How Long will New Urbanism Last?
Driving around and you feel like your in a movie set. Despite the homes varying in exterior massings, they are all basically the same traditional architecture. You don't feel comfortable cutting through the neighbors yard to get to your friends house a couple streets behind your home. You are forced to live in the template setup by the developers. Even though the houses are literally feet away from each other, you don't see people walking on the sidewalks and stopping at their neighbors porch to talk about local events. My thoughts are because those who move to the neighborhood aren't local, but rather transplants that have little to no connection to the existing community. I might be over criticizing them as the development is less than 10 years in existence, but I am curious to see how this development will weather and change as time goes on. Will it suffer the same consequences as the suburbs or will it adapt and develop into something that the developers did not intend on happening?
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| 'tugging at emotions and of memories past' |
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ReplyDeleteNicely put, I definitely see where you are coming from that despite the developer's best intentions, it places like Patrick Square still feel a little inauthentic and aren't the active urban spaces they had pictured. I feel that away about Avalon in suburban Atlanta and also about the Wharf a bit.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that you bring up this example... Because I wonder if the developers that create these feel as if they are helping the "everyday" person? Do these monotone structures actually give people what they need in their everyday life?
ReplyDeleteI believe that developers have taken new urbanism as an attempt to turn their properties away from the existing context. If you have everything you need in a couple block radius whats the point of going outside of it? Due to this new urbanism tends to feel like a pyramid business scheme that has nothing to do with the developer caring about people, just wanting to cash the paycheck.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your critiques of new urbanism, particularly where new developments feel like a "movie set." Humans psychologically seem inherently opposed to the idea of fake, particularly fake experiences. In the instance of amusement parks such as Disney, the park serves as an except from the real world, where as urban living should be diversified, naturally grown in order to escape the feeling of "fake."
ReplyDeleteI find this neighborhood rather intriguing. I've actually walked it a few times and have been inside one of the houses. As I see it, the majority of this housing was built for retirees and other transplants. It is interesting to have a suburban typology in Clemson, when I first moved here I assumed Clemson was trying to create a new town center.
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