Are We All New Urbanists Now? Examining the Movement in its Fourth Decade
New Urbanism, a philosophy of housing development and urban design that emphasizes sustainability, walkability and density, has been around since the late 1970s. The tenants of New Urbanism are often credited with the revitalization of the nation’s urban cores and the popular walkable developments offering housing, shopping and community all in one place that have sprung up around the country. Critics view New Urbanism as catering only to the affluent and eroding affordability.
As entire metropolitan areas move to formally embrace New Urbanism, questions remain, including:
- How can we serve the housing needs of all Americans and promote affordability?
- What are the barriers to healthy growth within U.S. cities?
- What is the future of the suburbs and exurbs?
To address these questions and more, Zillow invited leading researchers and experts in the field to participate in the final panel of the Zillow Housing Forum: “Are We All New Urbanists Now? Examining the Movement in its Fourth Decade.”
Moderated by Diana Olick from CNBC, the panel featured John Norquist, former head of the Congress for New Urbanism and past mayor of Milwaukee; Edward Glaeser, Professor of Economics at Harvard focused on the economics of cities; Wendell Cox, a principal researcher from Demographia whose research focuses on New Urbanism and its impact on affordability; and Ed Perlmutter, a congressman from the Denver area, a New Urbanist hotspot.
Observers typically point to the growing number of planned urban developments and urban revitalization projects, as well as rapid home value appreciation, as evidence of New Urbanism’s success. However, the panel’s focus soon turned to questions of affordability, and the policies and regulations that limit the ability of developers to supply more of these developments. Limited supply accelerates home value growth, making it more difficult for first-time and low-income buyers to gain a foothold in these communities.
Norquist began the policy discussion by citing separate use zoning at the local level, restricting the mixing of residential and non-residential units, as a major barrier to urban and new urban development. But it’s not just local restrictions. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) restricts preferential financing of multi-family housing projects when even a modest share of the development will be commercial space. As a result, large high-rises with a big share of total space dedicated to residential units can rely on FHA financing. Smaller projects common in revitalization efforts in small- and mid-sized towns cannot..
A second obstacle, touched on by both Norquist and Glaeser, concerned the scale of federal highways. According to Norquist, the federal interstate system of long, wide, high speed roads threatens the livability and viability of the urban cores they run through. Glaeser added that by being funded by general tax revenues, such highways are subsidies to driving and gasoline use. While young people are driving less and the love affair with the automobile is not as strong today as it was during the heyday of highway construction and suburbanization, developers seeking to build walkable planned urban developments are still limited by minimum parking requirements enacted by earlier generations of lawmakers.
New Urbanist advocates have made progress repealing such rules and restrictions in many areas. But in Cox’s opinion, they have gone too far by creating new restrictions of their own—for example, urban growth boundaries. Cox argues that these regulations adversely affect affordability and do not serve the preferences of the population, noting that the population share of Millennials, often cited as the champions of New Urbanist living, is growing faster in the suburbs than in the urban core.
Regardless of the intentions of urban planners and policy makers, Rep. Perlmutter reminds us, the real change and evolution of our cities will be driven by the demand of consumers. With this in mind, all panelists readily agreed that having a wide variety of community choices is paramount to the future health of cities and suburbs alike. This is the challenge of the future: to meet demand with variety and supply sufficient enough to maintain affordability for all income levels. In Glaeser’s words, “The goal is freedom. The goal is that cities are archipelagoes of neighborhoods and America is a country with lots of different choices.”