New Urbanism Upscale Exercise In Nostalgia, Or Best Hope For Handling Growth And Rekindling Sense Of Community?

For more than half a century, the South Hill’s Cannon Hill Park neighborhood has been one of the safest real estate bets in town.

Is it the narrow, tree-lined streets? The centerpiece playground and pond? Is it the neighborhood’s proximity to elementary schools, grocery store and bus routes? Or the diverse residential architecture, unobstructed by three-car-garage facades?

Peter Katz, author of “The New Urbanism: Toward an Architecture of Community” (McGraw-Hill, $49.95), argues that all these factors working in concert give neighborhoods like Cannon Hill their enduring appeal.

“A neighborhood isn’t just a collection of houses,” says Katz. “It’s the houses, the shops, the workplaces - all the things that, woven together, create our daily lives.”

Borrowing the best from traditional neighborhoods to design contemporary, pedestrian-friendly communities is the theme of a free public lecture Katz will give at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Washington Water Power auditorium, 1411 E. Mission.

Katz, director of the Congress of the New Urbanism, will be joined by Rick Cole, former mayor of Pasadena, Calif., and current Southern California director of the Local Government Commission’s Livable Communities Initiative.

Their visit is sponsored by the American Institute of Architects’ Spokane chapter and underwritten by Washington Water Power, Metropolitan Mortgage and the Davenport Arts District.

Local AIA member Sam Rodell describes the lecture as “a call to arms” intended to focus attention on Spokane’s growing problem of suburban sprawl, while WWP’s Pete Kerwien hopes Katz can “help others see a vision of how we could recapture the downtown area.”

Neither is likely to be disappointed, since Katz and other new urbanists see suburban sprawl and downtown decay as two symptoms of the same disease.

“What we’re advocating,” says Katz, “is a return to cities, towns, neighborhoods and villages, which are the way people lived for thousands of years, and which we now realize are the most enduring forms of human habitat.”

“We regard the past 40 to 50 years (of sprawl) as an aberration - an experiment that failed.”

Several factors contributed to America’s post-World War II rush to build cookie-cutter subdivisions, among them an urgent demand for affordable veteran housing, increasing reliance on automobiles, and new zoning laws that discouraged mixing land uses.

“Americans moved to the suburbs for privacy, mobility, security and home ownership,” observes San Francisco architect Peter Calthorpe. “What we now have is isolation, congestion, rising crime, pollution and overwhelming costs - costs that ultimately must be paid by taxpayers, businesses and the environment.”

Katz agrees. “We’ve been building great houses but lousy communities. The problem isn’t growth but the model we’re using. The suburban pattern of the past 40 years is unsustainable.”

The new urbanism alternative tries to rekindle a feeling of community by getting people out of their cars and onto sidewalks and front porches.

The most publicized example of this approach is the resort community of Seaside, Fla., an 80-acre Victorianesque village that Time magazine called the best residential design of the 1980s. While generally celebrated, Seaside has been criticized as “a romantic, Disney-like exercise in nostalgia.”

“The new urbanism is not about style,” Katz explains. “It’s about how buildings relate to each other and what kind of public space they create.

“People tend to focus on the gingerbread trim and don’t realize that a street feels good when it’s narrow and the buildings are close together, creating a defined, canyonlike space where we feel secure,” in contrast to the typical suburban neighborhood “that looks windswept, open, glaring and unprotected.”

Katz’s mission is tough enough without getting bogged down in debates over parapets and picket fences. For instance, new urbanists encourage building on available land where public services already exist.

But “one of the greatest obstacles we face is that people are so afraid of development that they will fight almost anything (near their property), whether it’s good or bad.”

When growth occurs on the edge, “We advocate building complete neighborhoods that don’t sap the life of neighborhoods around them,” Katz says. But how often do all the ingredients of a “complete neighborhood” spring to life simultaneously?

Still, Spokane city planner Chris Hugo finds merit in much of what the new urbanists preach and already sees hints of its influence here.

He credits architect/developer Ron Wells with “setting the best precedents in the urban setting - mixing uses and paying attention to the activities going on in his buildings.”

Wells’ projects include restoration of several buildings in Carnegie Square to accommodate office workers, retail outlets and apartment dwellers.

Hugo also applauds a proposal by Metropolitan Mortgage to create an “urban village” on abandoned railroad right of way northwest of the Monroe Street bridge. Since its announcement almost two years ago, though, little has happened with the Summit project.

A risk that seems to be paying off is Riverpoint Village, a high-density urban residential project built by Goodale Barbieri Real Estate Management across the river from Gonzaga University.

Although the mixed-size residential development doesn’t strictly conform to new urbanism principles - the elevated structures and screened decks don’t invite interaction with the public the way traditional front porches would - the project does conserve space and encourage residents to travel more by foot or bicycle.

“I’m proud of the way we dealt with the impact of the Centennial Trail,” says project architect Don Hendrichs. “Once it’s built out (to 123 units on the 10-acre site), it’s going to be a very nice, unified neighborhood - high density, medium density and low density all occurring together.”

Isolated experiments with alternative housing configurations are fine, planner Hugo says, “but for new urbanism to work here, we have to admit that the sprawl pattern we’ve exhibited in Spokane County for the last several decades is detrimental to our quality of life; it’s consuming our open spaces, extending infrastructure beyond urban efficiencies.

“If we accept that what’s happening here is bad,” says Hugo, “and that growth should be redirected toward the urban center, then we can adopt a lot of these new urbanist principles - which are nothing more than good, common-sense planning - and make Spokane a friendlier, more interesting place.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

MEMO: For more information about Thursday night’s lecture or Thursday’s 3 p.m. panel discussion at City Hall, contact the AIA at 747-5498.

This sidebar appeared with the story: THE “NEW URBANISM” AGENDA Some architects and planners argue that America’s social, economic and environmental ills can be traced, in part, to how we allowed our suburbs to sprawl and our cities to deteriorate during the past 50 years. Their solution is neither city nor suburb, but a neotraditional hybrid they call “new urbanism.” Borrowing from the traditional village model, they propose compact, convenient neighborhoods where residents work, shop, worship, attend school and play - all within walking distance of their homes. Some of the key elements of new urbanism include: Neighborhoods with a rich mix of building types - shops, offices, even light industry - along with single- and multi-family residences that suit a range of incomes, ages and family types. Houses built toward the front of small lots and clustered around public spaces that include parks and playgrounds, as well as civic and commercial facilities. Street layouts and densities that make walking, bicycling and public transit viable alternatives to driving. Streets should be safe, interesting and comfortable for pedestrians. Garages are relegated to backs of houses or alleys. Commercial parking is tucked behind buildings. Neighborhoods are compact, clearly defined areas that encourage citizens to get involved and take responsibility for their community. By Michael Guilfoil