THE NEW URBANISM:

As a reaction to sprawl, a new movement of Urbanism begun in 1990; called ―THE NEW
URBANISM‖, that seeks to promote qualities that urban reformers have always required:
vital, beautiful, just, environmentally benign human settlements.

“New Urbanism involves giving people choices for living an urban lifestyle in
sustainable, convenient and enjoyable places, while providing the solutions to
overcome oil, global warming, and climate change”

The slogan of New Urbanism was, ―Design for people, not cars‖

According to a professor Vincent Scully, an Architectural historian at Yale University,

New urbanism is about a renewed focus on the pedestrian:

“It‟s important that people are within walking distance of the center of town. And that
streets are narrow and connected. And that the street is a place for people – not just
automobiles. We started working about architecture as the structure of human
habitation.”

It is based on the principles of architecture and planning that work together to create
human scale, walk able communities, walk able streets and walk able blocks.

There are several principles articulated by the Congress of New urbanism that may help
in understanding this theory better. Some of these principles are as follows;

1 Neighborhood:

A certain number of people living together i.e. 10 to 15 thousand make a

neighborhood. Neighborhoods combine to form a district and districts further form a
metropolitan city.

Neighborhoods are connected through corridors. The neighborhood, the district

and the corridor, are the essential elements of development and redevelopment in
the metropolis. But the basic building block of a community is the neighborhood.

The neighborhood is limited in physical size, with a well-defined edge and a centre.
The size of a neighborhood is usually based on the distance that a person can walk
in five minutes from the centre to the edge — a quarter-mile. Neighborhoods have
a fine-grained mix of land uses, providing opportunities for young and old to find
places to live, work, shop, and be entertained.
2 Corridors:

Corridors form the boundaries between neighborhoods — both connecting and

defining the neighborhoods. They fulfill the basic element of permeability. Corridors
can incorporate natural features such as streams. They may take the form of parks,
natural preserves, travel paths, railroad lines, major roads, or a combination of all
these.

3 Human Scale:

Human scale sets the standard for proportion in buildings. Buildings must be
disciplined in how they relate to their lots if public space is to be successfully
demarcated. Because the street is the preeminent form of public space, buildings
are generally expected to honor and embellish the street. Thus the propotions of
buildings and streets must be kept in mind, one rule is the the width of the street
must not be greater than the height of the surrounding buildings.

4 Public transportation:

The automobile has completely taken over the city. Pedestrian traffic and all city life
have vanished, transportation is undertaken solely by car. The city centre has
become a large parking area.There are no pedestrians, no pavements and of
course no bicycles.

It has been a well-known fact that inviting cars by providing more roads and more
parking places results in increased traffic.Traffic and transportaion are important
issues should be automatically considered in future planning of the city.There has
been an expansion of public realm, primarily driven by increasingly efficient
transport systems.

Equal consideration must be given to all modes of transportation to relieve

congestion and to provide people with useful, realistic choices.

For most of the second half of the 20th Century, transportation agencies focused
almost exclusively on convenience of automobile travelers, while transit riders,
pedestrians, and bicyclists were hardly thought about. Public transport was given
little importance. This increased automobiles to the extent that streets were left for
cars only.

5 Street Pattern:

The street should be acting as guidebook, an instruction manual with a simple and
clearly defined set of rules .Streets not only provide address but also display status
and identity. Streets should be made by keeping in mind, complexity of human
beings, our unpredictable behavior, our problems, obsessions and our individualism.
 The street pattern is conceived as a network, to create the greatest number of
alternative routes from one part of the neighbourhood to another. This has the
effect of providing choices and relieving vehicular congestion. The streets form a
hierarchy, from broad boulevards to narrow lanes and alleys. Streets are supposed
to give pedestrians respect and are not meant only for vehicular traffic. This
objective can be achieved with the provision of foot paths.

6 Pedestrian Walkways:

The life of the city is gradually disappearing. When it gets to a certain point, one will
merely walk through the area as fast as possible – until the desire to walk through
completely vanishes.

A mantra of designing for the walk able neighborhood is that pattern of movement
in housing layout should be designed for the convenience of pedestrians and
cyclists first and car drives second.

7 Sustainability: Green has become the new „GOD‟,

The green movement has been the other great influence on this generation of
designers. The campaign over decades to raise awareness of ecology, and the
minimization of waste has brought the issue of how to create sustainable
communities to the fore. Sustainability is the potent issue of the moment, and
possibly the most misused. Built evidence of sustainability is thin on the ground.

Conclusion: New Urbanism can support sustainable objectives by improving

pedestrian and cycle access and in saving lands and sensitive areas by building at
more efficient densities.

8 Public spaces:

Civic buildings and public gathering places require important sites to reinforce
community identity and the culture of democracy. They deserve distinctive form,
because there role is different from that of other buildings and places that constitute
the fabric of the city.Giving Them important central places helps turning them into
landmarks.

9 Mixed use:

1. Mixed use of land: Neighborhoods should be compact, pedestrian friendly and

mixed-use. Districts generally emphasisze a special single use, and should follow the
principles of neighborhood design when possible. Catering all activities in all places
not only reduces security hazards, but helps keep the neighborhood alive every
time of the day.
2 Mixed use of income: Within neighborhoods, a broad range of housing types and
price range can bring people of diverse ages, race and income into daily
interaction, strengthening the personal and civic bonds essential to an authentic
community.

10 Sense of place: Achieving sense of space is now set as a goal in planning streets.
Each space should be made distinctive, as sense of space is achieved when one
can relate a place to his life and activity. It can be a street square, a house, or even
some specific tree.

Building housing schemes on modular planning, clustering similar sized houses

having similar façades together; all streets and parks identical, makes it lose its
identity and fails to create a sense of space.

Conclusion: The challenge for today’s architects is to understand what creates a

sence of place. And create elements to enhance this feeling.

11 Social coherence: The neighborhood, the district and the corridors should be
designed in a way that they form identifiable areas that encourage citizens to take
responsibility for their maintenance them selves. The spaces should be designed in a
way that they are so inviting, that the owners of the dwellings themselves maintain
the neighborhoor.

12 Sense of security: Personal security and safety are among people’s primary
concern. The design of streets and buildings should reinforce safe environment, but
not at the expense of accessibility and openness. Good urban design should
discourage crime and anti-social behavior by being Secure through design, and
ensuring ―eyes overlooking the street‖.

Concentration of civic, institutional, and commercial activity should be embedded

in neighborhood and districts, not isolated in remote, single use complexes. This
would not only decrease distances, but will also decrease security hazards. Since all
the parts of the city will be in public use 24/7, so no area will be deserted for robbery
cases to occur.

Streets and squares should be safe, comfortable and interesting to the pedestrian.
Properly configured, they encourage walking and enable neighbors to know each
other and to protect their communities.
Conclusion:

After analyzing the overlying principles following conclusions are derived;

1 Providing a range of public transportation options is fundamental to minimize

automobile traffic is important to create a good urban design.

2 Sense of space must be created, so that the people can relate to the
neighborhood .

3 Sense of belonging/ ownership is one of the golden rules of good housing,

which is con only created by the designer but also comes later with time.

4 Neighborhood must have the capacity to grow; it is the architect’s duty to

give provision for betterment and amendments in the design, so that the
dwelling can later adapt to according to the needs of the owner.

5 Designing should be done keeping human scale in mind.

6 Walkable communities, should be developed, street pattern and public

spaces should be encoorperated so that people are encouraged to walk
through the streets and pedestrian pavements must be made.

7 Lack of disparity is another factor to be kept in mind. Houses should not be

segregated on basis of area, mixed community should be introduced. This
would invite people of different demographics to have a healthy interaction
amongst eachother .

8 Interconnected networks of streets should be designed to encourage

walking, reduce the number and length of automobile trips and conserve
energy.