New Urbanism and American Planning: The Conflict of Cultures

Showing how New Urbanism is simply American urbanism as it has been evolving since the nineteenth century, this is a history not of what has been achieved but rather of what planners have sought to achieve--a history of the quest for good cities. In her survey of the last hundred or so years of urbanist ideals, the author identifies four approaches to city-making, which she terms "cultures": incrementalism, plan-making, planned communities, and regionalism. She shows how these cultures connect, overlap, and conflict one with another and how most of the ideas about building better settlements are so recurrent. She concludes with an assessment of the successes and failures of the four cultures and the need to integrate these ideas as a means to promoting good urbanism in America.