New Urbanism In North America

The concept of new urbanism is an “American innovation that first emerged during the 1980’s, as a response to post World War 2 suburban sprawl” (Tredeau, 2013). New urbanism in North America on the surface can be seen as an ideal approach when constructing cities and reinventing our day to day lives. New urbanism’s main objectives include creating compact and walkable neighborhoods, reducing car dependency, and offering a better way of life. New urbanism is about reimaging an urban centre and constructing it to meet our future needs. While cities strive to reach this level of complete communities, that is housing, places of work, parks, entertainment, somewhere along the process they put up a barrier. As cities evolve to provide us with these

At the start of my research, most of the material that came up seemed to take a positive approach to new urbanism. Although I found a lot of material on the benefits of new urbanism, I wanted to argue something entirely different. I thought about it for awhile and finally I reached the conclusion that while we are being given all these good amenities, not all people can enjoy them. This realization then led me to refine my way of thinking and eventually I discovered the topic of gentrification. For this paper I wanted to combine both new urbanism and gentrification and bring to light how they can work hand in hand and the negative outcomes of their

Once you can do that, you come to the realization that while we are getting all these new things, the price of living is skyrocketing. People can no longer afford to live in the city in which they work and as a result they are pushed out into the suburbs and forced to commute. This is mainly due to developers increasing housing prices to meet urban preferences (Kushner, 2003). “If new urbanist design strategies do in fact succeed at revitalizing urban neighborhoods and cities, property values will begin to rise and people and businesses that once occupied a space may no longer afford to remain there” (Day, 2003). This will cause a further divide in our society and segregation will become the norm. This form of gentrification may eventually cause displacement, leaving lower income individuals to relocate elsewhere. Spaces should be designed in a way that they include everyone and accommodate people’s individual needs. “Our society has a way of segregating individuals based on income, race, and accessibility” (Day, 2003). Adding displacement into the mix will only