The Complete New Urbanism and the Partial Practices of Placemaking
Author(s)
Shibley, Robert G.
Abstract
The New Urbanism, a reconceptualization of the American Dream, has become a major public idea in the past five years. The movement, complete with charter, practitioners, and advocates, is a utopian project and its critique is part of the discourse in several professions involved in making or improving human settlements. The whole of the movement has a tremendous potential to return to the public the ability to make community living possible. Doing so, however, will require a continuing open dialogue on just what community means, and an intellectual home for the results of such a dialogue that includes both philosophical foundation and an ethical basis for decision making. It will also require a non-totalitarian process of place making that has the capacity to both confirm and challenge the dominant economic powers which influence settlement patterns.
