle il Ilew pJeCC(lt!IlI
for the sllburban landscape
(Kostof, 1991, p. 74).

18
To ensure that future development at Riverside did not compromise the original
design intentions, Olmsted authored strict covenants stipulating generous property-
line setbacks, single-family residences and restrictions requiring that additions be
architecturally compatible with the original structure and landscape.

In describing the design qualities of Riverside, Olmsted wrote:

A few simple precautions of this kind, added to a tasteful and convenient

disposition of shade trees, and other planting along the road-sides and
public places, will, in a few years, cause the whole locality ... to possess
not only the attraction of neatness and convenience and the charm of
refined sylvan beauty and graceful umbrageousness, but an aspect of
secluded peacefulness and tranquility more general and pervading than
can possibly be found in suburbs which have grown up in a desultory
haphazard way (Reps, 1965, p. 25).

The predominant design element of Riverside is the romantic, picturesque park

setting, which is rooted in the English traditions exemplified by the landscapes
designed by Capability Brown. Throughout the community, a unifying park network
lies within the flood plain of the Des Plaines river, which borders Riverside and is
connected to the community's other public open spaces by a network of pedestrian
paths. This pedestrian parkway, interlaced through Riverside, connects the resident
to the village center train station and the riverside park, which were designed to be a
part of Olmsted's large metropolitan-wide park system connecting downtown
Chicago with its suburban environs. In Olmsted's plan, Riverside was to be linked
with downtown Chicago via a wide boulevard parkway aligning with Riverside's
main avenue and gateway, Long Common Road.

Although large in scale, Riverside manages to retain its own identity by employing
unifying street characteristics such as its curvilinear pattern. The street
configurations, traffic medians, and numerous stop signs aIl discourage the use of
Riverside's roads as thoroughfares. Luxurious build ing setbacks and special street
furnishings, such as decorative lamps and signs, added to Riverside's sense of an
autonomous community. "Riverside ... established the principle that a suburban
community could be planned as a unit and would retain its identity as the urban
conurbation engulfed it, provided that it was carefully protected by greenbelts, gates,
and other barriers (Stern and Massengale, Architectural Desjgn, 1981, p. 24.)." The
design elements that transformed the prairie into a desirable and distinct community

19
over a hundred years ago continue to set it apart physically and qualitatively in the
sea of suburban sprawl that has since surrounded Riverside.

Over a century has lapsed since the vision of creating a community based on the
desire for a residential escape from the city was coupled with the idyllic archetype of
the romantic garden by Olmsted and Vaux at Riverside. Today Riverside remains the
epitome of these qualities. Riverside possesses a single town center, but the essence of
the community is based upon the individual detached family home. Riverside is
based on a notion of family retreat or escape from the larger chaotic and alienating
city. Lacking socio-economic diversity, Riverside can be taken to represent a graceful
step in what Richard Sennett refers to as the "fall of public man," man retreating
from the public sphere to the private haven of the family home.

20
Pre-War Suburbs

Forest Hills Gardens, New York, 1909

Forest Hills Gardens was founded in 1909 and completed in 1911 as a residential
suburb to foster the improvement of social and living conditions by the inspiration
and philanthropy of Mrs. Russell Sage. In 1907, the Russell Sage Foundation
purchased 174 acres (70 ha) of unimproved land in Queens, New York, adjacent to
the Long Island Rail Road. The model development was to be "designed as a
community where families of moderate means could live in good, low-cost housing."
(Levy, Metropolis. October 1989, p. 101).

To carry out the design of Forest Hills, the foundation se!ected Grosvener Atterbury
and his partner, John Thompkins. Both had experience in low-cost housing
construction. In addition, landscape architects Frederick L. Olmsted, Jr., and his
brother, John Charles Olmsted, assisted in creating an esthetically pleasing,
economically and socially successful community.

Forest Hills has many inspirational influences from the eider Olmsted's romantic
Riverside and the spatial figure/ground hierarchy at Hampstead Garden. Influenced
greatly by the 1893 Chicago Exposition grounds by Daniel Burnham, Forest Hills is
a compact, contained and urbane village, sequentially organized around a town
square, with streets outward to a village green and private homes, finally culminating
in an idealized natural setting.

Beyond the commercial core of the community, which is urban in character and
rectilinear and structured in form, the spatial layout becomes more dispersed and
curvilinear in nature. Olmsted writes of the residential area, "the local streets ... are
laid out so as to discourage their use as thoroughfares. While not fantastically
crooked, they're never perfectly straight for long stretches." (Levy. Metropolù,
October 1989, p. 101). The internai street configuration is arranged to foster
community, not facilitate the use of the automobile. The formai axial planning
derived from the 1893 Expo is softened by the Olmsteds' street layout and
landscaping, as well as by English Gothic architectural style. The consistent
architectural style lends an aesthetic cohesiveness that assists in retaining the identity
of Forest Hills (Fig. 7). This cohesiveness is reinforced by the incorporation of
consistent building forms, massing, and exterior facade finish materials and details.

21
 Fig. 7 Forest Hills Gardens (New York). 19 10. Designed by Gmsvenor Atterbury and the
Olmstead Brothers as a model workers' community, this is the most English in inspiration of
Ame/icas early planned suburbs. (Kostof, 1991, p. 78)

Forest Hills Gardens is a relatively complete, urban village setting with mixed
housing types, including single-family homes, duplexes, apartments and single-room
studios, combined with a mixture of commercial, retai! service shops clustered
around the station. Industrial enterprises are at the periphery. "The community is a
miniature metropolis with houses, stores, a school, and three churches (Levy,
Metropolis, October 1989, p.102).

It is just as vital for a whole community to contain not only the necessary mixture of
building types, functions and population, but also the appropriately al!ocated
varieties of open space. Forest Hills possesses that vital mixture of public and private
open spaces, from urban squares, village greens, neighborhood parks, front lawns,
backyards and natural forest. In addition, the width and layout of public right-of-
ways vary from straight and wide axial avenues to narrow, curvilinear lanes.

Forest Hills Gardens offers a variety of population densities, from town-center urban
to estate-like rural. The greatest densities and highest percentage of mixed use
development occur near Station Square, gradually dispersing outward as the formai
street patterns of avenues give way to curving lanes. The configuration and character

22
of the street, the spacing of buildings, building types, and landscaping all help to
reinforce the feeling of a complete urban entity and sense of community.

The streets lack uniformity. A few are wide, serving as main corridors through the
community. The rest are small, intimate and arranged in a seemingly haphazard
manner, giving the neighborhood the sense of having developed over time ...
creating a graceful transition from the rushed metropolis to the peaceful countryside.
(Levy, Metropolis, October 1989, p.10l)

The character of Forest Hills Gardens established by the gradation of urban to

natural settings is described by Robert Stern as a "metaphoric journey from town to
country." (Stern and Massengale, ArchHectural Design, 1981, p. 34)

The heart of Forest Hills Gardens, from which the remainder of the community
radiates, is Station Square. It is the town square not only by name and configuration,
but, more important, by its function as a mixed-use, pedestrian-scaled, center of the
community.

The gateway to Forest Hills Gardens is Station Square, a brick-paved

plaza dominated by the tower of Forest Hills Inn, bordered on one side
by the embankment of the railroad station and on the other three by a
continuously arcaded building, containing apartments and shops, that
spans the two principal streets leading from it into the residential
neighborhoods of the village. (Stern and Massengale, ArchHectural Design,
1981, p. 34)

Forest Hills Gardens was designed as a model comrnunity and rernains so today
because it fosters a sense of home, neighborhood and community for its inhabitants.

Although Forest Hills Gardens was founded as a home for families of moderate
means, ironically its success actually brought about the failure of its original goals.
The desirability of Forest Hills has over the years led to an outpacing in property
values, soon changing the co mm unity to an upper-class enclave. With successful and
desirable planned cornmunities, that oftentimes is an unintended consequence.
Rather than being disparaged for becoming an elite neighborhood, it should be
considered a testament to its desirability and success. The design principles exhibited
at Forest Hills should be incorporated into everyday planning, zoning and
developrnent regulations for adaptation and adoption by state, provincial and local
planning control boards.

23
A weil planned, beautifully designed, imaginatively engineered environment
intended for rniddle and lower incorne earners has becorne over tirne an exclusive
enclave because of its design. This exarnple and numerous others should be reason
enough for politicians, bureaucrats, civil servants, developers and residents to require
the sarne level of care to prote ct and enhance the quallty of our environrnent and
public and private investment.

24
Post-War Automobile Suburbs
Introduction
The automobile has been the largest single factor in transforming the city from a
relatively simple, compact-form of monocentric urban center into a complex,
sprawling polycentric conurbation. However, the automobile suburb " ... cannot be
considered a break in long-standing trends, but rather the later, perhaps more
dynamic, evolutionary stages of a transformation which was based on a pyramiding
of sm aIl scale innovations and underlying social desires (Sternlieb & Hughes, 1975,
p. 12)." The North American societal desire for open space, bolstered by the reaction
to the crowded, increasingly alienating industrial city, along with the modern ideals
of family and home, were sorne of the reasons and catalysts for the suburban exodus,
while the automobile brought the Garden of Eden within commuting range for the
middle class.

The railroad or streetcar suburbs can be thought of as separate, relatively succinct

urban forms radiating outward from the city. These urban nodes on the landscape
were separated from the adjacent urban growth by open, natural or agricultural land.
The automobile and the street grid that inherently allow individual flexibility in
commuting destinations disrupted the traditional transportation methods that
tended to separate and limit urban sprawl. Commuting was no longer confined by
distance or pre-determined rail-lines. The automobile allowed the infill of the
interstitial open space between the urbanized rail stops with low-density, dispersed
suburban development.

Vast, residentially zoned areas serviced by wide auto-oriented streets and generous
building setbacks generally characterize the automobile suburb. Lots are arranged in a
continuo us grid or curvilinear pattern flanked by wide lot frontages, each
accommodating the automobile with a private driveway and garage. "At the close of
the inter-war period, the suburbs as a whole were characterized by a diffuse
settIement fabric increasingly dependent on near-total automobility. (Muller, 1981,
p. 41)." This trend toward increased spatial diffusion and dependency u pon the
automobile has steadily increased sin ce World War II, as office complexes, industry.
distribution centers, civic buildings, educational and religious institutions, rnulti-
farnily housing, and resort complexes have ail followed the outward suburban
migration.

25
Returning World War II veterans wanted their piece of the American Dream. That
collective aspiration was made possible by the factors of demand, supply and access.
The demand for new housing was high and supply limited to the existing, aging
in-town houses and apartments caused by the disruptions of the Great Depression
and World War II. The millions of returning veterans were competing for this
limited housing stock with an influx of recent foreign immigrants and rural migrants
to the cities. "When sorne ten million men returned to civilian life in 1945, having
delayed marriage and children, they were ready ... to start families and settle down.
But they encountered a housing market notorious for its shortages (Gans,
1987, p. 74)."

Increasing the supply of housing was made possible by the U.s. government-
sponsored Veterans Administration and Federal Housing Administration programs
that guaranteed private home mortgages from default, thereby minimizing the
financial risk to lenders, developers and builders. "It was due to a change in
government practices. Ultimately, it was a political change, and not a technical one,
which addressed the distributional nature of the housing problem, for without FHA
and VA support, no Levitt could ever have succeeded in providing housing for those
who found their homes in these communities (Christensen, 1986, p. 104)."

Access was the other key ingredient to the Levittowns and the explosion of auto-
centric suburban growth to fo II ow. Rising private automobile ownership rates and
the construction of the interstate highway system provided access to large tracts of
inexpensive land on the peripheries of the established, traditional cities and towns.

26
 Fig. 8.

staGu 1 staDe 2

SIJOC 4

(J) .'

/
/

stage 6

1. Urban Diagnosis
Stage 1: 1770-1820 StagE' 4: 1945-7
The modern city beginsO 15lindustrialisation as Post-war planned decentralisation to new and
the magnetic impulse. expanded towns; comprehensive redevelopment
Stage 2: 1820-1900 of inner areas
Concentration-sorne decentralisation along Stage 5: ?-?
railways. The city re-created
Stage 3: 1900-1939 Stage 6: ?-?
Congestion-decay in the inner ring; unplanned The redeveloped centre.
decentralisation. (Muller, 1981, p. 21)

27
Levittown, New York, 1947

The Levittown of Long Island is the quintessential post-war, commuter suburb.

Sociologist Herbert J. Gans in The LevHtowners, as weIl as numerous scathing
critiques by urban sociologist Lewis Mumford, extensively examined the Levittown
phenomenon. Their research and publications in the popular press helped to spark
the public's awareness of the underside of post-war suburbanization.

Levittown was the first large-scale, mass-produced, single-family housing tract.

Levittown, with a population of over 80,000, never aspired to create the pluralism
and variety of a traditional town. It is the antithesis of a traditional city, with no real
city center, no sense of collective centeredness, no civic institutions, no industry and
very little commerce. The typical Levittown and future subdivisions it typified are
composed of mass-produced, identical single-family detached homes on similar-sized
lots in a seemingly endless grid of streets over a vast are a of cleared land.

The suburban dream manifested at Levittown was a seemingly endless landscape of

small, unadorned houses set on sm aIl treeless lots accessed from wide,
undifferentiated streets laid out in an unimaginative grid pattern interspersed with
loop road and cul de sacs. Furthermore, these look-alike houses were occupied by a
demographically homogeneous population. The typical Levittown resident had a
middle income, was caucasian, protestant, and of child bearing and rearing age.

Figure 9 b.

Figs. 9 a and b. OIiginal (Fig. 9 a) and revised plans (Fig. 9 b) of a speculative subdivision from the J 938
brochure "Planning Profitable Neighborhoods. " Wilen the Federal HOL/sing Administration was established
in J934 no one could have predicted the power it would come to wield in shaping Americas built landscape.
By establishing minimum design standards favoring cllrvilinear street formats, the FHA virtually assured the
nationwide replication of "olganiz" townscapes during an era of explosive suburban growth
(Kostof, 1991, p. 80).

28
Levitt & Sons built a number of communities known as Levittowns. The first was on
Long Island, and subsequent developments were built near Philadelphia, in New
Jersey and in Florida. Levittowns were a continuation of the forces that have fed the
suburbanization process from the early 19th century until the present day. Herbert
Gans has noted that the Levittown developments are not so much a novelty but a
physical indication of a societal trend toward decentralization. In general, Levittown
is yet another manifestation of the suburban myth, our seemingly inherent desire to
leave the alienating industrialized city for the idyllic family-centered life of the
suburbs.

The Levitts capitalized on this opportunity and supplied more than 8,000 hou ses per
year to the housing stock. By 1960 the population of Long Island's Levittown
exceeded 80,000. From 1945 to 1955 the Levitts transformed the suburban
landscape, an entire industry and our perception of Eden. Buying a single family,
detached home in the suburbs had become a socially ingrained myth that rernains
virtually unquestioned today. The construction process was categorized into
specialized teams of semi-skilled workers going frorn one unit to the next, repeating
their individu al tasks ad infinitum. The methods of assembly-line production were
not the only parallel to Ford's production methods.

Then suddenly the horizon darkens and a whole city of bungalows rises
abruptly into view. If you were to turn aside to explore this phenomenon,
the drive through would have a curious dreamlike quality of endlessness
and timelessness. You could go literally miles in any direction without
reaching the end of these impassive rows of !ittle houses. There are 6,000
of them and they are as identical as so many Ford cars parked in sorne
giant parking lot (Miller, 1986, p. 186).

The typical Levittown house was an 800 sq. ft. (106 m2) two-bedroom wood frame
Cape Cod set on a sparsely landscaped 60 ft. x 100 ft. (18 rn x 30 m) lot. The
exterior was finished with asbestos shingle siding in a limited line of colors, and the
roofing was asphalt shingle.

In order to address critics, land was set aside throughout the developrnent for
community centers, schools, churches and strip shopping centers. However, the
parcels were not contiguous, so the formation of a central town commons was
impossible.

29
 Beyond 'more house for the money,' the public and community facilities
planned ... were considerable, indicating once again the firm's intent ta
build communities for the auto age and not mere housing projects. These
included 22 miles of road, 43 miles of sidewalks ... 57 acres of parks and
parkways, 38 acres of land for school sites, and ten acres for prospective
churches ... a complete shopping center, railroad passenger and freight
station, parking lots, a professional size baseball field ... a pre-school
nursery, swimming pools and a town hall (Levy, MetropoJis, 1987, p. 77).

However the community and civic uses that typically help ta create a healthy and
diversified community were tao widely dispersed and disjointed to foster a sense of a
coherent center. There was no planning or design as ta the locations or layout of the
public parcels; rather they were just scattered throughout the development,
augmenting the feeling of a lack of cohesiveness and increasing disjointedness. To use
Jane Jacobs' phrase, "There is no there there." Levittowns lacked any mixed-use,
higher-density commercial and residential areas. They lacked any marked diversity in
demographics or variety in housing types or styles. The street grid lacked any
variation in layout or street width. The houses were set identically on their identical
lots. The Levittowns also lacked a defined border, boundary or green buffer from
their surroundings. Further, there were no clearly defined entrances ta the
development and no alternative means of transportation ta, from or within the
development.

The various corn munity amenities were interspersed, and the roads laid out in the
superblock arrangement. Schools and recreation facilities were located within the
blacks and the commercial ventures placed near the edges of the community on
arterial roads. Levitt & Sons and scores of less-ambitious developers across the
country had filled a market need and reinforced the continuing suburbanization
process. The Levittowns had made it possible for the next aspiring socio-economic
class ta attain the elusive ideal of a home within a garden. However diluted from the
ideal it may have been, the Levitts provided a form of the suburban myth ta a great
many American families.

The various Levittowns constructed from the 1940s ta the 1960s were the result of a
convergence of forces. First was the inherent desire for the home within a garden.
Making that dream a possibility was the post-war demand for housing, which was
addressed with the FHA- and VA-guaranteed rnortgage prograrns, the construction

30
of the interstate highway system, and the principles of mass production-mass
production of entire subdivisions across the landscape. Levittowns have left an
indelible mark on our landscape and in our psyche. They were the model for what
has been the wholesale transformation of our pattern of settlement, our idea and
reality of suburbia leading to the contemporary dispersed outer city.

The enormous subdivisions that the Levitts pioneered and made possible by the
policies of the FHA in the early post-war years arguably helped to define the
typology, the tone and pace of suburban development to this day. That typology and
tone are one of a diffused, monotonous, centerless and edgeless mono-culture
designed more for the expedient subdivision of land and the movement and storage
of automobiles than for any concerns for the quality and richness of urban Iife for
the inhabitants. Levittowns and most subdivisions that have followed are based on
access by a single private automobile transportation system, precluding all other
forrns of pedestrian, bicycle or mass-transit systems by their inherent low densities
and single-land-use patterns. There are no mass-transit or commercial nodes like a
market square. There are no cultural buildings. The only civic buildings are schools
set on large tracts of land. Higher density mixed-use, commercial and residential
building types do not exist. Variation in housing type, densities or family
demographic does not exist. Village greens, green buffers and borders do not exist.
Further, most open green space is comprised of private land private, rather than
public. Open space is set aside for schools and churches but it is not widely dispersed
and does not create defined civic, public places. In short, Levittowns and similar
suburban development should be examined for the lesson of how not to design for
community.

Regrettably, when the suburban boom was in its infancy, it was not subject ta
human-scaled, true community-based design standards based on already existing
precedents from communities such as Pullman, Riverside, Forest Hills Gardens and
numeraus others. It was a shortcoming of our government, our business leaders and
ourselves.

31
IV. The Current Form of the Suburb

Suburbia, 1960 to Present

The contemporary suburban environment has become the dominant form of

urbanization in North America. The idyl1ic bedroom community, so romanticized in
our preconceptions of domesticity, has been usurped by what Robert Fishman calls
the "Technoburb."

According to Fishman, the post-war suburbanization of the nation does not represent
the logical culmination and refinement of suburban planning. Rather, this era marks
the end of the suburban dream. The very act of becoming so widely attainable in
such a desultory form essentially negated the suburbs' original in te nt of private
sanctuary. With the exception of a few isolated examples, the results of the
suburbanization process, especially during the past 50 years, does not achieve the
ideals that led us to pursue the suburban dream. Originally the suburb was a
specialized entity of the expanding industrial city devoted to the ideals of the
domestic haven, remote from, yet dependent upon, the commerce and civics of the
city.

Following the mass migration of families to the suburban bedroom developments

typified by the Levittowns came an influx of commercial entities to the new market
presented by the tremendous residential growth at the periphery of the city. The
roadside strip mall along a motorway, the office park, the enclosed suburban
shopping mall, and the commercial and industrial parks ail followed over time.
Subsequent waves of additional housing tracts also brought high-rise office parks,
mega shopping malis, commerce parks, huge industrial parks, universities and
corporate research parks, big-box stores, churches, temples, campus schools, gated
and resort communities, ail tenuously connected and simultaneously disconnected
by highways, arterial parkways and parking lots. According to Mumford, "mass
Suburbia has done away with most of the freedoms and delights that the original
disciples of Rousseau sought to find through their exodus from the city (Miller,
1986, p. 212)."

Ever-increasing automobile use and ever-expanding highway and road systems helped
to lure us, followed by our commerce and our institutions, away from the city,
creating an ever-expanding and accelerating "big-bang theory" of suburbanization.

32
This exponentially increasing sprawl radiates outward from the traditional core of
villages, towns and cities, paradoxically destroying the very natural resources and
local characteristics that were the impetus of the original urban settlement and
suburban dream.

As soon as the motor car became common, the pedestrian scale of the
suburb disappeared, and with it most of its individuality and charm. The
suburb ceased to be a neighborhood unit: it became a diffused low-
density mass, enveloped by the conurbation and the further enveloping
of it (Mumford, 1961, p. 505).

The reaction to this accelerating outward migration was to compartmentalize the

various uses into large, single-use tracts. Suburban growth was loosely guided by
zoning regulations adopted by local municipalities. Urban planning was reduced to
automobile traffic engineering and local zoning maps, euphemistically referred to as
Community Master Plans, each color on the map connected to and separated from
the other by wide arterial roads. The strict separation of land uses was a reaction to
the abuses of the industrialized city. In an era of big-box stores, regional mega malis
and high-rise suburban office parks, creating a more humanely scaled, finer urban
fabric is certainly a daunting task, but one that must be thoughtfully and aggressively
pursued.

33
v. Past Influences, Theories and Future Alternatives

Introduction
Theories regarding suburban planning have had tremendous effects upon our
suburban landscape. Theories regarding what form our built environment shall take
include religiously based manifestations of a faith, social utopias and others associated
with a particular esthetic evoking sorne aspect of the suburban mythology.

One of the most influential social reform theories on the development of new
settlements was Ebenezer Howard's Garden CiUes of TomolTOw, published in 1902,
which popularized the Garden Cities Movement. The main precept of this theory,
which may have doomed it from being widely adopted, was the principle of the
citizen as stockholder in the municipality. For critics this was too socialistic and ran
against free-market principles. An esthetic- based theory is represented by Frank
Lloyd Wright's Broadacre City, which he claimed embodied the ideals of the
individu al in an egalitarian democracy. Both theories are extremes of utopias through
land reform and land-use patterns. Neither theory has materialized into the pure
forms of settlement originally intended. Rather, both to varying degree have been
assimilated into the mainstream suburban mythology and land-development
practices.

An earlier example of an individual who has influenced our imagery of the suburban
esthetic is Andrew Jackson Downing, a horticulturalist who published many works
on the home and garden, most notably Cottage Residences of 1842 and
The Architecture of the CountIY House of 1850. Both publications concerned
Downing's theories of architectural and landscape esthetics, and both became
popularly accepted as basic pattern books. Downing's theories mainly derived from
John Loudon's An EncycJopedia of Cottage, Farm and Villa Architecture of 1829.
However, it was Downing's intention to popularize his theories of domestic
architectural beauty set within the semi-natural romantic lands cape by making them
accessible ta the general public.

Downing distilled the elusive language of romantic rationalism into agreeable and
understandable principles. His influence upon the suburban environrnent is also
iIlustrated in his built projects, notably L1ewellyn Park, New Jersey (Fig. 10). Here
Downing collaborated with architect Andrew Jackson Davis to create one of the
earliest planned residential suburbs in the romantic idiom.

34
 ng. 10. Plan of a portion of LlewelJyn Pal* in Orange, New jersey, 1859
(Reps, 1965, p. 391).
Llewellyn Park contained 400 acres (160 ha), with a common park in the center of
the development, surrounded by 50 private residentiallots of three to 10 acres (4 ha).
Founded by Llewellyn Haskell in 1853, its perception as a fully planned ideal
community distinguishes it from earlier suburbs and marks the start of the tradition
of carefully planned surburbs.

Andrew Jackson Downing had numerous inspirations for his theories, such as the
work of British landscape designers Capability Brown and Joseph Paxton, especially
Paxton's Birkenhead Suburb of 1844. Birkenhead, near Liverpool, is a residential,
planned suburb consisting of urban-like but freestanding town villas encompassing a
romanticized natural park. Birkenhead is said to be an inspirational point of
departure for both Andrew Jackson Downing and Frederick Law Olmsted.

Olrnsted has proved to be another influential figure on the transformations of the

suburban environment. His work at Riverside, Illinois, drew heavily upon English
precedent and Llewellyn Park, New Jersey. Olmsted's prodigious career, which
essentially began with the commission to design New York's Central Park in the
1850s, climaxed with his design of the grounds of the 1893 Chicago Exposition.
Throughout his career Olmsted was commissioned to design nurnerous college
campuses, and city parks in New York, Boston, Chicago, Montreal, Detroit,
Milwaukee and Buffalo. In addition to Riverside, his finest and rnost exemplary
suburb, Olmsted designed many residential suburbs and subdivisions and even the
complete Industrial Village of Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, in 1890. Olmsted also
designed a nurnber of state-sponsored projects in the U.s., most notably the campus
at Berkeley University and the capital grounds at Albany, New York.

35
The Garden City

One of the most influential utopian

theories was put forth by Ebenezer
Howard as a reaction to the inhumane
conditions of the industrialized
metropolis. Howard synthesized various
theories of urban and social planning in
an effort to achieve a harmonious balance
in the formation and maintenance of
urban and social structures in his Garden
Cities. Howard's ideas were first published
in 1889 under the title To-marrow: A
Peaceful Path ta Real Refarm. In 1902 it
was revised, edited and re-titled Garden
Cities of Tomarraw. Howard's theories and Fig. 11. A plan of V1fllH)'n Garden City by Louis
de Soissons. c. 1921 (Girouard, 1986, p. 352).
their subsequent incarnations, the Garden
Cities of Letchworth and Welwyn in Britain, have proved very influential upon the
suburban landscape. Mumford writes:

The very building of Letchworth and Welwyn, while it immensely helped

the idea, by bringing it down to earth, also limited it; for admirable
though each of them is, they each have weaknesses ... which people too
easily identify with the original idea, instead of realizing that both the
improvements and laps es from key proposais are the inevitable price one
pays for transportation into actuallife (Mumford, 1961, p. 491).

Ebenezer Howard was a land reformer who sought a social utopia through planned
and self-regulating communities (Fig. 12). He realized the inharmonious
consequences of rural depopulation, urban overcrowding, and excessive exploitation
of human and natural resources. Howard believed in the benefits of municipal
ownership and stewardship of land. By owning the land, the people earned a return
on their investment on the capital improvements. They realized dividends From their

work and taxes, as opposed to the private developer, who would receive unearned
increases in property value just for owning the land adjacent to public improvements.
This inequity of land speculation was echoed more recently by the United Nations
Habitat Conference on Hurnan Settlements, which in 1976 approved a resolution
that:

36
 The unearned Increments resulting from the rise in land values resulting
from public investments ... or due to the general growth of the
community must be subject of recapture by public bodies (United
Nations Conference on Human Settlement, 1976, United Nations, NY,
A/CONF.70/15, p. 65).

Howard believed that in order for a city population to properly sustain itself.
economically and socially, its population must fall between a minimum and
maximum limit. He also held to the idea of a balance between town and country.
He abhorred urban sprawl and insisted that a community should be in close
proximity and contact with its means of sustenance, whether it be agricultural,
industrial or commercial. Through common land holdings, the community cou Id
control and regulate its density while collectively investing in itself. An almost certain
dividend in the common land trust cou Id be realized through proper stewardship of
balanced land development.

Howard's proposed social system ensured self-regulation for the common good and a
beHef in social unity. In addition, the Garden City would be a self-sustaining,
compact, autonomous community that should fit into a larger organization or
network of neighboring communities separated by undeveloped, yet productive,
agriculturalland and linked for commerce, culture and shared services.

Fig. 12. Diagram of "Social Cities .,

from Ebenezer Ho wald 's To-
Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Social
Reform. first published i/7 1898,
and renamed in late]' editions
Garden Cities of Tomorrow
(Kostof. 1991, p. 194).

37
When a Garden City reached its maximum population of roughly 32,000, a new
town would bechartered, planned and constructed as an integral part of the larger
network. This principle is similar to the way the Amana Colonies in Iowa developed.
Howard's principles questioned the accepted fonn of speculative land development
in the industrialized world, where an increasingly specialized central business district
is encompassed by a hierarchical pattern of land use and values. With the advent of
the automobile and highway system, this imbalance would lead to dispersed,
leapfrog land development.

The Garden City was intended as a refuge from the deplorable conditions of the
19th century industrial city. It was also intended to provide an urban oasis from a
socially and culturally deficient rural environment. Howard's Garden City was to be
balanced and economically self-sustaining, incorporating the best of rural and urban
worlds without compromising either.

Howard sought to provide a means to a "peaceful path to real reform" with his
Garden Cities. They were to be autonomous, self-regulating communities of \imited
size, one to three miles (1-5 km) in radius, with a maximum population of 32,000
inhabitants.

Howard's ideas are often misconstrued as anti-urban. Critics daim that his intent was
to create quaint \ittle villages at the city's perimeter. Rather, he advocated the
development of compact, self-reliant new towns as functional, econornically viable
communities. These principles were to be adopted by existing villages, as well, to
guide their development into the urban nucleus for the network of Garden Cities.
The network of newly developed communities, whether old or new, was then
intended to offer an organized method of dispersing the over-concentration of
resources and population in the rnother city, as well as containing urban sprawl. The
resultant redistribution was intended to bring about a more equitable balance of land
values, reduce the likelihood of exploitation of the poor by the landholders, and
create an economic and social balance between city and country.

These Garden Cities were to contain all facets of a balanced and healthy society,
encompassed by a rural greenbelt. The cornrnunity would occupy approximately
6,000 acres (2,400 ha), with only a small fraction devoted to urbanized
development.

38
The heart of the community contained the train depot, village green, market and
other buildings of civic function. Various commercial and residential buildings of an
urban character were located around the core of the community.

When the community began to exceed its stipulated limits, resources would be
gathered from existing Garden Cities to enable the founding of another distinct
Garden City, separated from the first by an unspoiled greenbelt. In this fashion,
Howard envisioned a holistic system of Garden Cities, interconnected, yet distinct.
"But the Garden City in Howard's own view was first of aIl a city: a new kind of unit
whose organic pattern would in the end spread from the individual model to a whole
constellation of similar cities." (Mumford, 1961, p. 519).

Fishman further describes:

The Garden City citizen is still a man on foot who must be within
walking distance of every part of the town ... the railroad ... stops
reinforce the need for people to gather together close to central point-
the station-where shops, offices, and other meeting places can be found.
The result is the Garden City pattern of open countryside dotted with
compact planned cities (Fishman, 1977, p. 87).

The pure, well-intentioned theories of the Garden City have been diluted, retaining
the name, but not the content. Howard and his followers, Raymond Unwin and
Barry Parker, had a direct influence on suburban icleals, yet what they espoused is
harclly eviclent in our contemporary suburban environments. Mumforcl writes, "The
Garden City was no housing project, no dormitory suburb, no trading estate, no
inclustrial satellite; ail these separate functions beginning with those of recreation,
education, and government, were integrated, and balance and integration were the
marrow of the organization (Mumford, 1961, p. 517)."

Balance through self-regulation is the he art of Garden Cities of Tomorrow, which

proposed a balance of power, wealth, society and environment, ail in pursuit of the
common good. Ebenezer Howard, a court stenographer turned social reformer,
synthesizecl a number of progressive social theories that brought about major re-
evaluations of society by way of its urbanization patterns. Only fanciful speculation
can tell what might have happenecl if his icleas hacl been carriecl out in earnest. Our
own self-imposecl limitations force us to live in an environment that cloes not adhere
to the notions of societal stewarclship of resources or self-regulation of exploitative
opportunities or a cohesive balance between man and nature, rich and poor.

39
Utopian Theories

We have surpassed the point in our history where we can continue to allow
irresponsible stewardship of our urbanized are as, our natural resources and our
society. The problems of urbanization, resource management and our societal
disenfranchisement are too crucial to our future to be left up to unrestrained,
speculative land development. Therefore, we must initiate a long-range, socially
responsible dialogue that will bring about the appropriate shaping of an equitable,
holistic and balanced environment. Modern man has not had a shortage of visionary
notions regarding the future of our society and the form the built environment takes.
From a planning perspective, most seem to be of a social utopian nature, where the
prevalent societal problems of the time are addressed by a drastic alternation of our
built environment.

Utopian theories have helped shape and inspire our concept of the ideal urban
framework from which man could achieve the highest spiritual calling or become
their most efficient in industry or attain social equity.

Religiously inspired utopias would attempt to create a heaven on earth. Victoria, a

utopian factory town in Scotland (Fig. 13), served as the inspiration for the New-
]erusalem-like New Harmony, Indiana, founded by Robert Dale Owen.
Industrialists with varying degrees and mixtures of enlightened self-interest and
paternalism have also created numerous examples of utopia in the form of factory
towns such as Saltaire and Port Sunlight in England; Lowell, Massachusetts; Pullman,
Illinois; and Kohler, Wisconsin.

Fig. 13. James SiJk Buckinghan/r design for the new modeJ town of Victoria. 1849-National
Evils and Practical Remedies (Girouard. 1986. p. 350).

40
Man's longing for a utopian world is weil documented. From the biblical concept of
the Garden of Eden to Disney Corporation's Celebration, Florida, man has sought to
create a perfect, utopian society and to manifest that perfection in the built
environment. The utopian theories' have typically been a moral or social reaction to
correct sorne deplorable existing condition, such as squalid conditions and social ills
perceived to be due to overcrowding during the indus trial revolution. Further, as
described by Mark Girouard in CHies & People,

The belief that the country is basically good and the city basically wicked
can be traced deep back into the past, but its particular modern forrn
stems From the reaction against the many undeniable horrors of big
nineteenth-century cities. Out of this rose the Garden City Movernent,
the City Beautiful Movement and the Modern Movernent. The three
ideologies, conflicting on many points, were united in their
condemnation of high-density, closely knit cities ... (Girouard,
1985, p. 379).
The culmination of our reaction to the evils of the city has injust a few generations
created our current suburban environment: a low-density, low-rise, dispersed,
functionally compartmentalized environment of single-use buildings surrounded by
open space occupied by automobiles. In effect, our suburban environment is the
complete spatial and social antithesis of ail urban environments before it.

For Arturo Soria y Mata, the idyllic city of the future was the Linear Garden City.
(Fig. 14) Ebenezer Howard's concept of the future was ernbodied in the philosophy
of Ga/den CHies of Tomo/TOw. LeCorbusier expressed sorne of his utopian ideals in the

Fig. 14. DetaiJ of Soria y Matas Ciudad LineaJ. The Jjnear suburb wouJd foJJow the raiJ system between
estabJished cities creating a Jinear rather than a radiaJ type of street car or raiJ suburb. DeveJapment
wouJd aggregate either side of the raiJ Une and especiaJJy at raiJ stops preserving the countlyside (Lynch.
1984. p. 87).

41
Ville Radieuse (Radiant City) and in Ville Contemporaine (Fig. 15). Broadacre City
was utopia in the mind of Frank Lloyd Wright. The plan for Galesburg (MI)
Country Home Acres (Fig. 16) was based on his Broadacre theory. The common
denominator was that they were ideas of spirit and vision that attempted ta abandon,
ignore or completely redesign our cities. They are the theories that have amalgamated
with our suburban mythology to profoundly shape our modern suburbs and cities.
The futuristic ideals of the 19th century have become, to differing degrees, our
reality.

Figure 15. Ville Contemporaine. From Le Corbusier, Urbanisme, 1925 (Girouard, 1985, p. 36).

"GALESaURG COfJHTIlY HOMES ACRES"

rc ....N:I#.I~ pif CxoI'lI:i.Ç#YO:S-N, cQo<.< ..',.. ... I;z,# .r... ~AMAZ-Q:dJtK~/$A.~
.&ooo~.'f"~ ...." ,~.

_. _ _ --;.. . ., .......... r~1:r~ ~1!..,~Oi

fIgure 16. Plat map of Galesburg Country Home ACIt'S by Frank Lloyd vvhght a [t'sidenUal subdivision
with cùrular private lots based on f1hghtS Broadacre planning theOly (Galesburg Village Planning
Department, reprint of original plat map).

42
Mumford writes, "In a hundred futile ways people seek an individual solution to
their social problems and so ultimately create a second social problem." (Mumford,
1961, p. 469). It is this underlying precept of rejecting the existing urban conditions
that has led to lands capes littered with manifestations of man's attempts to escape
from himself-to abandon what he has made and begin new.

The idea of making a break and starting anew was a reaction to the deplorable urban
conditions exacerbated during the industrial age. However, the underlying crucial
problems of modern urbanism were not addressed, merely avoided by dispersion and
decentralization. It is only a matter of time before similar dilemmas arise,
accompanied by new problems created by suburbanization, greatly compounding the
difficulty of finding a solution.

Christopher Alexander's organic theory of incremental urban growth (Fig. 17)

developed over many years derives from his be\ief that order and perfection are found
in the natural processes that create the forms or patterns found within nature, such as
a leaf, a cross-section of a conch shell, and the cell and nuc\ei itself. If analyzed, those
fonns can be quantified into "patterns" that can be duplicated and repeated, creating
unifying, yet indigenously unique, results, whether it be designing a teapot, home,
college campus or a city. If one follows the incremental accretions of patterns found
in nature, then the result shaH create a truly organic and holistic environment.

Alexander espouses a public charrette-like design process based on a common vision

of the intent of public and private spaces. Lynch suggests:

The patterns of Christopher Alexander are part of his larger system of

thought, which centers on the process of environmental decision.
Nevertheless, they are fragments of a utopian vision that is primarily
concerned with spatial form ... each proposaI linked to its human
consequence. Thus, while the system as a whole is concerned with how
decisions are made, the substance of the patterns is a long, richly
illllstrated disqllisition on the match of form with behavior (Lynch.
1984, p. 67).

43
In A New Theory of Urban Design, sixth in a series of publications concerning a
fundamental shift required in our present methods of designing and constructing
our environment, Alexander examines an alternative pro cess of urban design and
formation that he argues is required in order to produce organically beautiful,
timeless and holistically livable settlements.

The authors argue that the most visua11y beautiful, enriching and livable cities, towns
and villages possess a feeling of "organicness." Each environment is made up of
streets, squares, a11eys, buildings, courtyards, entrances, fenestration, details and
decoration that a11 seem to incrementa11y emanate or grow as components of a
whole, guided by naturallaws of wholeness, as if the patterns and process were
encoded in the DNA of the bricks and sticks, as we11 as in the craftsmen.

Fig. J 7. C. Alexander's incremental "organic" growth (Alexander, 1987, pp. 45-49).

This may have been the process that created beautiful ltalian hill towns, New
England villages and Southern hamlets in the pre-industrial world. As Alexander
points out, "This quality does not exist in towns being built today. And indeed, this
quality could not exist at present because there isn't any discipline which actively sets
out to achieve it (Alexander, 1987, p. 2)." However, the hill towns, villages and
hamlets of the past were not created by any overarching designer/planner discipline
but by masons, carpenters, fishermen and farmers. The organic cohesiveness of the
pre-industrial village may have been the result, not of design for a sense of organic
beauty, but of practicality, frugality and simplicity unencumbered by self-
consciousness.

In an age of relative wealth, with cheap energy and transportation and mass-
produced, imported building materials as we11 as layers of "experts" from politicians,
bureaucrats, engineers, planners, designers, financiers, market analysts and design-
review committees, it is not likely that anything with the beauty of timeless, organic
wholeness embodied in a building, neighborhood or village could be built.

44
Alexander argues that it is not the expertise that is lacking but that the current
process is incompatible with the task of creating organicaUy beautiful wholeness
emanating from the creation of patterns based upon a centering pro cess to organize
aU elements of the process that would create a spontaneous, holistic order.

In A New TfJeory of Urban Design, the author proposes an overriding rule to guide
the process. "Every new act of construction has just one basic obligation: it must
create a continuous structure of wholes around itself." This overriding rule of the
growth process is supported by intermediate rules of growth that are intended to be
flexible and subject to local variations of context. The following is an excerpt from
the book (Alexander, 1987, pp. 31-99).

1. Piecemeal growth: The idea ofpiecemeal growth must be specifjed exactly enough so
that we can guarantee a mixed flow ofsmall, medium and large prqjects in about
equal quantities
2. The growth of larger wholes: Every building increment must help to form at least
one larger whole in the city, which is both larger and more signilicant than itself
3. Visions: Eveq pnject must lirst be experienced, and then expressed, as a vision
which can be seen in the inner eye. It must have the qualify so strongly that it can
alsa be cammunicated ta athers, and !elt by athers, as a visian.
4. The basic rule of positive urban space: Every prqject must create coherent and
well- shaped public space next ta it.
5. Layout of large buildings: The entrances, the main circulation, the main division
of the whole into parts, ifs interior open spaces, ifs daylight, and the movement
within the building, are a11 coherent and consistent with the pasition olthe building
in the street and in the neighborhood.
6. Construction: The structure ol every building must generate smaller wholes in the
physical fabric of the building, in its structural bays, columIlS, walls, windows,
building base, etc.-in short, in its entire physical construction and appearance.
7. Formation of centers: Every whole must be a "center" in itself, and must also
produce a system of centers around it.

These rules of growth, according to the author, are intended to create a process of
formulating the design and carrying out the construction of projects that would
incrementaUy result in creating or evolving into a balanced, organic environment
with a sense of uniqueness of place, identifiable and memorable. These rules of
growth must be the progenitors of the process and not superficially applied. Further,

45
the patterns of wholeness cannot be externally or legislatively applied to achieve the
"look" of wholeness like an esthetic appliqué. That approach only produces the
kitsch of a Las Vegas or eerie fake perfection of Disney's Celebration, Florida.

Jane Jacobs, urban theorist and author of The Death and DIe al Great American
Cilies, published in 1961, clearly and effectively debunked the Post- WWII urban
planning establishment that advocated large-scale, dehumanizing urban renewal and
highway projects that tended to decimate existing urban communities and
neighborhoods. Jacobs' scathing critique of the post-war urban planning profession
goes directly to the heart of the paradox of attempting to design, plan, quantify,
control and predetermine the inherently chaotic process of urbanization.

According to Leonard Gilroy, urban planner and policy analyst with the Reason
Foundation, a free market advocacy group, Jacobs' critical analysis of the planning
profession cou Id also be directed at the New Urbanists or SmartGrowth proponents.
He states, "Given urban planners' almost universal reverence for Jacobs, it is ironie
the many have largely ignored or misinterpreted the central lesson of The Death and
DIe, that cities are vibrant living systems not the product of grand, utopian schemes
concocted by overzealous planners (Gilroy, Vf.allStreetjournaJ, May 2, 2006,
p. D 8)."

It must be acknowledged that Jacobs' "vibrant living systems" were typically pre-war,
pre-automobile, fully urbanized areas. Her oft-quoted "There is no there there" could
just as easily refer to the unregulated, no zoning of Houston as to heavily zoned Los
Angeles. Both are devoid of the sense of community richness and fullness that Jacobs
outlined, regardless of the degree of zoning contrais and development restrictions.
Their community lifelessness derives more [rom the result of overly accornrnodating
traffic planning, large-scale econornics and the inherent vacuousness created by the
separation of land uses, the lack of diversity and rnixed uses, in one case excluded by
market forces and in the other by regulation. There is nothing in either post-auto,
post- war example that appraximates the spontaneous, self-orchestrated and self-
regulated chaotic order that can create Jacobs' vibrant and healthy comrnunity.

46
In The Death and Life of Great American CHies, Jacobs proposes four conditions for
the reconstruction of our cities that could also be extrapolated for the repair of our
suburbs:

• The need for mixed primary uses. "The district ... must serve more th an one
primary function; preferably two. These must insure the presence of people
who go outdoors on different schedules ... "
• The need for small blocks. "Most streets must be short; that is, streets and
opportunities to turn corners must be frequent."
• The need for aged buildings. "The district must mingle buildings that vary in
age and condition."
• The need for concentration. "The district must have a sufficiently dense
concentration of people."

The elusive balance, then, of planning for and fostering a rich environment is to
develop a universal, yet locally derived, recipe of prescriptive guidelines and
restrictions that create a unifying framework within which communities can arise as
dynamic economic engines that thrive on public and private initiative, promote
incremental change and human and economic diversity, and that can flourish and be
sustained in harmony over time.

47
Suburban Vitalization

In our perpetuaI quest for the suburban myth, we do not have the luxury of simply
abandoning what we have produced and moving outward and onward. When the
suburban problems mount, we cannot naively look again to the horizon on"which to
break new ground. We must face our built environment and the problems of
modern urbanism and realize our solution cannot inc1ude the exploitation of yet
more land. Rather, we possess a vast existing, underutilized urban and suburban
infrastructure from which to redefine and reshape our existing environment, our
sense of urbanism and our society.

Given the strength of the suburban myth, it is assumed that sorne form of smaller-
scale urbanity, in proximity to nature, is inherently desirable, and to hope for verdant
cities with contained, distinct and walkable suburbs is realistic.

Our contemporary suburbs contain the essential functions of any urban

city (commerce, civics, manufacturing), residential, but in low-density,
dispersed arrangement. They are no longer manicured bedroom
communities, but contain retail shopping and office and industrial parks.
In spite of these amenities, they seem to lack the substantial coherence,
vitality and sense of place that exist in the traditional urban setting. A
report about suburbia prepared by the Urban Land Institute reads, "The
suburban dependency on the automobile prec1udes the sort of pedestrian-
oriented activities that make cities such lively places to be; furthermore,
suburbs can be difficult, harsh, often uninteresting places." (Steven,
New York Times, November 19, 1989).

Suburban development, now matured, has proved to be a social, governmental and

planning enigma. The downside of a socially ignorant, short-sighted exploitation of
land and resources to accommodate endless seas of mini McMansions and strip malis
is becoming increasingly apparent to homeowners, school districts and local
municipalities, as well as state/provincial and federal governments. The dilemma for
ail of us will only continue to worsen as we perpetuate the cycle.

The land are a that has been subjected to suburban development over the past
50 years is unprecedented. Much of it is underutilized and of a density that thwarts
any attempt to renovate the existing infrastructure into an environment that would
approximate our best-planned suburbs, like Forest Bills or Pullman. Retrofitting a

48
suburbia filled with subdivisions and strip mails into an environment with a series of
mass transit urban nodes, each with market squares of mixed commercial and
medium-density residential apartments, similar to Shaker Heights, Ohio, or Country
Club Plaza in Kansas City, within walking distance to the existing, surrounding
neighborhoods, will be a challenge. Creating opportunities for the effective
implementation of a variety of transportation systems, including an appropriate
mixture of train, trolley, bus, cab, car, bicycle and pedestrian modes, given the
current automobile-only framework, will take imagination. Establishing peripheral
boundaries, bord ers and open space buffers creating distinct neighborhood edges and
entrances will be daunting. Fostering a mixture of residential densities, housing types
and income groups within existing subdivisions will me et resistance. A form of
existing suburban retrofitting must be carried out while simultaneously addressing
the needs of our inner cities as weil planning and creating new suburbs based on
proven methods, patterns and characteristics that crea te good communities. Ali of
this and more must be carried out and implemented within our existing political and
economic constructs. Creating remedies outside of those realities will only lead to
another theory unimplemented.

Kevin Lynch in Good City Form states:

The extensive low-density North American suburb has three glaring

deficiencies: its course grain of use and of social class, its heavy cost of
construction and maintenance, and its reliance on the priva te car, which
leaves it vulnerable to fuel shortages and makes access difficult for outsid-
ers or the young and the aged among its own people. Recasting the
suburb for prolonged usefulness is a principal task of North American
urbanism. Part of that task will be the invention of a public vehicle that
can operate satisfactorily at suburban densities (Lynch, 1984, p. 274).

Rather than wait for this hypothetical invention, recasting the suburbs to
systematically and sensitively increase densities at key transportation stops seems
more realistic and begins to set the stage for arlrlressing arlrlitional shortcomings of
suburbia.

The opportunity before us is to arnend the inequities of our urban and suburban
environments. Urban, suburban and rural areas can no longer be viewed as separate
entities. Regional planning for the benefit of the larger whole must be irnplernented

49
rather than the current fragmented, shortsighted parochial process now in practice. If
our towns, villages and suburbs are to approximate the true suburban ideal, the
impetus must be the reshaping and healthy transformation of our existing built
. environment. This idea is illustrated by Patrick Geddes' statement, "Civics as an art
has to do, not with imagining an impossible utopia where a11 is well, but with
making the most and best of each and every place, and especially of the city in which
we live (Schaffer, 1982, p. 138)." Rehabilitation of our existing environment is a
more difficult and complicated process, simply because of the complexity of variables
and ramifications.

To repair our built environment, we must first come to terms with the existing
conditions, define the problems and inequalities, and assess the problem against our
resources, to formulate a concerted direction to alleviating the condition that
Mumford describes:

... a multitude of uniform, unidentified houses, !ined up inflexibly, at

uniform distances, on uniform roads ... conforming in every aspect to a
common mold, manufactured in the central metropolis. Thus the
ultimate effect of the suburban escape in our time is, ironically, a low-
grade environment from which escape is impossible (Haar, 1972, p. 155).

In general, suburban growth has improved the basic living conditions of a great many
people in comparison with the industrialized cities of the nineteenth and early
twentieth century. However, while reshaping our environ ment we have lost a sense of
urbanism and of community within the city and the suburb. In light of the sensitive
complexity of rehabilitating our environment, an appropria te decision-making base
should be formulated and acted upon. Gary Gappert writes:

First, city development and design by its nature requires a holistic

approach ... because it requires the synthesis of knowledge gained from a
broad array of traditional disciplines .... The city's problems cannot be
resolved in isolation of each other or of the general conditions that
proùuce or contribute tu lhem (Gappert, 1982, p. 341).

If we are ta retrofit our existing suburbs we must carefully provide an environment

for an increasingly varied population and sensitively provide for suburban-
compatible, higher-density, mixed-use infill projects. Considering the dilapidated
nature of many inner and outer suburbs, as weil as the underutilized land area that

50
cou Id be reclaimed in our post-industrial society (for example, brown fields,
abandoned rail yards and dock lands, manufacturing and warehouse are as) , we
possess a great many infill possibilities.

A component of any suburban renovation should be to strategically locate and

develop village centers with mixed uses and mass-transportation options, to
counteract the complete dependency on the automobile as our sole mode of
transportation. They may be located at key transportation points or corridors, giving
form and definition to neighborhoods, while achieving a critical mass of residents to
share the costs of providing public and priva te services and amenities.

Infill and retro fit projects should be a part of small-scale zoning envelopes, which
would over time transform vast areas currently dedicated solely to one use into more
lively, vital places that retain a suburban quality incorporating Stanford Anderson's
term "sympatric space," an overlapping time-sharing of space and services of
compatible uses (Anderson, 1986, p. 3). This would facilitate a spatial intermingling
of our daily functions and income groups. Eventually one may be able to work a
short distance from home. The renovation of our existing suburban environment will
shortly be on civic agendas, if not for reasons of planning a holistic and balanced
future, then because the buildings and infrastructures of the suburbs are quickly
deteriorating and need repair, not to mention the inevitable increases in energy costs
which will by necessity transform the way we build and re-build our cities.

51
New Urbanism and the Smart Code

New Urbanism is an umbrella term for urban planning theories variously known as
Traditional Neighborhood Development, Transit-Oriented Development and
Pedestrian Pocket Planning. Combined, these various theories comprise a movement
in urban and suburban planning that is gaining political clout, Smart Growth.

The Smart Growth movement can be thought of as the advocacy group for
controlled-growth, neo-urban, mass-transit-centered, environmentally sensitive
planning theories. Smart Growth advocates seek to develop policies and Iegislation
that promote land-use and transportation regulations to contain suburban sprawl
and allow higher-density, mixed-use development, typically around mass-transit
stops. The Smart Growth movement advocates revamping the current land-use
zoning regulations to promote pedestrian-scaled, transit-oriented, mixed-use
development with diverse demographics, housing types, income groups and
household/family structures. Smart Growth land-use policies typically include urban
growth boundaries to limit leapfrog urbanization and to preserve natural or
agricultural land uses.

The proponents of Smart Growth lament the auto-centric, auto-dependent,

undifferentiated blandness of our contemporary suburban environment, including
mega shopping centers, office parks and endless cookie-cutter housing tracts. They
claim that the current suburbanization process results in inequitable, alienating and
ultimately unsustainable development that is void of the life-giving qualities of a
holistic community, qualities that existed in traditional villages and sorne pre-WWII
or pre-auto-dominated planned developments.

The goals of neo-traditional planners are to transform how we develop our suburbs
and how we renovate our existing suburbs. The neo-traditionalists advocate a return
to the planning principles developed during the Garden City Movement at the dawn
of the automobile age, like Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City (Fig. Il, p. 36).
Common design elements of new urbanism (Fig. 18) are traditional, walkable
neighborhoods of various housing types planned and congregated around mixed-use
"village centers" complete with mixed-use, higher-density multHamily housing,
commercial and retai! offices and shops, as weIl as civic buildings and public outdoor
spaces like town squares and village greens. In addition, the village centers should be
part of a wider, regional network of inter-nodal transportation hubs of a multi-

52
faceted mass-transit system connecting the village enclave to the larger city and
region by a mixture of transportation options like bicycles, automobiles, taxis, buses,
interurban streetcars and trains. Within the community enclave automobile use is
discouraged, while alternate means of transport are promoted by the design and
layout of the street system, alleys, lot frontage-to-depth ratios, front-yard building
setbacks, front porches, back-lot cottages, studio apartments, sidewalks, walking
paths, bike paths, and trails.

Fig. 18. Aerial rendering of a New Urbanist concept for Colorado Springs, Colorado (Duany,
Plater-Zyberk, 2004).
Just as suburbanization was a reaction to the worst conditions of the industrial city,
New Urbanism is a reaction to the negative aspects of suburban sprawl. Proponents
believe that by following the design characteristics of traditional towns and villages,
New Urbanism will promote the development of appropriately scaled, distinct, yet
connected, functional, equitable and sustainable communities. The roots of New
Urbanism go back to the 1960s, with the publication of Jane Jacobs' The Death and
LHe of Great American CiUes, which condemned the accepted post-WWII planning
theories of single-use, auto-dependent segregated zoning tracts characterized by the
endless and accelerating repli cation of Levittown-like denuded sprawl.

New Urbanists broadly include the neo-traditionalist designers of Seaside, Florida,

Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, as weil as Leon Krier, who developed the
master plan for Dorset in Dorchester, Britain. Others, with a less historicist design
palette and more of a concentration on regional mass-transportation systems, include
Peter Calthorpe and Daniel Soloman, advocating Transit-Oriented Development and
Pedestrian Pockets. Still others, such as Christopher Alexander, found their

53
inspiration in natural processes and attempt to quantify and discern the patterns of
growth in nature and accretion into design patterns.

A Transit-Oriented Development is typicaUy a higher-density, mixed-use

development encompassing a public transit stop such as train, subway, light rail, bus
and taxi. The higher-density, low- to mid-rise, mixed-use development is ringed by
lower-density residential areas, aU within a half mile (0.8 km) or roughly a 15-minute
walk of the center and linked by roads and paths designed to simultaneously
discourage auto use and encourage pedestrian use. Peter Calthorpe advocates that
mass, multi-transit stops be the basis of the development of small town or city
centers with high-density, mixed uses. Each transit node would be part of a network
of other transit nodes akin to Ebenezer Howard's Garden City network of villages
and Christopher Alexander's formation of centers. "We need to start creating
neighborhoods rather th an subdivisions; urban quarters rather than isolated projects;
and diverse communities rather than segregated master plans (Calthorpe,
1993, p. 16)."

Properly executed, these centers are not public transit stops surrounded by park-n-
ride lots; rather they are vibrant, mixed-use, high-density urban cores.

New Urbanism borrows from the planning and design principles of pre-automobile,
early 20th century planned communities. Proponents cite that era as embodying an
appropriate balance of often competing agendas that helped to form appropriately
connected, human-scaled and enriching neighborhoods. New Urbanists promo te
mixed-use zoning, housing and demographic diversity to gain efficiencies and
equities in development costs and benefits, housing affordability, and environrnental
sustainabili ty

Proponents of New Urbanism seek to pattern development of new communities and

the renovation of existing suburbs after the best examples of urban planning from the
first quarter of the 20th century, when suburban development was tied to the central
city by mass transit, compact in size and scale, with a variety of housing sizes and
types that allowed an intermingling of family sizes and income groups. After World
War II, the exponential increase in auto ownership, construction of the highway
system, abandonment of light rail systems, implementation of traffic-engineering

54
standards and new zoning regulations that rigorously separated land uses into large
single-use tracts systematically eliminated further development of pedestrian-scaled
neighborhoods and unraveled or destabilized exiting pre-war streetcar suburbs.

ART C_O_D_E_ _--"-v 7.:.....-;;;...0

DUANY PLATER-ZYBERK 1\ COMPANY

FIg. 19. Smart Code caver illustrating principle of Transect Zones, disUnct graduations from
rural ta urban (Duany, Plater-Zyberk & Company, Smart Code).

55
The common, defining characteristics of New Urbanism planning and design,
according to Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, members of the Congress
for the New Urbanism, embody the following characteristics, excerpted from their
publication and spelled out further in the Smart Code:

1, The neighborhood has a discernable center of higher-density mixed use with a

clearly defined and pedestrian-oriented public realm, often a square, and a
common green or main street that is connected to other neighborhoods, the
city and the region by a mass-transit stop. The neighborhood center contains,
depending on the scale of the neighborhood it serves, offices, stores, shops and
civic institutions such as a village hall, community center, library and post
office. Commercial building at the heart of the neighborhood center hugs the
public right of way, encompasses surface car park lots, and clearly defines a
pedestrian-oriented outdoor room and streetscape.

2. Pedestrian-friendly streets radiate outward From this communal center in a

modified grid pattern that balances aspects of the City Beautiful radial
patterns, the rational grid and the roman tic curvilinear street layouts,
eschewing rigid grids and four-way intersections in favor of "T" intersections
to calm auto traffic, increase pedestrian safety and enhance visual interest.
The streets near the center are lined with mixed-use multi-storied buildings
that give way quickly ta descending ratios of residential-density housing
typologies. Most dwellings are within a five-minute walk or roughly 2,000
feet (600 m) of the center.

3. The streets, as a rule, are designed to promote pedestrian-scaled uses such as

walking, bicycling, or wheelchair and golf-cart use and to discourage
automobile use.

4. Certain prominent sites at the convergence of main roads, termination of

vistas, or adjacent to public or natural amenities are reserved for civic,
culLmal or communal buildings.

5. There are a variety of dwelling types. Housing types correspond with

gradations of residential densities from apartments above shops to
townhouses to attached housing to single-family homes of modest size to

56
 estates. Single-family homes on sufficient lots would be allowed to have
apartments within the main structure or ancillary building in the rear of the
lot for lease as apartments, studios or offices. This helps promo te housing
diversity and, therefore, household demographic diversity, adding to richness
in community.

6. An elementary school and/or day care that also serves as a civic center creates
a secondary communal center within walking distance and without crossing
heavy-traffic roads.

7. The neighborhoods, regardless of density ratio, are sprinkled with small

vest-pocket play parks or common green are as not more than 600 feet
(180 m) from most dwellings.

8. Streets within the neighborhood create a connected network of roads,

sidewalks and alleys that slow and disperse traffic and are generally narrow
but vary in composition and design, appropriate for their respective use, with
the needs of the pedestrian taking precedence over the automobile.

9. Parking lots in the mixed-use village center are relegated to the rear or
Interior of the lot. In the residential areas, garages and driveways rarely face
the street and generally are accessed from alleys that contain the public and
private utility services and easements.

10. The neighborhood is self-governing by formation of an association to

formulate bylaws and to discuss and decide matters of direct concern to the
neighborhood.

The above outlines the most common elements of New Urbanism planning. They
are adhered to and executed at varying levels by municipalities, planners, developers,
architects and builders.

In an effort to bring some consistency to the implementation of thE' New lJrhanism

design principles, and to chart a clear, predictable methodology, these principles were
codifïed sa that municipal governments, planning departments' zoning boards, and
designers, developers and builders have a descriptive, predictable set of guidelines.

57
The Smart Code, first authored by Andres Duany et al, is a form-based, transect,
prescriptive code intended to promote the ideals of New Urbanism through adoption
by regional and community planning commissions and local municipalities as part of
therr overall master plans. The code organizes how development may proceed along a
transe ct or gradient from unspoiled, natural environments through to the most
urban settings. lt is hoped by the proponents of New Urbanism that the Smart Code
will replace the current zoning regulations and development mindset that have led to
suburban sprawl, as we know it today.

The intent of the Smart Code from a regional, community and building scale is as
follows:

The Region
• That the region should retain its natural infrastructure and visual character
derived from topography, woodlands, farmlands, riparian corridors and
coastlines.

• That growth strategies should encourage infill and redevelopment in parity

with new communities.

• That development contiguous to urban areas should be structured in the

neighborhood pattern and be integrated with the existing urban pattern.

• That development non-contiguous to urban areas should be organized in the

pattern of clusters, tradition al neighborhoods and villages, and Regional
Centers.

• That affordable housing should be distributed throughout the region to

match job opportunities and to avoid concentrations of poverty.

• That transportation corridors should be planned and reserved in

coordination with land use.

• That green corridors should be used to definc and connect the urbanized

areas.

• That the region should include a framework of transit, pedestrian and bicycle
systems that provide alternatives to the automobile.

58
The Community
• That neighborhoods and Regional Centers should be compact, pedestrian-
oriented and mixed use.

• That neighborhoods and Regional Centers should be the preferred pattern of

development, and districts specializing in single use should be the
exception.

• That ordinary activities of daily living should occur within walking distance
of most dwellings, allowing independence to those who do not drive.

• That interconnected networks of thoroughfares should be designed to

disperse and reduce the length of automobile trips.

• That within neighborhoods, a range of housing types and priee levels should
be provided to accommodate diverse ages and incomes.

• That appropriate building densities and land use should be provided within
walking distance of a transit stop.

• That civic, institutional and commercial activity should be embedded in

downtowns, not isolated in remote single-use complexes.

• That sehools should be sized and loeated to enable ehildren to walk or

bicycle to them.

• That a range of open spaces including parks, squares and playgrounds should
be distributed within neighborhoods and urban center zones.

The Block and the Building

• That buildings and landscaping should contribute to the physical definition
of thoroughfares as civic places.

• That development should adequately aceommodate automobiles, while

respecting the pedestrian and the spatial form of public space.

• That the design of streets and buildings should reinforce safe environments,
but not at the expense of accessibility.

59
• That architecture and landscape design should grow from local climate,
topography, history and building practice.

• That buildings should provide their in habitants with a c1ear sense of

geography and c1imate through energy-efficient methods.

• That civic buildings and public gathering places should be provided locations
that reinforce community identity and support self-government.

• That civic buildings should be distinctive and appropriate to a raie more

important than the other buildings that constitute the fabric of the city.

• That the preservation and renewal of historie buildings should be facilitated

to affirm the conti nuity and evolution of society.

• That the harmonious and orderly evolution of urban areas should be secured
through graphie codes that serve as guides for change.

60
Seaside, Florida, 1986
An example and perhaps modern prototype for the New Urbanism movement is
Seaside, Florida (Fig. 20, p. 65), an SO-acre (32 ha) mixed-use development on the
Gulf Coast of Florida's panhandle, situated off an interstate highway west of
Pensacola. Seaside has become the flagship development of the neo-traditionalists of
New Urbanism. In building Seaside, developer Robert Davis sought to create
traditional, intimate, human-scaled homes in the vernacular Florida "Cracker-style,"
a Southern adaptation of Greek Revival within a community that would possess a
distinct sense of place, reminiscent of the small Southern towns of the early 20th
century.

With architects Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Davis set out to create a
distinct, varied and enriching community with a unique and memorable sense of
place. In planning Seaside they sought to address the concerns of pedestrians over the
automobile, public spaces over private yards, and to present to the world a model of
development that would challenge the precepts of suburban sprawl. They sought to
create in microcosm a whole and complete community with a village center
commercial mixed-use core, encompassed by varying housing types, ail within
walking distance of the core on pedestrian-friendly streets.

The architects looked to the local, historie villages and vernacular architecture for
creative inspiration and successful precedents to emulate. Duany and Platter-Zyberk
also looked to contemporary local sprawl for failures to avoid. They studied the most
successful planned communities from early in the automobile age, like Shaker
Heights, Ohio, and Lake Forest, Illinois. Their bellef was that from 1910 to 1940 the
automobile was still in its infancy, rail and light-rail mass transit formed the streetcar
suburbs, and the car adjusted to the pedestrian-scaled urban fabric of the city and
suburb, rather than the inverse. The architects tried to discern the principles that
created towns, villages and neighborhoods that embodied the charm and
idiosyncratic character that helped to achieve a real sense of place and community in
a pre-auto-centric-world.

Through their research into past precedents and local vernacular, they developed a set
of planning and architectural guidelines to guide the creation of a modern
community with the character, charm and sense of place found in traditional towns.
The efforts resulted in a simple one-page graphie code of land use, building forms
and proportions that was a prescriptive model to be followed by owners, architects

61
and builders.

Those original guidelines for Seaside have since evolved into a more elaborate, yet
still simple, form-based code and transect-based master planning code called the
Smart Code, discussed earlier.

Duany and Plater-Zyberk designed the street layout and developed the code. "This
code is considered one of Seaside's most valuable contributions. Duany/Plater-Zyberk
felt so strongly that the code had to be tested, had to be allowed to work strictly on
its own, that they refused to design even a single house for the project." (Dorschner,
The Miami Herald, February 21, 1988)

The codified principles were meant to create an enriching, variegated environment

rather than one strictly parceled into mono-functionalland-use tracts and separated
and dispersed by cars, roads and parking lots. The code graphically illustrated lot
setbacks, lot coverages, building massing and proportion. It allowed three-story
towers to capture views of and breezes from the Gulf of Mexico. The code mandated
front porches to encourage outdoor lingering, interaction and neighborly
conversations, as opposed to the typical sealed homes and empty yards with only the
hum of air conditioners. The code minimized front yard setbacks and backyard sizes.
The shallow front yards helped to create positive outdoor street space, while the
small backyards discouraged the installation of pools and hiding out in a private,
fenced area.

In sorne areas parking is allowed on the street to promote social interaction and to
slow and calm traffie. These code stipulations, while seemingly counterintuitive to
accepted contemporary planning precepts, have helped to encourage
pedestrianization and social interaction. Taking a cue from Jane Jacobs, these design
characteristics create a physical environment that channels life toward the front of
the house, to the semi-public and public realm of the front yard and street.

Not only was Robert Davis attempting to create and foster a neighborly, social
community through the design of streets, buildings and accoutrements, but he also
wanted to create an ecologically sensitive development. Seaside was to promote
ecological conservation by increasing overall land-use density, consuming
approximately 20 percent to 30 percent less land than a conventional development.
Encouraging walking and bicycling, at least within the community, would decrease

62
automobile use for short-trip errands. Looking to the pre-air-conditioned past for
solutions, many of the design elements that encouraged sociability also promoted
energy conservation. The use of towers as an amenity for inland homes to get views
of the Gulf also provided breezes and passive cooling. The covered porches promoted
the outdoor interaction of families and neighbors, but also provided shading,
reducing heat gain and again aiding in passive cooling. Working louvered shutters
allowed privacy on the narrow lots and encouraged open windows, while reducing
heat gain. Development covenants eschewed the planting of manicured turf lawns
and irrigation systems in favor of indigenous plantings, helping ta create a regionally
unique landscape while reducing water consumption, petrochemical fertilizers and
lawn-mower use.

Pre-industrial, vernacular townscapes historically have evolved over generations. They

are the cumulative results of local, readily available mate rials and commonly held
building practices and social customs that help to create unique, cohesive,
picturesque hamlets and villages. In a post-industrial automobile era, along a
highway in Florida, Duany and Platter-Zyberk attempted to put into place
parameters that would create a complete community that within a decade wou Id
approximate the unique and cohesive sense of place found in traditional villages.

The original building code of Seaside established design guidelines for a commercial
core, mixed uses, variations in densities, variations in street and lane widths, yard
setbacks, sidewalks, front porches, building massing and fenestration patterns, and
service alleys. Seaside was to contain approximately 300 single-family homes, 200
apartments, a commercial and civic village center, and communal beach access and
rights.

The plan of Seaside is reminiscent of sorne of the work of John Nolen, designer of
the planned communities of Myers Park, Charlotte, North Carolina, and
Mariemont, Cincinnati, Ohio. Other influences upon Seaside include Electus
Litchfield's design of Yorkship Village, Camden, New Jersey, as well as the works of
Fredrick Law Olrnslec1, Jr.

The plan of Seaside has a hybrid street grid, accented with a few curvilinear streets
and overlaid by dominant axial vistas. Four-way intersections are minimized in favor
of three-way, "T" intersections. In the tradition of Forest Hills and Shaker Heights, a
few key connection points with surrounding development simultaneously connect,

63
restrict and define the boundaries of Seaside. Street characteristics vary from wide,
straight axial avenues to more-narrow, curving and shorter streets to even more
narroW lanes and alleys. The streets feellike positive, contained urban space.
Picturesque vis tas down avenues are capped with prominent buildings or features,-
similar to Pullman. Vehicular traffic is calmed and made Jess convenient to through
traffic. Blocks are kept short, with narrow lot widths to enhance the visual and
experiential effect. Garages, often with studio apartments above, are detached,
relegated to the rear of the lot and accessed from alleys. Wide sidewalks reduce land
use, are close to the street to calm traffic, and are close to the front fences to
encourage interaction between neighbors. Compacted sand trails lead between the
blocks for shortcuts to the town center and beach, to promote walking.

The planners wished to recreate the sense of community of an idealized early 20th
century small town or village with its own distinct character, but without
disconnecting it from its surrounding context along the Gulf shore. The designers
were ideologically opposed to creating a walled enclave, but they wanted to achieve
a sense of community identity.

The brick-paved streets are a narrow 18 feet (5.5 m), bordered by sidewalks, hedges
and picket fences. The property line to building setback is only 16 feet (5 m), with a
mandatory front porch that encroaches within the setback. The street width,
building setback and streetscape create what Andres Duany refers to as a public
room, a semi-enclosed outdoor area that feels properly delineated and seems to be a
place in its own right, notjust a void between buildings.

The designs of individual buildings, while meeting modern contemporary functional

needs, were regulated by the code into simple, legible structures of good proportion
and homogeneous materials. Robert Davis, Seaside's developer, states, "The building
code, with its clear systematic guidelines for proportion, dimensions, and materials,
has enabled schoolteachers, grocers, and housewives to design their own dwelling at
the same time it has forced architects in their designs to pick up the general themes
of neighboring houses." (Dorschner, The MjaIl]j J-Jerald, February Z l, 1988).

Critics of Seaside point to the neoclassical styles of the domestic, commercial and
civic architecture as esthetically derivative. Social critics deride it as a "Disneyfied"
resort. Urban planners fault it for either not incorporating the auto, or not having a

64
Fig. 20. Seaside, Florida laid out by Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company, 1983 (Kostof, 1991, p. 217).

mass transit stop. Developers daim that it is impractical to replicate. The aesthetic
homogeneity and the style of architecture could be dismissed as merely a matter of
taste. However, the Southern cottage adaptation of Greek Revival was the historie
local vernacular. As to the social critics, Seaside was not intended to be an exclusive
vacation resort; however the natural economic principle of supply and demand has
driven up real-estate values to astounding levels. Complete satisfaction from aU
perspectives regarding the appropriate integration of the automobile is virtuaUy
impossible. The lack of mass transit could be argued to be beyond the scope of a
single developer and is of regional governmental scale. If regional mass transit
becomes a reality, Seaside as designed is perfectly suited to support it, rather than
confound it. The criticism from developers as to Seaside's being impractical should
not be dismissed; however, the spiraling real-estate values of Seaside wou Id indicate
otherwise. It may be impractical for developers to build unique, varied and enriching
environments because of institutional inertia that seeks predictable, repeatable,
cookie-cutter projects, but Seaside has proved to be a financial success and should be
ernulated in principle, not plagiarized.

If anything, ~easide should be an example to architects, planners, developers and the

public that this type of planning is a desirable and a viable alternative to endless,
centerless, edgeless sprawl. Seaside has proved to be a bellwether in the debate about
how we are to build our environments.

65
Seaside as an isolated community works on the whole very weil. It is not a complete
community, in that it lacks socioeconomic diversity, industry, commerce and civic
institutions. Seaside is an isolated pocket; it is not connected to Pensacola or the
region by any type of mass transit. If you want to leave Seaside, you still must get in
your car. If Seaside were connected by a regional mass-transit system, if it included
industry and affordable housing, and if the planning principles that created Seaside
were adopted in adjoining municipalities, then Seaside would be even more
successful. As it is, Robert Davis, Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk did an
admirable job of showing us how communities could be developed.

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VI. Summary and Conclusions

Summary

This thesis was a review of selected exemplary suburban environments, including

industrial towns and commuter suburbs, and included a review of alternative theories
regarding the proper design of suburbs. The intent of this thesis was to identify
planning and design characteristics shared in common by the selected suburban
communities and the alternative theories that create communities with a sense of
place, wholeness and vibrancy missing in today's suburbia. Through this examination
it became clear that there are numerous examples of good suburban design, many
promising alternative theories, and no shortage of utopian visions, ail awaiting
replication, Implementation and experimentation.

Our current process of suburban development has failed to produce the intended
outcome that we as a society had hoped. The suburbanization of the past century has
addressed the deplorable conditions created by the hyper-urbanized industrialized
cities of the late 19th and early 20th century. Our current suburban environment, a
reaction to the industrial city, has evolved into an overcompensation for those
conditions and has created its own imbalances that must be addressed through a
deliberate, integrated process of new suburban growth and renewal of the existing
suburban environment. This inquiry has identified the characteristics of the selected
communities that have successfully balanced those two seemingly contradictory
agendas together. It is hoped that those principles can guide the formation of new
planned suburban communities and the transformation of existing suburbs into
livable, vibrant, diverse and sustainable communities.

Conclusions

This examination of the North American planned suburbs and leading alternatives to
our contemporary suburban milieu has helped to identify the planning and design
characteristics that tend to improve the quality of the suburban environment,
ellhance social equiLy anù foster a se lise of cOlIlIIlunity unit y allù viurallcy.

In addition, this examination has helped to identify characteristics of our typical

contemporary, automobile-dependent suburban environment that tend to create
negative suburban space and detract from the quality of the built environment and
the sense of community. Regrettably the vast majority of our contemporary suburban

67
environment is unplanned and ill-designed, characterized by a haphazard,
decentralized, dispersed and centerless disarray of disjointed subdivisions,
commercial strips, retai! malis and office parks that form an adversely homogeneous,
de-constructed, separated, segregated series of mono-cultures.

The notable exceptions to the dispersed chaos of suburbia, examined here, were
consistently, at their roots, inspired by a degree of altruism, which is evident in the
well-planned and sensitively designed communities. They are communities that
varied from industrial towns, to streetcar suburbs, to early 20th-century suburbs
served by both mass transit and the automobile.

In lieu of the rare enlightened developer or philanthropist who might on occasion

develop a community, it is Imperative that government, on the federal, provincial/
state and locallevels, set the proper course for ail development and stewardship of
our natural and built environments in an effort to create successful environments.
Our communities and natural resources are too valuable to leave to haphazard,
private speculative development. Unencumbered free-market enterprise, argued best-
suited to pro duce the most efficient solution to a problem, created Levittown:
expedient, efficient in a short-term, private, narrow sense, but a colossal, regrettable
failure in producing a long-term solution to creating whole and vibrant
communities. Traffic studies, zoning maps and building codes are not sufficient to
prote ct the health, safety and welfare of the public. Adaptation and adoption of
comprehensive "smart growth" and transit-type planning processes, sensitive to the
free market, must become the standard procedure.

The planning and design characteristics of these suburbs consistently supported a

balanced melding of communal imperatives over private concerns: for instance, the
creation of positive public urban space emphasized over the private backyard to at
least allow, if not foster, interaction with neighbors.

These communities also integrated the auto into a human-scaled place rather than
rlesigning for the auto at the sake of the pedestrian. They were formed with multiple
means of public and private transportation systems in mind and allowed the use of
the most appropriate method of transport depending on the need, rather than
relying on and designing for only one inefficient method of transport that is available
to less than half the population. They are pedestrian in scale, designed for walking or
ri ding a bike from the outer fringe of the community to the center.

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The planned suburbs shared a sense that ta move about and live within them was a
metaphoriejourney from vibrant urbanity to a bueolie haven, rather than a bland
sameness of suburbia. The communities are small-scale, understandable, social,
political and physical entities. These communities are complete microcosms of our
larger society, containing an integration of diversity: commerce and recreation, rich
and poor, young and old, ail integrated into a manageable civic entity.

They possess coherent, well-defined centers comprising mixed-use, commercial and

community enterprises around civic space similar to a village green or town square.
These are vibrant, well-used commercial areas where the basic needs of daily life can
be accessed, such as markets, stores, shops and offices. These communal centers are
alive with a mixture of people throughout the day.

The small-scaled, planned suburbs possess defined edges or boundaries between

themselves and adjacent development. The edges were typically natural boundaries of
water, changes in terrain or naturallandscape buffers, as well as man-made
definitions such as raillines or roadways and limited street-connection points. Access
to these communities is limited to a number of points clearly demarcated by
ceremonial entrances as obvious as gateways or as subtle as slightly skewed or
constricted street intersections.

Within the communities the street systems are typically varied to suit their purpose
and vary in scale accordingly, adjusting width and orientation from wide, straight
boulevards to narrow curving lanes and discrete service alleys. The streetscape within
these communities was designed to read as a unified whole. The harmonious
building massing, pedestrian scale, fenestration patterns and exterior materials and
the street details, such as fences, fixtures and furnishings, ail add a sense of
community cohesiveness. Sidewalks along the streets are typically close enough to
allow acknowledgement of neighbors but distant enough for a degree of privacy.
Pedestrian pathways and trails cutting through blocks link neighborhoods and offer
shortcuts throughout the community to encourage walking and bicycling rather than
auto use for short trips.

A trait not uniformly shared but exhibited in the best suburbs was a degree of
diversity in the demographics of the population, rather than the typical subdivision
in which age, family structure and income are homogeneous. This diversity in
demographics cailed for variety in population densities and building types, including

69
apartments above shops and offices around the civic square to apartment buildings,
townhouses, semi-detached homes, single-family detached and esta te homes, all
reinforcing the legibility of the urban-to-rural metaphor of the community.

By all accounts the planned suburbs examined here have been successful in achieving
most of their original social, urban-planning and architectural goals. Sorne planned
suburbs were initially financial failures; however, this occurs ail too often in
unplanned subdivisions as weIl. In the case of the initially failed planned suburbs, it
was the quality of the design of the community that over time increased its
desirability relative to the surrounding market, thereby allowing it to appreciate in
value, often to a point where the real estate values have outpaced the purchasing
power of the intended in habitants. This should not be a reason to deride good
suburban communities, but to construct more of them, and in fact make it the
standard for new communities and the retrofitting of existing suburbs.

Well-planned, sensitively designed suburban communities are being constructed,

although at a fraction of the pace of ill-conceived, incoherent subdivisions.
Frustratingly, the well-planned communities that are being built typically are not
served by a larger metropolitan regional mass- and multi-transit system, ironically
necessitating a drive to the local pedestrian-friendly community.

In general these principles of planning and design characteristics or patterns observed

in these communities create a suburban environment that we need as a society and
crave as individuals for a sense of a whole and complete community that is equitable,
enriching and socially sustainable, and that meet our innate desire for our home
within a garden.

70
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VII. Illustrations

Alexander, Christopher. A New Theory of Urban Design. New York: Oxford Uni-
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Architecural Design. Anglo-American Suburb, June 1981

Duany, Andres and Plater-Zyberk, Elizabeth, Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company,

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Smart Code, V 10.

Galesburg (Michigan) Village Planning Department. Reproduction of original Frank

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Reps, John W. The Making of Urban America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
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