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NEW URBANISM - A MATTER OF SCALE AND IDENTITY. LESSONS TO BE LEARNT FOR ASIAN CITIES

On March 14 2013 Steven Beunder from Townland Consultants was invited to speak at an International Conference on New Town Development in Kuala Lumpur. Mr Beunder was asked to speak about the Principles behind the Planning Movement that is New Urbanism. In this lecture he tried to shed some light on the lessons to be learnt from Township Development in America and how Planning Professionals and Developers can use some of the New Urbanism Principles to help in creating a more sustainable urban future for Asia’s New Cities.

The American Model: Urban Sprawl

The twentieth century New Town and sub-urbanization boom in the West gives us a huge body of knowledge concerning Township planning which can be useful for the contemporary generation of New Towns being built in the fastest growing economies around the World. With the Township development in so many Asian countries resembling many aspects of the market driven sub-urbanization model of the United States, it makes sense to take a closer look specifically at what happened in North America.

With the growing dominance of cars in the public realm and the strong degradation of the urban environment as a result of decades of Industrialization, the dominant Modernist Planning Principle became the norm in the American post war economic boom of the '50s and '60s. The Modernists Planners advocated a clear spatial segregation of residential neighborhoods from commercial and industrial centers. With land and gas prices being low and the construction underway of an intercity network of highways, suburban development started to spring up beyond the reach of the city extending further and further into the countryside. The construction focused on low density, single family detached houses as the preferred housing option for the growing middle class who could afford to leave the congested and polluted city behind. The growing distance and spatial separation between one’s home, office and place for shopping and relaxation, made cars indispensable for efficient transportation and contributed to the emergence of a culture of complete car dependency. This system of low density, mono-functional sub-urbanization became known as Urban Sprawl. A notorious example of the spatial impacts of this model is Los Angeles. A study from 1990 revealed that while LA’s population had grown over the previous period of 20 years with a modest 45%, the size of the urbanized area had exploded to more than 300% in size.

Urban Sprawl: Las Vegas, USA

Criticism of Urban Sprawl

One might think that this is a typical American problem that we’re not experiencing on that scale in Asia. The similarities with Asia’s township building boom of today however are striking. We see after a relatively long period of sustained strong economic growth a similar environmental degradation of life in Asian cities as a result of a combination of industrialization and unchecked growth of vehicular traffic. The exponentially growing Middle Class is fleeing its cities. The Townships in Asia are also planned similarly as in the United States, as part of a broadly defined Land Use Plan within a framework of vehicular traffic thoroughfares, resulting in a loose patchwork of rather insular mono-functional gated communities, rather than an a more flexible, multi-functional an integrated urban fabric.

The critique of the unchecked Urban Sprawl in America is also applicable in many different ways as to how countries in Asia are dealing with the Urbanization question. The critique can be divided in basically two categories: firstly the clear-cut environmental issues and secondly the maybe less obvious but equally profound social angle. 

When it comes to our environment, it is first of all because of a lack of integrated Master Planning of the Townships or New Towns that we see a relatively large loss of agricultural land and natural habitat to urbanization. The lack of integrated planning between townships also creates the higher carbon footprint of residents because of their strong dependency on the use of private vehicles. A third element is that the haphazard development of a relatively low density sprawl means the implementation of mass public transportation remains elusive. The lack of a critical mass of a series of concentrated high density nodes of development will make any form of mass public transportation connecting townships to the main city financially unfeasible.

Social critique focuses first of all on the dullness and predictability of the same few housing typologies that get repeated all the time. The set-up of small gated communities and the limited range of housing typologies also means that households other that young families that don’t necessarily own a car and may have different interests and lifestyles, like young couples without kids, single households, or the growing group of elderly people that are no longer part of an extended family, are not being catered for. To quote Andres Duany, co-founder of the Congress for the New Urbanism: “In a traditional town, one can live above the store, next to the store, five minutes from the store or nowhere near the store, and it is easy to imagine the different age groups, income groups, and types of households that would each prefer a different alternative. In this way and others, the traditional neighborhood provides for an array of lifestyles. In conventional suburbia however, there is only one available lifestyle: that is to own a car and to need it for everything.”

A second social critique focuses on the lack of well defined, attractive public spaces with a human scale. This reinforces a lack of civic pride in the shared public realm, and makes them prone to be becoming uncared for empty and unsafe spaces that will deter residents in the end of walking anywhere outside of their own street. The combination of the mono-functionality of the different neighborhoods, the large spatial division between neighborhoods consisting of wide traffic thoroughfares and lack of inviting communal spaces, creates an even bigger segregation of different social communities and income groups within society.

It’s important to realize that most Townships developed in Asia are not so much the result of a planned effort for urbanization, than rather an escape from it. The city is at the moment mostly perceived as something bad, something that can’t be fixed, so the only thing on offer is to abandon it. It is not an unlikely scenario that without a shift in the current dominant planning and development approach to our new cities and townships, the problems American suburbs are facing today are Asia’s problems of tomorrow.

Mixed Use Commercial Center New Town in West Bandung, Indonesia | TOWNLAND

New Urbanism – the counter movement

The proponents of the American suburban model have always had one compelling argument: 'This Is What Consumers Want': a quiet, safe environment among people in the same social strata. This is also very true for Asian Township of today: ‘liveliness’ that in the West is seen as one of the main advantages of a more mixed use, big city life, doesn’t necessarily count as a positive quality in Asia today. The heavy pollution and over-crowded Asian cities makes it inhabitants long for a more tranquil suburban environment. However true that is, it is all a matter of scale. In most Asian townships of today the benefits of a quiet suburban life in a gated community can still be combined with what most would consider a reasonable commute to their place of business in the nearby City or their favorite recreational spot in a natural environment. However this model of low density urban sprawl that can provide ‘the best of both worlds’ is clearly unfeasible as travel time can’t be stretched unlimited, with a continuation of the urban sprawl.

As a counter movement, channeling the criticism on the Urban Sprawl, the new Town Planning paradigm called New Urbanism began to arise in the United States in the early 1980s. Since then it has gradually informed many aspects of real estate development, urban planning, and municipal land-use strategies in the Americas, Europe and major cities around Asia. New Urbanism promotes the creation and restoration of compact, diverse, walkable, vibrant, mixed-use communities composed of the same components as conventional developments, but assembled in a more integrated fashion, in the form of complete communities. These contain housing, work places, shops, entertainment, schools, parks, and civic facilities essential to the daily lives of the residents, all within easy walking distance of each other. Every public open space is to be designed and thought of as a spatial entity and no longer as just the residue between buildings or neighborhoods.

Think Global – Act Local

When it comes to understanding the relevance of New Urbanism in planning today and in Township Development in particular the phrase 'Think Global, Act Local' sums it all up. We are all familiar with the phrase as it has been used so many times in the context of environmental challenges: calling upon us to lower our impact on the environment as individuals rather than to wait for global action.

However the original phrase ‘Think global, act local’ is actually almost 100 years old and can be attributed to Scottish town planner Patrick Geddes. Instead of the environment he originally implied with the phrase the social benefits of Neighborhood Planning. In his words: “the local character as can be found in organically grown cities and urban neighborhoods around the world are not mere accidental old-world quaintness. They represent a specific local urban fabric that can only be reproduced with an adequate grasp of the whole environment, and in active sympathy with the characteristic life of the place concerned."

In this sense Geddes can be viewed as a New Urbanist avant la lettre: encouraging planners to create a Unique Identity for Townships, based on a consideration of the local situation, inherent virtue and potential of a given Site and Culture, rather than introducing an abstract Modernist ideal imposed by forces from the outside.

Many architects and planners today scoff when New Urbanism is mentioned, which they associate with those quaint little new communities circa 1980, like Celebration, Florida which was popularized in ‘The Truman Show’. The focus of New Urbanism however long ago turned away from quaint little new towns for the wealthy elite. Today, they’re major advocates of green urban and suburban infill; the conversion of dead malls and poorly designed suburbia, into places worth caring about. Increasingly, regional planning techniques are being used in combination with New Urbanism to control and shape growth into compact, high-density, mixed-use neighborhoods. Planning for new nodes of mass public transportation instead of more roads as central catalysts for the development of compact, mixed use neighborhoods on township and city level, delivers the best results – also better known as Transit Oriented Development.

Mixed Use Development on Batam, Indonesia | TOWNLAND

Short Term Gains and Long Term Solutions

The question for us Planners involved in Affordable Housing and New Town Planning in Asia is how to get more of the New Urbanism Principles actually implemented. With a real estate market driven in most countries by private sector, it is first and foremost about getting the developers on board. In the following section I therefore highlight how New Urbanism as a Planning Model can increase profitability for developers, whilst creating a sustainable urban development that will provide for a satisfactory lifestyle for many generations to come.

1. Create Diversity in Density 

One of the obvious benefits or the more compact mixed use approach to the development of residential and commercial neighborhoods are the higher returns due to more saleable square footage per acre. More, smaller shop units bring a higher return per leasable square foot compared to big box retail. The focus on high density commercial development around nodes of Public Transport has shown to be the best model to create higher property prices instantly.

The argument regarding lack of public support for more investments in Mass Public Transportation in developing societies has always been that the Middle Class’ main aspiration of today is to own a car, so they never have to take public transportation again. That this is a matter of mindset, was shown by the former mayor of Bogota, who implemented a daring Transit Oriented Development approach in his city, famously said in response to that: "A really advanced city is not a place where the poor move about in cars rather it’s where even the rich use public transportation".

2. Create More Space for Pedestrians – Less Space for Cars

A more compact, walkable development means less land area needs to be acquired, that less land needs to be set aside for roads and a reduction in costs for development of utilities and other infrastructure. Walkability also means significant cost savings can be made in the lower demand for parking facilities. Moreover, in mixed-use properties even sharing of parking spaces is possible between complementary users. For example between residents that use the parking spaces during the evening and on weekends and office goers during the day, results in less duplication in providing parking.  

3. Create an Identity: The Urban Village 

In an ever increasing globalized world with an exponentially growing middle class, where people’s lifestyles and their urban environment have started to look very similar the world over, the importance of cherishing one’s own culture and identity is becoming increasingly important. The universal importance for residents to be able to identify with their city or town as a unique place should not be underestimated. One could draw a parallel with the Maslov’s Pyramid: the hierarchy of man’s fundamental needs. As more and more people reach the higher levels of self-actualization, to live in what is a just a ‘livable’ city no longer suffices: the importance shifts for people’s immediate environment to be more stimulating, interesting and memorable.

A Township can be sold with one successful image. The importance is having a ‘Post Card Image’ for one’s Township: a tool in creating a differentiating Identity that doesn’t need to apply to major cities alone trying to draw in tourists. It can similarly be applied to green-field developments like New Towns. By using specific local natural or cultural aspects as inspiration, new site specific Icons and Landmarks can be created in the first stage that will make a Township immediately a memorable place for residents, business owners and visitors alike. The use of local urban design traditions and, or a reference to indigenous architectural styles as an Identity Marker can be an especially appealing way to achieve this. In this way an environment can be created, that will remind residents and visitors of their own or their elders’ childhood and make them identify with the Township immediately.

4. Cater for a Wider Audience (1): Lower Income Groups

Whilst Western countries took almost two centuries to make a gradual transition from an agricultural society to an industrial economy and later on to become the globalized serviced oriented economies of today, some Asian countries are effecting this transition in merely a couple of decades. This also means that, contrary to the American postwar sub-urbanization period, Asian Cities are still in the middle of the surge of migration from the countryside to the city. However this demand for housing the lower end of the market has so far not been reflected in the make-up of most Township developments. The demand for jobs for the uneducated migrants as construction workers, domestics and drivers has however started to shift to the Townships together with the Middle Class. In order be ahead of informal settlements popping up at nearby sites, the inclusive integration of housing for the Lower Income Groups in the Townships, will not only suffice for a huge real demand, it will help in preserving the precious open space and Natural Environment, that has attracted the Middle Class to move to the Townships in the first place.

5. Cater for a Wider Audience (2): Not Just Families

Providing for a more diverse range of housing typologies and more mixed use environments, will help to make living in a suburban Township a more appealing Lifestyle choice to other households than families with young children. All major cities in Asia, like Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong and Mumbai have seen their share of Gentrification: a renewed appreciation of a more urban lifestyle among people in their twenties to their forties. Changes in lifestyles that are behind this trend, like marrying and starting a family at later age, more women in the workforce, combined with the general rise in disposable income, will only become more and more commonplace in the years ahead. The compact mixed used neighborhood centers can help to attract these growing target groups to the Townships.

6. Create a Community (1): Understanding of the NIMBY Principle (Not In My Backyard)

People are inherently adverse to changes they can’t control. This attitude towards to changes in people own neighborhood has become known as NIMBY: Not In My Backyard.  If a Township is solely sold on the principles of privacy and exclusivity, then every new house that will be built next is a degradation of the amenity. However, if what one sells is: ‘Community’, then every new house can be perceived as an enhancement of the asset. Moreover with a more compact New Urbanism development it is possible to sustainably plan for and retain open a green and natural environment, within proximity of where people live.

7. Create a Community (2): Use Social Media

The use of Social Media has become another important tool for Developers that want to sell their Township as a Community. It creates bonds between the Developer or City Management and the residents and strengthens the mutual relationship between residents.

The Township of Lavasa in Pune, India, has for example a very active Facebook page and is involved in the public debate about Urbanization and Sustainable Development, by actively organizing regularly well publicized events around these themes. Word of caution: using Social Media to one’s advantage means one can never make any promises one can’t keep, so Marketing needs to be truthful or otherwise people will let the Developer and the rest of the world know about it.

8. Create a Community (3): Create the essence of freedom, but not total freedom

People want to feel free, but they also want their neighbors to play by certain rules, especially in mixed use and more densely built living environments, where a poorly executed or maintained development next door can have adverse effects on one’s property value. To accommodate this double bind many New Urbanism Developments have been created with the essence of freedom while building in also some necessary controls. It has been proven that on one hand one can create a successful branding campaign imbued with ideas of freedom and self-actualization, and at the same time get people to sign more restrictive covenants, about for example maintaining a front garden or sticking to a certain color palette when painting one’s house. People are very much willing to make these trade-offs when communicated well and the benefits for the Community as a whole become clear for everyone.

9. Create a Sustainable Economy

The American planner Zev Cohen has said: “People don’t want to live near where they work; but they would like to work near where they live”. It turns out that for most people their preferred job environment resembles their residential lifestyle environment. Jobs have already started moving out of the city towards to suburbs following the Middle-Class. Contrary to the large scale, anonymous business parks, the compact mixed used neighborhood centers will be able to offer a workplace environment that comes really close to resembling people’s residential environment.

It’s this same type of compact mixed used neighborhood centers that will help to bring in the young creative business community. Nurturing creative entrepreneurship will become more and more important in Asia. The New Urbanism approach for Townships to strive for a clear Local Identity, whilst providing an International Standard Work, Live and Play Environment, will help to reinstall a climate of imagination with different local answers to global issues.  

One can say that the irony of New Urbanism is that in order for (Asian) cities to benefit from the universally applicable principles behind New Urbanism, a more introspective and ‘local’ approach would be a major step forward in creating a truly sustainable urban future. To quote the eminent trendwatcher Lidewey Edelkoort, who said in 2010: “The only way to become a global force as a Developing Economy is to rely less on international trends and get centered in your own heritage, do things your own way. True contemporisation is possible only if you are totally grounded in your own indigenous inspirations. Things can only become global if they are first firmly rooted in the local”.

Ciseeng New Town in Bogor, Indonesia | TOWNLAND