Recently I worte about how this billionaires’ land investment, located more than an hour from the nearest job center, violates the spirit of place. Today CNU has put out an article praising its walkability, regardless of the location. Has the Congress of New Urbanism become the Congress of Too Urbanism?
We saw the same kind of comments from New Urbanists before when Peter Calthorpe argued for filling in part of the bay salt marshes south of San Francisco Airport. The problem is the word “urban”: CNU doesn’t respect nature. When landscape urbanism came along about ten years ago, New Urbanism co-founder Andres Duany put that down as a rival, rather than adopting its principles of designing with nature. Whatever happened to the ideas developed at Sea Ranch?