lynch revisited new urbanism and theories of good city form

Cities, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 247–257, 1999 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reservedPergamon

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Lynch revisited

New urbanism and theories of good city form

Larry R. FordDepartment of Geography, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182-4493, USA

Over the past two decades, there has been increasing controversy about the pros and cons ofnew urbanist or neo-traditional architecture and planning ideas. Some have argued that stan-dard suburbia has become dull, alienating, and isolating and that a return to the design ideasof the early twentieth century would be a step towards fixing the problem. Others have arguedthat the new urbanism is just another marketing ploy aimed at segmenting buyers accordingto aesthetic tastes in order to sell more houses. They argue that new urbanist communities areunauthentic and that we cannot go back to the past. Both sides often take extreme stands andthere are few procedures for evaluating neo-traditionalist ideas in a reasonably objective way.I suggest that the ideas of planner Kevin Lynch as published in three books:The Image of theCity, What Time is This Place?, and A Theory of Good City Form, can be useful in structuringways to monitor trends and compare the potentials of both standard and new urbanistic com-munities. 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved

Keywords:Architecture, Codes, Flexibility, Image, Street pattern, Traditional

Over the past 20 years a number of books and articleshave appeared which have been critical of the charac-ter and design of suburban America. The basic alle-gation in many of the critiques of suburbia is thatsomething has gone very wrong with the way manymiddle class Americans have chosen to live (Davis,1990; Kunstler, 1993; Langdon, 1994). As houses andneighborhoods have increasingly come to be seen asrefuges from the social ills of the city and as soundfinancial investments as much as places to live, Amer-icans have tended to isolate themselves from civiliz-ation and each other. Attacks on life in suburbia arenot new of course. During the 1950s and 1960s,authors pointed out that life in the suburbs was oftensterile and dull – lacking the diversity and vibrancyof life in the city (Whyte, 1956; Blake, 1964; Gans,1967; Packard, 1972; Owens, 1973). These earlierstudies, however, tended to be quite vague whendefining just what “suburban” was and just why somany alleged problems should occur there.

Part of the problem is that there has never reallybeen a consensus about just what “suburban” means.Some writers compare central cities to the politicalentities beyond but in cities such as Houston, Oklah-oma City, and Los Angeles, much of the suburban

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landscape is inside the city limits and so the centralcity vs suburbs contrast is nearly meaningless(Teaford, 1979). In addition, in many urban areas,such as New York, New Jersey, some of the oldestand poorest areas are located outside the central cityboundaries. Consequently, quantitative informationsuch as census data on “suburbia” and associated lifestyles are often difficult to interpret.

Sometimes the term “suburban” is used to describeareas that are simply low density areas that are a longway from the traditional downtown, especially if theyare socially and racially homogenous with popu-lations made up of young, white, middle-class famil-ies. The derogatory term most often used to describesuch areas is “sprawl” (Editors of Fortune, 1958;Higbee, 1967). Suburbia, thus defined, is simply whatthe traditional city is not. It is not compact, dense,and diverse. But this definition too can be quite vague.Until recently, critiques of specific aspects of urbandesign and city form were rare, except for commentson the problems associated with the predominance ofauto-dependent, low-density developments featuringonly single family houses.

Many of the earlier criticisms of suburban develop-ments are even less valid and useful today than they

Lynch revisited: L R Ford

were, say, 30 years ago. Since 1960, for example,more apartment units have been built in the suburbsthan in central cities (Neutze, 1968). Suburbia nolonger is made up of only single family homes andmiddle-class nuclear families in the tradition of Levit-town. Similarly, shopping malls and office parks havebrought immense numbers of jobs, shopping, and rec-reational activities to the once homogeneously resi-dential suburbs. The more the character of suburbiahas changed, however, the more many of the prob-lems of isolation and anomie have remained the same.People buy bigger homes with more luxurious fea-tures than they can afford and so two or more familymembers must sometimes work long hours and com-mute long distances to pay for them. The home as acenter for family life thus becomes more of a dreamthan a reality as people are rarely at home.

But today, many of these problems are moreclosely linked to the details of architecture and urbandesign than to shear physical distance, homogeneity,and remoteness. Consequently, recent critiques ofsuburban development have been far more specificand focused on the details of such topics as streetpatterns and house form (Wright, 1981; Girling andHelphand, 1994; Southworth and Ben-Joseph, 1997).In this sense, they are defining “suburban” in terms ofa set of landscape features rather than distance fromdowntown or political boundaries. This makes dis-cussing the pros and cons of suburban developmentsmuch easier since at least all the participants can be“on the same page” with regard to the types of areasbeing examined.

Critiques of the suburban landscapeThe basic lay-out and street morphology in most newsuburban areas is responsible for much of the iso-lation that many writers critique. The neighborhood,a cherished ideal for many Americans and the maintheme of much real estate promotion, has become amyth for most suburbanites because the spatial link-ages that sustain it have been severed. The cul-de-sacand “loop and lolli-pop” streets of most new suburbanareas have been designed to accentuate privacy, iso-lation, and disconnectedness (Kunstler, 1996). Chil-dren must be driven to school, recreation centers, andthe homes of friends because most activities arelocated not only far away but in auto-dependent land-scapes. It is impossible, inconvenient, or even danger-ous to try to get anywhere on foot since major shop-ping centers and even fast food restaurants are likelyto be located on six- to eight-lane highways with nopedestrian walkways and surrounded by massiveparking lots.

Even the smaller, residential streets are often toolarge since strict guidelines have mandated that theybe wide enough for fire trucks and other serviceequipment. In addition, many new residential areasare walled, gated, and located at the end of long cul-de-sac street systems. Places that are close as the crow

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flies, such as the homes of friends, churches orschools, are sometimes very difficult to get to. Peoplemust go everywhere by car.

The residential architecture and micro-spatialarrangements found in many modern residential areascan also work against the creation of a “neighbor-hood” atmosphere. For example, suburban housesoften are designed with the garage (often a two- oreven three-car garage) and associated paved drive-way in front with little else in the way of a housefacade. Even the front door may be relatively invisiblecompared to the dominant garage doors. This sort ofhouse does not present a warm or welcoming imageto the street. Where garages dominate, the sidewalk,if there is one, is constantly intruded upon by drive-way space making strolling in the neighborhood seemunappealing and inappropriate. Since most of the lifeof the house takes place toward the rear, there are few“eyes on the street” and so casual neighborly encoun-ters and even safety can suffer. How, we may ask,did this situation come to be?

The increasing scale of suburbandevelopmentMany of the landscape features that characterize sub-urbia today are directly related to the increasing scaleof development. Before World War II, residentialareas were typically constructed by “builders” whowould simply buy lots on already-established citystreets and put up a few houses at a time. Thus evennew houses were connected to the social and commer-cial fabric of the city. After the war, builders werereplaced by “developers” who prepared large tracts of“virgin” land and constructed hundreds or even thou-sands of look-alike houses over a brief period of time.By the 1970s, struggling municipal governmentsincreasingly required that developers build more andmore of the “community” facilities from parks andschools to lakes and other amenities and then pass onthe costs to buyers. As cities and counties opted out ofbuilding communities, developers picked up the slack.Building entire residential communities is, however, avery capital-intensive undertaking and so the financialrisks can be monumental. As a result, lenders haveplayed an ever-increasing role in designing Americanplaces (Klinget al, 1991).

Lenders do not like experiments. When hundredsof millions of dollars are on the line, financial insti-tutions like safe investments which meet all existingstate and federal guidelines from setbacks and streetwidths to off-street parking requirements. They wantto finance projects that will hold their value and betotally devoid of controversies, law suits, and avant-garde lifestyles. They want to appeal to buyers seek-ing safe communities and safe investments.

By the late 1950s and early 1960s, the “normal”suburb had become the garage-dominant houselocated on a winding cul-de-sac street in the middleof a vast area zoned residential only (Babcock, 1966).


Apartments were isolated in special zones and sowere commercial activities. By the 1970s and 1980s,however, even shopping centers and office parks werealso the responsibility of private developers. As thesize of investments rose, the reliance by developerson standard, conservative designs increased as well.One result of this conservatism has been the increas-ing reliance on codes, covenants, and restrictions (C,C and R’s).

Codes, covenants and restrictions are used to coverjust about every aspect of life in the suburbs. Thestyle and color of houses, the types of vegetationallowed in the front yard, fences and other accouter-ment, the parking of vehicles on the streets, and evenhow old residents must be to live there or how longa garage door can be left open are all subject to con-trol by community rules (Langdon, 1994). These rulesare often required by lenders who feel that any vari-ation from proper decorum could result in massivefinancial losses given the size of the investment andthe their necessarily long-term involvement with theproject.

Obviously, codes, in combination with strict zon-ing, mean that corner stores and service establish-ments are not allowed. Thus, commerce tends to bedominated by “big box” retailing such as discountstores and malls which are located on the majorthoroughfares that divide cul-de-sac communities.Everything, even the smallest shopping trips, must bemade by car. Even where commercial or communityfacilities activities are allowed, the street systemsmake it difficult to have a nearby threshold popu-lation. Dendritic street patterns and isolated cul-de-sacs mean that walking to a church, store, or park isnot common even when residential densities are mod-erately high.

The trend toward C, C and R’s has been criticizedas contributing to inflexibility, homogeneity, and iso-lation. Not only must all of the houses look the sameand be painted essentially the same color, daily activi-ties in front of the house are severely circumscribed.Most, if not all of the landscape maintenance is typi-cally done by the “community” organization and soneighbors rarely interact while trimming vegetation ormowing the lawn. In addition, washing or repairingautomobiles in the drive-way is usually strictly pro-hibited and so helping each other with tinkering tasksis not something neighbors are likely to experience.Permission must be granted from “the authorities” inorder to change even small design details. The indi-vidualism that America is known for has become sus-pect in suburbia. And so, there are not only fewerplaces to go in the community, but there is less to doat home. Many have argued that we are failing to pro-vide interesting, flexible, and sociable residentialenvironments.

New urbanism: a solution or more of thesame?In recent years, a number of proposals have been putforward to remedy such suburban problems as sterility

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and isolation. Chief among them is something calledneo-traditional or, ironically, “new” urbanism. Newurbanism basically calls for a revival and recombi-nation of several traditional urban elements (Katz,1994; Norquist, 1998). Advocates call for a return toa grid pattern with narrow streets and short blocks.Garages should be located on alleys behind housesand commercial structures and all buildings shouldhave gregarious and friendly facades where they facethe street. Traditional commercial districts shouldrequire a streetwall of shops with frequent doors andwindows while houses should feature front porchesand be positioned on their lots within “hi there” dis-tance of the sidewalk.

Each neighborhood should have a “small town”commercial node within walking distance of mostresidences. Apartments should be allowed over shopsand on some of the blocks closest to the center oftown so as to provide a wider range of rents than isusually found in new suburbs. Schools, parks, civicstructures, and schools should also occupy prominentpositions near the center of town. In short, the newurbanism suburb should be a replica (or simulacra) ofthe classic small town or city of the early twentiethcentury – a sort of Norman Rockwell kind of place.

Two approaches: urban in-fill or newcommunities

Of the two new urbanist strategies, urban in-fill hasattracted the least attention even though the resultingneighborhoods are actually closer to the stated goalsof most new urbanists than are totally new develop-ments. In-fill projects in the new urbanist tradition canvary greatly in size, but they nearly always use pre-existing city streets and neighborhood organization,although sometimes with a few modifications. Some-times entire areas are cleared and redeveloped butoften, some older buildings are saved and new “tra-ditional” houses and businesses are inserted into theurban fabric. In-fill projects are often allied with his-toric preservation schemes aimed at enhancing oldercommunities rather than disrupting them with inhar-monious modernity.

Although there is some debate concerning just howbig a project must be to constitute full-on neo-tra-ditional urbanism, there are many examples of in-fillprojects featuring the aesthetics and functionalarrangements advocated by new urbanists. In cities asdiverse as Newark, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Indiana-polis, San Francisco, and Sacramento, for example,neighborhoods with front porches and alley garageshave appeared which emulate if not fully replicate theambiance of nearby traditional urban and suburbanstreets. Most of these neighborhoods are quite mixedin age, ethnicity and income.

The Crawford Square neighborhood located in theold, largely-black Hill District next to downtownPittsburgh, for example, is both charming and pictur-esque and occupied by a diverse population withmoderate incomes. In Sacramento, Columbus, Ohio,


Figure 1 Urban in-fill: Indianapolis

Figure 2 Urban in-fill: Columbus, Ohio

Figure 3 Garage-dominant housing: Orange County, Califor-nia

and Indianapolis, new “traditional” houses and streetsof houses have been inserted seamlessly into cen-trally-located, largely-minority neighborhoods. Whilesome gentrification has occurred as a result of thisprocess, all of the areas are still very diverse. Forsome advocates of neo-traditionalism, such careful,

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Figure 4 Walled suburbs: Phoenix, Arizona



small-scale redevelopment represents the salvation formany inner-city areas since most neighborhoods canbe gradually upgraded regardless of the character ofthe existing architectural stock. Gentrification canthus be spread out and diluted so as to increase thevitality of many neighborhoods rather than focusedon only one or two and thus driving up rents andprices and causing displacement (Figs 1–4).


Figure 7 Celebration: Orlando, Florida

Figure 8 Celebration: Orlando, Florida

Figure 9 Urban in-fill: Pittsburgh

Far more controversial are the big, comprehensive,and much-publicized new communities that have beenbuilt in the neo-traditional style. Examples includeDisney’s Celebration near Orlando, Florida, LagunaWest near Sacramento, California, Seaside, Florida,and Kentlands, north of Washington, DC. These, andother similar projects, represent attempts by well-known advocates of neo-traditional planning and

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Figure 10 Urban in-fill, Newark

Figure 11 New old house: Coronado, California

Figure 12 Traditional grid: San Diego, California

architecture to create places which will encourage amore sociable and less auto-dependent lifestyle. Theyare meant to grow into modern variations of good,old-fashioned towns complete with grids of narrowstreets and downtown commercial districts with busi-ness flush to the sidewalk. Unlike the in-fill projectsdiscussed above, these developments are usually com-pletely disconnected from both traditional cities and


standard suburbs. This means, however, that there areno pre-existing populations to support retailing andother services and so the commercial areas have beenslow to develop and the home buyers have been for-ced to commute like any other suburbanites(Landecker, 1996). Proponents of these places, how-ever, argue that urbanity will eventually arrive (Figs5–8).

Critiques of the new urbanism

The neo-traditional places that have actually beenbuilt or at least started, such as Seaside and Cel-ebration in Florida and The Kentlands in Maryland,have been subject to a great deal of criticism. Thereare essentially five basic charges against neo-tra-ditional urban developments. The first is that they donot really offer anything different from standard sub-urban developments in that they are subject to thesame extensive codes, covenants, and restrictionsfound in most new projects and so lack the kind offlexibility and personalization that real “places”require. Can neighborhoods call themselves tra-ditional in any way if they are designed, controlledand maintained by corporations? At the extreme,opponents suggest that there is kind of a “big brother”syndrome in which people are expected to buy a life-style as well as a house. The guidelines are clearlylaid out in the promotional brochures.

The second charge is that the architecture and lay-out of these projects are unauthentic, inappropriate,and overly cute. There is a preponderance of “yeolde” cottages and too few gas stations. It is as ifmodels for the “good life” ended somewhere around1910. There is suspicion that the gingerbread andwhite picket fence look is just not what modern life isabout. Eventually, people may become tired of beingforever trapped in Victoriana. Again, at the extreme,opponents suggest that the projects play on a deep-routed conservatism and the urge to escape to a pastwhere everything was cozy and predictable.

A third charge is that most of the larger projects atleast tend to be physically disconnected from existingurban fabrics. Most of them are located on remotegreenfield sites well away from existing communities.To the extant that this represents an escape from theundesirable elements of auto-dependent suburbia, itmay be understandable, but it would seem that con-necting up with urban or suburban neighborhoodswhich share some desired neo-traditional character-istics would be a good idea. Is it really necessary toreinvent the wheel? In extreme cases, such as Dis-ney’s Celebration near Orlando, the new communityis separated from pre-existing areas by a moat of lakesand golf courses. Entering the community is thusalmost like entering a theme park. Of course, thiscriticism does not apply to some of the in-fill projectsmentioned above, but, on the other hand, they aresometimes criticized for possibly spear-heading gentr-

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ification efforts associated with “downtown as themepark” trends.

Fourth, there is the allegation that neo-traditionalprojects are simply another way to segment the mar-ketplace and to create specific lifestyle landscapes forparticular groups of people. This might be a laudablegoal up to a point but it also could serve to furthersegregate urban populations if it appeals to a sugar-coated past not shared by everyone. Small townAmerica at the turn-of-the-century may not havemuch meaning for some minority and immigrantgroups. Landscape tastes could be one more divisiveelement in addition to class and race. Residentiallandscapes that are homogeneously cute may be nobetter than those that are homogeneously modern.

Fifth, and finally, there is the allegation that neo-traditional urbanism is based on a kind of architec-tural determinism that has long been discredited. The“if you build it, they will socialize” idea that advo-cates of front porches and narrow streets desire cannotbe supported by existing evidence. Society haschanged. People today are too busy to sit on frontporches and chat or to hang out at corner stores andexchange gossip (Figs 9–12)

In defense of the new urbanismOn the other hand, there is much to be admired inthe best of the neo-traditional developments. The fivecriticisms introduced above can easily be counteredwith five attributes. First, while there are usuallyextensive C, C and R’s in neo-traditional projects,they tend to allow for more variety than is commonin standard suburban planned unit developments. Forexample, even Celebration and Kentlands offer afairly wide variety of house types, allowable colorschemes, yard sizes and arrangements, building tex-tures, and densities compared to most standard sub-urban projects of the same size. People have alsoadded decks, enclosed patios, and hung outside decor-ations that, while subject to the corporation’sapproval, have served to personalize the landscape toa greater degree than is possible in say, Irvine Ranch.Thus, criticizing neo-traditional projects for havingextensive controls might not be completely fair.Nearly all large subdivisions are now required by jit-tery lenders to have some controls so that the massiveinvestments in housing and associated infrastructurecan be protected. Neo-traditional communities mayhave found ways to soften, at least slightly, the rangeand impact of such controls. For example, restrictionson types of vehicles allowed or amount of time garagedoors can be open or trash cans are visible may dimin-ish if all of this is located in the alley behind theproperty rather than out front.

Second, while much of the architecture in theseprojects may tend toward the cute and precious, it ishard to say that it is any worse than standard garagedominant structures found in most large subdivisions.While the latter may be functional and reflect a mod-


ern lifestyle, they are nearly universally viewed asaesthetic problems. Indeed, many of the restrictionson open garages and display of trash containers aredue to the fact that huge garages can look like indus-trial hangars if “keep closed” guidelines are notstrictly enforced. It can easily be argued that neo-tra-ditional housetypes are prettier than most of the stan-dard options. In addition, they tend to be “gregarious”in that they feature doors and windows visible fromthe street, thus giving the neighborhood a humanized,lived-in dimension. Typically, luxurious customhomes feature many of the decorative embellishmentscommonly used in neo-traditional projects such aswindow shutters and brick facades confirming thenotion that when money talks, “tradition” oftenreappears.

Third, some of the remoteness and isolation of neo-traditional projects may be not only justifiable but agood idea. Not only might it be desirable to distancesuch projects from the worst aspects of highway-ori-ented commercial strips with big box retailing sur-rounded by massive parking lots, but also from someof the finer-grained older neighborhoods. While thereare many examples of older, inter-war suburbs whichare similar in character to the “new” urbanist idealwhich have held their value very well, others havehad problems. Some of these problems have been theresult of past discrimination against traditional urbancharacteristics by government agencies and lenders.For example, during the late 1930s, the federalgovernment decided that alleys were a bad idea andshould be avoided (in part, as a result of exposes ofalley housing “slums” in Washington and othercities). Discrimination by FHA and VA lenders, aswell as many private institutions followed. Inaddition, city codes and lending agencies often dis-criminated against commercial properties and evenhouses which had no off-street parking or otherdesired “modern” amenities.

Blockbusting and other ghetto-making techniquessometimes took a toll on older, “perceived as out-of-date” neighborhoods as well. At least for a while, itmight be wise to locate neo-traditional projects in

Figure 13 Using the sidewalk: Kentlands, Maryland

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Figure 14 Alleys and garages: Kentlands, Maryland

Figure 15 Urban in-fill: Sacramento, California

Figure 16 Old houses and industry: San Diego, California

self-contained locations so as to level the playing fieldand not saddle them with problems inherited fromanother era. If they succeed, more daring, in-fill pro-jects may follow.

Fourth, there is the matter of excessive market seg-mentation. If market segmentation involves onlyseparating people by income and ethnicity then itshould indeed be criticized. On the other hand, pro-


viding lifestyle zones for people with different tastesmay be a good way to humanize large metropolitanareas. This has already happened of course. Centralcities now have work-lofts for artists, gentrified gaycommunities, and waterfront condos with boat slips.Why not create traditional-style neighborhoods wherepeople who want to sit on porches and walk to cornerstores can congregate?

Fifth, and finally, while architectural determinismin the extreme is hard to defend, it is possible thatpeople just might behave differently if given thechance. The explosion of side walk cafes and smallboutiques in historic districts across the country haveencouraged thousands to park their cars and stroll.From Boston to San Diego, downtown sidewalks in“historic” areas are full of people watching people. Inmany suburban areas, such activities have been thor-oughly designed out of existence. Perhaps the role of“place” may be important after all (Figs 13–16).

Procedures for evaluating neo-traditionalcommunities

There seems to be no consensus with regard to theattributes and faults of neo-traditional design (Krierand Eisenman, 1989). Some people think they arecute while others find them to be “hokey”. Often thecritiques tell us more about the personalities of theauthors then about the places being discussed. Manydebates, for example, involve rambling discourses on“authenticity” without ever coming to grips with whatthe term means or how it can be used productively.Perhaps we need some organizing frameworks tochannel and focus our concerns. I am suggesting thatthe work of Kevin Lynch might provide an exampleof just such a framework. The works I will examineinclude The Image of the City(Lynch, 1960),WhatTime is this Place?(Lynch, 1972), andA Theory ofGood City Form(Lynch, 1981).

The Image of the City

According to this seminal book, a key variable indetermining environmental quality is legibility(imageability). A good place is one that can bemapped mentally – one that has an easily-rememberedspatial organization. A criticism of many standardsuburban tracts with their winding cul de sacs and“loops and lollipops” street system is that they areconfusing and illegible. This, combined with the lackof a commercial or civic nodes, means that peoplebecome more inward-looking, confining ever more oftheir time to house and yard. Identifying with a com-munity in any but the most abstract and general way isarguably difficult when residents do not have a goodmental picture of where the community is, how bigit is, or where it ends. Many neo-traditional projects,on the other hand, are exceptionally imageable. Cel-ebration is a case in point.

While having a moat of lakes and golf courses

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defining the limits of a neighborhood can be criticizedas bad from the standpoint of connecting up with thelarger metropolis, it does make for a coherent com-munity image. When coupled with an easily-under-stood grid street system and an identifiablecivic/commercial node, such a development might beconsidered to have almost textbook legibility. Therequisite nodes, edges, paths, districts, and landmarksare all there.

Lynch also calls for legible environments to haveidentity, structure, and meaning. To the extent thatprojects have such things as a street grid and unusualarchitecture, the first two requirements can be meteasily. Establishing meaning is a harder task. The juryis still out on just what the romantic associations builtinto many neo-traditional projects actually mean toresidents and visitors. This topic, however, can atleast be brought into a cogent and contextualized dis-cussion using Lynchian methodologies.

What Time is this Place?While The Image of the Citywas concerned with spa-tial legibility, this later book focused on temporallegibility – the place characteristics which facilitatedthe perception, understanding, and celebration of thepassage of time. A good place, according to Lynch,is one that not only tells us where we are (in time),but where we have been and where we are going andat what speed. A good city has depth and meaningfultemporal layers. There are clues to how things changeover time at many scales. Seasonal colors, old build-ings and even roosters crowing at the crack of dawncan provide us with pleasant, non-intrusive cel-ebrations of the passage of time.

Lynch argues that change can be scary if it is notwell understood. Indeed, we use the term “changing”neighborhood as a euphemism for “bad”. Gradualchange can be even more scary than sudden and mass-ive change if the latter is at least clearly comprehen-sible. For example, a gradually deteriorating neighb-orhood may be more discomforting in some ways thanthe impact of a storm or earthquake.

Gradual change can be good if it is not only forthe better but the processes are understood andaccepted. Good cities and neighborhoods, forexample, are those that can adjust and roll with thepunches. Even once homogeneous and sterile placeshave mellowed and diversified over time. As peoplehave added fences, trees, decks, rooms, hedges andthe like, the community has become a place. Olderneighborhoods which were more diverse from thestart become even richer with the passage of time. Aproblem arises, however, when neighborhoodsbecome frozen in time and change is disallowed.

Inability to change over time may be an increasingproblem associated with strictly controlled plannedunit developments. Beginning in the late 1940s withprojects such as Levittown, massive suburban tractswere built with houses that basically all looked thesame. In 1964, a song entitled “Little Boxes” poked


fun at the uniformity of American residential suburbs.However, in recent years it has become evident thateven places like Levittown can evolve and changeover the years. Some houses have been enlarged andredesigned, front yards have been landscaped at dif-ferent times according to different fads, and theneighborhood personalized in many and diverse ways.The passage of time is now highly visible in the land-scape. The question is, will the same mellowing bepossible in neighborhoods controlled by strict codes,covenants, and other types of restrictions?

In this matter, it would seem that neo-traditionalcommunities would fare no better or no worse thanstandard developments. Both would be “frozen intime” to a much greater degree than most neighbor-hoods of the past. However, neo-traditional communi-ties might experience slightly different types of prob-lems than other places. To the degree that such placesalready contain references to both the past andpresent, they might be seen as offering a thicker,richer temporal dimension. On the other hand, to thedegree that they are self-consciously locked into onetemporal ideology, ie the “old-fashioned neighbor-hood”, they may be even less able to change thanmore ambitiously modern projects.What Time is thisPlace?at least gives us some variables to ponder eventhough the likely conclusions may be elusive.

A Theory of Good City FormThe third and final Lynchian work that I wish to con-sider here isA Theory of Good City Form, publishedin 1981. Lynch offers five “dimensions of perform-ance”: vitality, sense, fit, access, and control. Thesedimensions are not always easy to measure and theymay be in conflict one with another. They do, how-ever, provide a context for discussions of the spatial,physical, social, and political organization of varioustypes of developments. Some of the dimensions pro-vide clear foci for comparing standard and neo-tra-ditional projects while others do so to a much lesserextent, but they all serve to keep the discourse going.

The first performance dimension is vitality, thedegree to which environments provide healthy andlife-enhancing settings. It has been said by someskeptics that the only undeniable improvement in cit-ies over the past 500 years has been in the area ofsanitation. Today, the issues that were all-importantin earlier centuries and in some developing nationseven now – safe drinking water, food, heat – are nolonger relevant for most Americans. We might arguethat this dimension offers relatively little of value incomparing urban form. On the other hand, there aresome interesting, if subtle differences that are worthdiscussing. Neighborhoods that can be shown to bepedestrian-friendly and which encourage physicalactivities such as walking and cycling in relativelysafe environments can be said to be “better” thanthose which do not. Similarly, neighborhoods whichare relatively free of crime and delinquency may havea higher degree of vitality. To the degree that neo-

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traditional neighborhoods with sidewalks and cornerstores really do foster walking instead of driving, theymay be more vital. On the other hand, grid patternstreets with stop signs and lights could mean moretraffic and pollution. There are pros and cons buturban vitality is worth discussing.

The second measure is sense or, more specifically,sense of place. According to Lynch, “I am here sup-ports I am”. Place identity reinforces other aspects ofidentity thus making life more vivid and meaningful.This topic has already been discussed in the com-ments on Lynch’s earlier books and so I will notbelabor it here. Suffice it to say that good places havesignificance and identity but flexibility is alsoimportant. If everyone is in unchanging agreementthat themeaningbuilt into the landscape is appropri-ate, then neo-traditional projects might be seen tohave an edge. If not, then opaqueness and flexibilitymay be an advantage. Having no image might be bet-ter than having a silly or oppressive one.

The third measure of performance is fit. The issuehere is the determination of how well urban environ-ments fit the human body and human activities. Thequestion is “does the place work well?” It is temptingto say that neo-traditional urbanism wins hands downhere. The wide streets with no sidewalks, walledneighborhoods, big box retailing, and vast parkinglots associated with standard suburban developmentsare emphatically not designed to be human scale. Thenooks and crannies of neo-traditional projects, suchas porches, sidewalk cafes, civic plazas, and narrowlanes meet the requirement for human scale nicely.On the other hand, providing the setting does notalways lead to the expected activities. If you build it,will they come? If it is true that people are now sotied to their televisions, computer screens, and auto-mobiles that there is no time or inclination to useneighborhood space, then the issue of fit (for people)becomes moot. It may be that fitting automobiles intothe picture is the most important performance vari-able.

The fourth measure of performance is access. Heretoo it would seem that neo-traditional developmentshave the advantage albeit less pronounced. Indeed,many design efforts in standard suburban tracts havebeen aimed at decreasing access. Walls, gates, cul desacs, garage dominant architecture, lack of sidewalks,and a lack of pedestrian-friendly amenities have allbeen aimed at limiting access and keeping “them” outof the neighborhood. Of course, to the degree thatmany neo-traditional developments are located inremote areas with moats of green, limited access mayalso be seen as a desired result. On the other hand,residents in a neo-traditional environment should findaccess to a variety of people and activities to be betterthan in standard communities. Grid pattern streets area case in point. Even if density is held constant, agrid of small blocks allows for contact with far moreaddresses in a short distance than does a dendriticstreet system of cul de sacs and “loops and lollipops”.


In the latter, you often simply cannot get there fromhere. In addition, visual access and permeability maybe facilitated by an environment with gregarioushouse facades and many storefronts. It is possible,however, that some types of access could suffer in an“old fashioned” community. Massive discount stores,for example, could be zoned out in some projects thuslimiting access to some products. This would seemto be a minor concern unless an entire city becameneo-traditional.

The final performance dimension and the one thatgives the greatest advantage to standard suburbandevelopments is control. Cul de sacs, gated communi-ties, walls, gates and the like are aimed at allowingresidents to control their space and protect it fromoutsiders. In medieval times, a confusing, maze-likestreet system was encouraged so as to give residentsthe advantage over invaders in case the walls werebreached. This same fear of the outside world guidesmuch development today. If there is a simple gridpattern, it is argued, speeders, trucks, criminals, andthe homeless will all find their way into the neighbor-hood. Similarly, having commercial activities groupedaround a well-known civic open space will simplyinvite “them” into the neighborhood. It is thus betterto keep retailing out on the “no man’s land” highwaysand put up “residents only” signs to limit on-streetparking in the neighborhood. On the other hand, thereare counter arguments. Having more eyes on the streetas a result of porches and corner stores could helppeople in neo-traditional communities to survey andthus control neighborhood activities in the sense ofhaving “defensible space”. However, it is probablysafe to say that to the extent that control has beenseen as more important than say identity or fit, neo-traditional projects have been viewed as problematic.

Conclusion: back to the future or forward tothe past?

The debate goes on. Should new residential develop-ments reflect the latest in technology and facilitatefuturistic lifestyles or should they be designed toencourage us to slow down and reflect upon the thingswe have lost by moving too fast? There is almost noway to win (or lose) a debate that is so couched inemotional issues and ideologies. Whenever words like“authenticity” or even “efficiency” are discussed, it ishard to stay for long on common ground. I have sug-gested that some of the frameworks put forth byKevin Lynch in his books on urban design and thequality of life can be used productively to focusdebates on topics such as the potential of neo-tra-ditional urbanism to enrich life in suburbia. The treat-ment of his arguments and ideas has been brief andcursory but I hope that the basic idea will graduallylead to a discussion of new procedures for evaluatingthe spatial and symbolic organization of life in metro-politan communities.

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lynch revisited new urbanism and theories of good city form

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