LARCH 060

Tuesday, April 27th, 1999
Announcements: none

Lecture notes:

THE AMERICAN DREAM - A NEW VISION?:

"Old Dream":

• Nuclear Family, small homes on small lots
• Suburban Landscape
• Progress=land development (economic/cultural success)
• Had a core area, nucleated jobs

"New Dream":

• Complex Families, more complicated social structure
• Neighborhoods VS. subdivision
• Diverse land use VS. single use
• Towns VS. sprawl (limitless land use/no plan)
• Connected urban spaces VS. isolated downtown projects
• Spread out Businesses, more time for travel

... all of these issues drove people to reform communities...planning became a larger scale effort

[Watched movie clips from Pleasantville and the Truman Show which showed the "perfect" communities]

PETER CALTHORPE (helped revitalize old plans):

Transit Oriented Development (TOD):

• Pedestrian friendly
• Linked to transit system, neighborhoods were located on transit routes (everything within about 1/2 mile of each other)
• American town as model

DUANY PLATER ZYBERK (brand new ideas):

Neo-traditional Development:

• Town-making
• Master-plan, policies (zoning and planning)
• Example) Seaside, FL: Had street network, pedestrian network, street sections (how everything should fit), regulating plan (zoning of uses), public buildings/spaces, codes/regulations (of size, color)

...Both of the previous firms used the same vocabulary:

• Walkable, tree-lined streets
• Adapted geometric form
• Identifiable town, neighborhood center
• Mixed use to give more vitality (activity, even within a building)
• Physical limits/boundaries to limit growth--this saves land to ensure that the water supply is kept up