“I posted this at Atrios’s place, and I’ll post it again here and keep on posting it everywhere until Duany evaporates:
That’s nothing for Duany. Listen to him praise Franco’s Spain:”

Thank you dporpentine, I didn’t know about that. I read the article and my blood ran cold. Fascist spain a wonderful society? Must have been wonderful, as long as the secret police didn’t drag you off to put a bullet in the back of your head for questioning the regime.

I thought Andre was an improvement over Krier, sadly it seems not, reflecting on his disgusting glorification of Fascist Spain.

I fear the New Urbanists have never extracted themselves from Krier’s posionous attemt to deify the memory of the Nazi slave-driver Albert Speer. Was it really necessary for Krier to vist Speer in jail while he was serving his time for crimes against humanity, or to claim him as the greatist architect of the 20th century? Or for Krier to sycophatically pander to the crown prince of England? It’s a disturbing that the New Urbanists choose to dabble in this kind of a thing.

You keep posting that dporpentine, I think I’ll start doing it to.

Jane Jacobs was nearer the mark all along, when she observerd that it’s the poor the immigrants, the young, the loud, the boho’s, and even the down right weird, that are the basis of regenerating a dilapidated quarter of town.

There’s a lovely talk by Jacobs here on the very subject:

http://www.mefeedia.com/watch/28282799

And remember that most sprawl in the U.S. takes place in townships, which are most frequently 36 square miles in area and include both vast agrarian and wilderness landscapes. Also, an area of this size adjcent to a city like Stuttgart Germany contains 6 to 10 tigthly knit walkable town centers, all connected to the city center by commuter rail and each surrounded by pristine open spaces and forests. So, establishing a clear vision for such municipalities in the U.S. then is the first step toward creating regulations (FBC’s) that can make that vision into reality.

Robert Davis, Seaside developer, informed us that parents from miles around drive their (non-urbanized) children to Seaside at 8 AM in the morning and pick them up at midnight. We noticed the teenagers and college crowd have adopted the town center for its vibrancy. This means that these young people have no real “place” to go in their own towns where they can safely gather.

Unfortunately “non-urban” can be a synonym for “uncivil.” Darin, JasonA, 3RunHomer and others have it right. A real city is not a babysitter for suburbanites, it is a 24 hour place to live, work, shop and play. Suburbia must build its own mixed-use urban centers, and afford people of all ages the right to adopt “third places.”

Ann Daigle
Flåneur Extraordinaire

Real urban environments are ruined when they turn into theme parks for the ignorant masses of young people starved for socialization.

‘Neo-Urbanism’, on the other hand, is the imposition of a particular version of planned urbanity imposed from above by people who believe they know better what people want, but have never created any neighbourhood as interesting as one of the successful organic ones. Do not forget that Duany was a developer, a scourge who have ruined municipal politics with their greed and buying up of the political class.

We have many or these ‘Neo-Urban’ developments in the Toronto area, and none of them are much more vibrant that your average suburb: everyone has the same income, same education, similar complexion, and owns a car they use to shop elsewhere.

Best,
Mike