What is New Urbanism? 

Who's been to (or LIVED IN!) a New Urbanist community? So far I've been to Celebration, Orenco Station, and Laguna West. Hope to get to Seaside in the near future.

This just makes me wish Cities Skylines had mixed use zoning and affordable/upscale housing demands.

I lived in Orlando in the early 2000s and remember Celebration being thought of as “the town that Disney built but no one could afford to live in.” And the HOA rules were very strict. Think Pleasantville.

Mixed-use, and walkability seems key to new urbanisim. Otherwise it's just the same suburbs with nostalgic architecture.

Talk about the urban planning of Pyongyang. A city rebuilt from the ashes of the Korean War

To me, as a European, I still see the same insanely wide streets, car centric design, and low density buildings, that make it difficult to have a really walkable city.

I've been to many of these types of communities and they all skip on the affordability part. They just seen like a new way to make gated upper class housing without the actual gates.

I worked as a long-term temp on Celebration. The developers worked hard to get the mixed use areas to work organically, including allowing for areas that could change as the community grew. The affordable housing was in the early designs that I saw, but it was getting push back.

I will take urbanism any day versus the ugly suburbs that have popped up all over Texas .

When my parents were my age, they could buy a small starter home after they got married, but developers don't seem to bother building anything but expensive housing anymore. Can you do a video on this?

I love your videos. I live in Celebration and I love that I’m able to just take my bike out and ride to parks and to our downtown area. I do appreciate this style over the endless urban sprawl around the rest of Orlando.

Here in sprawled-out Atlanta, we’re seeing more new urbanism with the Halcyon project and near by soon to be built Alpharetta Center. It seems these concepts are replacing the typical sub division and even in the perimeter, more development with a focus on new urbanism.

"It was too hot, and too sunny... so we're doing the rest of these shots in the studio". EXACTLY THIS! A lot of the walkable stuff you mention would be great if you lived in a temperate area of the country but I wouldn't think much of Florida would be pleasant to walk around in, even if it were shaded.

I wanted to see an example of a perfect new urban town

This is off topic but it sprung to mind and I feel obligated to share: If you drive around the Greek island of Zakynthos you will notice a weird road layout and bizarre fake plot depressions where houses used to be before the big Earthquake took out every building bar one on the island.

Im just chilling and saying hi from a 3rd world suburbs loll

I’ve been to Celebration. It’s nice but once you dig into its history, it gets very complicated

"Scenic Osceola County" LOL

You should visit Poundbury in the UK, the most famous new urbanist development in the country. The Prince of Wales is a fan.

Looks like a gated community just without the gate

I’ve been binging your videos and saw celebration in the title and got excited because I’m moving there in a month!!! This was so interesting, thank you for you videos!

You kind of skirt one of the biggest issues with Celebration, FL. It was developed as a "Company Town," owned and operated by Disney. That meant stifling competition with Disney and restricting residents' ability to have say in the governance of their community. Disney has since stopped trying to control everything in Celebration; but the taint remains.

could you make a video on city authorities? such as the Port Authority in NYC.

There's another similar community in Central Florida, Baldwin Park. Part of my cross-town cycling commute brought me through there, and I really appreciate the way these designs accommodate every mode of transport.

Great stuff as always. Nice job of making complex urban planning terminology interesting and digestible. Look forward to the next one. Come visit us in Chicago sometime!

Thank you for this awesome video explaining New Urbanism in detail. When I first learned about it, I completely subscribed to the idea and still have a description in one of my social media accounts and "advocate of new urbanism." But now I see the flaws of it, but like you said, an incremental improvement of the suburbs is better than nothing! Thank you!

Do you think Disney’s original vision of EPCOT would’ve worked with today’s technology? You should do a video on that.

Fair video, but only about greenfield new urbanism projects. You should do one on sprawl repair and TODs!

I’m obsessed with your videos! Do one on Baltimore cities iconic row homes!!!

Anything that gets Americans to live in closer proximity would be an improvement I suppose. They sort of remind me of those outside malls. It's like an attempt at making something interesting and urban but it doesn't hit the mark. Hopefully they'll improve though.

I think the problem with New Urbanism is that, as always, we are looking for a sort of ''perfect urban form'', a utopian vision of the city that could be absolutely unsuccessful considering the real intrinsic complexity of a city that does not only concern aesthetics or physical environment, but on the contrary a relationship that is anything but simple between an urban center and its inhabitants

You should have checked out Lake Nona, which is a large new urbanism community currently being built. Lake Nona is down the road from Celebration.

I like the front porch and entrance from Celebration, without the huge garage doors like the ones you showed from Seaside

Why don't you build several story apartment buildings? That would make communities denser, cheaper and more walkable. You could have a grocery store/bar/coffee-shop on the first floor (ground floor) and with people living above.

Similar to Seaside, the community of Rosemary Beach, just up the road from Seaside, is probably the most beautiful small town I've been to. Highly recommend checking it out if you are ever in the panhandle of Florida.

"New Suburbanism" does sound more correct. But that's not really a critique. This is a huge upgrade over the current design of suburban communities. Suburbs aren't going anywhere, but it would be nice if we could have them without trading away basically all of the benefits of urban development. Improving and combining these principals with actual urban planning for high density metros would be a vast improvement overall. Liveable cities with multiple available modes of transportation, and suburbs you can actually get around without feeling like you've travelled to a wasteland with houses in it. Zoning laws need a serious overhaul. And it needs to be combined with a new method of bidding out smaller parcels of land for more varied and even mixed-use development. The people in charge of distributing land and city planning need to be people who understand the needs of a given community at a far more granular level than what we currently have. Allowing communities to rapidly grow without losing all functionality. City "Planning" almost doesn't seem to to exist in many US metros, so much as ticking off boxes of required resources on a spreadsheet and then connecting roads between them. (Simplification I know, but that's the *feel* of US-style sprawl).

You should do a video on Baltimore’s Inner Harbor and Charles Center redevelopment

Would love to see a video from you on soviet urban planning, or just urban planning in the whole eastern bloc.

You mentioned the aesthetic style a lot of these houses arcs back to the small town I’d love to see an episode on why the small town so iconic and why it worked for its day

Thank you for showing the name of the city and state when showing example locations.

living in hillsboro i see orenco station every day on my commute to work and i wish that everywhere could be as pleasant to bike through

Goo video, but I couldn't help but smile when the word "revolutionary" is used in context of what's the standard for most of the rest of the world.

This concept is very interesting to me, I’ve not heard of the term before but thank you for giving me something to research further. I think something like this rather build new communities would be better applied to already existing ones where costs are cheap and there is the need for well-built thriving communities. It’s not perfect but it’s a start.

Fascinating I always thought new urbanism was principally about a style/aesthetic. Interesting to learn that there’s much more too it and it has goals and rules for urban living beyond the look of the houses.

Its incredible what can happen when you don't design a cities and neighborhoods around cars.

For the criticism of New Urbanism, one could argue that for some having suburbs look like old towns got some to finally pay attention to the real McCoy. Many old downtowns are no longer ghost towns and New Urbanism may have contributed to this. I certainly prefer the older cities with a real history.

I love Celebration! Thank you for making this video, and letting me learn more about where I live!

I’ve been to celebration, Florida, it’s a nice little town and it’s design is very good for small businesses because there’s a lot of pedestrian traffic

Great video!

Where I live we have no real building codes and zoning, but while it does allow for rather... "flexible" land use, it's also often a PITA when someone end up using the land in a way that disturbs the others. Are there provisions for those ?

Love your videos!!! I’d love to study urban planning!!! Any recommendations?

Close to you in Chicago is Beachwalk in Michigan City, Indiana at Stop 7 along Lake Shore Drive. It doesn't have much retail to speak of but that may change in the next 5-10 years.

I lived in Celebration back in 2008. Nice place.

It seems a lot of master planned communities I see these days (not all, but not an insignificant amount) seem to try and tackle this whole new urbanist idea. A mix of housing densities with commercial and job centers. I would love for you to make videos sort of analyzing some of these master plan communities based on their aspirations (how good of a target are they even shooting for) and how well they do (or do not) achieve those goals. I know here in the Phoenix area there are some really interesting master planned communities like Verrado, Eastmark, Vistancia, etc that to different degrees attempt to do some of what you say, I'd be curious about the various ones around the US and how well they live up to this sort of goal.

I think you should look at the Town Center in Robbinsville, New Jersey. It has different styles of housing, like apartments above its shops, townhouses and single-family homes. It is pretty cool, check it out!

Don't know if this counts but, Some Developers here in the Jakarta Metropolitan Area build new communities, they're usually filled with gated communities with specific architecture styles, schools and retail (at least one mall) and sprawling roads. Developers often use Highway access as an advertising tactic (although this is changing)

Please do a video on Babcock Ranch, the "new urbanist" sustainable community in SW Florida!

Your videos are really great.

Your videos are awesome, thanks for doing them and keep it up. But man, I get more and more glad to live in Europe with each issue you bring up about US cities.

Walkability is very important for quality of life and for the environment. My brother recently moved to an area that could be called New Urbanist in the neighborhood of Brookhaven, Atlanta and I highly enjoy visiting. Easily walkable to numerous restaurants, shops, grocery stores, a gym, etc, with rooftop amenities. Compared to the depressing suburban sprawl of "Bedroom districts" outside of the city, it's much more enjoyable, and reduces reliance on a vehicle.

Once I saw your last video on Disney, I knew you must have visited Celebration, FL.

I live in Celebration currently. Im also studying for my masters in Urban Planning at UCF. So I ADORE this video. You broke the area down perfectly. Celebration, as you said, is FAR from perfect. The biggest flaw is that has absolutely zero transit and still very car centric. To get basic needs like groceries and household items you still need a car, as the downtown area is mainly restaurants. But the big thing Celebration does get right is housing. The community is very dense for its size, with the majority of housing coming in the form of mixed-use apartments and townhomes. Even the single family homes are built relatively close together, in a way which encourages walking and community, unlike most Florida suburbs. I would argue that Celebration is overly expensive. Of course, buying a home here is astronomical. But the renting prices are very competitive for the area...at least from what I have seen. I know plenty of Disney Cast Members that live in Celebration and get by just fine, I used to be one! I currently live in a two bedroom apartment and we each pay $650 a month. Not too shabby. Although our hospitality workers are still grossly underpaid. One of the things that actually shocked me about Celebration is the wide range of class status you see living here. You walk down one street with million dollar mansions, turn the corner and see a block full of relatively priced apartments.

Could you make a follow-up video about new urbanism and its criticism?

Europe: I live next to a church from the 15th century a cafe and bar a CEO couple with 700 square meters house. Some students apartments and a new renovated shop / apartment house. Building for city electricity ( transformer station ) 6 parking spaces and an old tree.

3rd world developers: Allow me to introduce what i call superblock! Some block that cramped up with apartments, mall, hospital, (maybe school too!) in one area.

The flyover shots reminds me of the album cover of Modest Mouse's Strangers To Ourselves

Great stuff. What do you think about doing Dutch planning?

I almost lived in orenco, I sadly got diverted to southern California but I have been to that area a lot.

Do you have a video on parks in urbanization planning ?

The thumbnails reminds me a lot of the view from the Semarang Tawang Railway Station haha

It still feels like many of the urban centers are too expensive for what you get out of them, compared to small town or rural devolopment.

Housing for a wide variety of incomes: well that disqualifies celebration then. It’s not the most expensive place to live in Orlando but you’ll have to be upper middle class or higher to live there.

South Korea planning is amazing. Everything is within 5 minutes of where you live.

Where does Oslo fall in this category? I've been there twice and I love it so much, for me it's almost the ideal city

I grew up in New York City, but in east-central Queens, where there were mostly single-family homes with large backyards.The ironic thing is that the kids living on our street rarely played in the backyards, which tended to be used for the occasional barbecue only. Instead, as there was little traffic, we favored playing in the street.

I love the downtown Detroit map background!

You should take a trip up to Serenbe outside of Atlanta.

What are your thoughts about Poundbury in the UK ?

Oregon resident here, never thought of Orenco Station as a new urbanist community, just as a shopping center inside of the city of Hillsboro.

Omg I swear every episode you bring up Maryland and it throws me off

Is Celebration connected to any mass transit? Do its residents drive significantly fewer miles than others in the area? Do residents actually walk more?

Seaside is a beautiful community! Everything is accessible by either sidewalk or multi-use trail, and it is designed where even the _need_ to drive is limited just to tourists coming in and out of the coastal area. This is because the main road that this development sits on, County Road 30A, has its own, separated bike path, meaning that people from many other locations can come from nearby!

Is that the I-4 eyesore in your logo? ;)

"I'm in Florida!" Oh my God, I'm so sorry to hear that man. Orlando metro is a total disaster zone. What do you think of our roads and navigation? (asking somewhat seriously) I think they're so atrocious that I am studying construction engineering (because Disney is paying for that program in full) and then hopefully looking into something along the lines of Urban Planning. The roads' design here are so awful, that I want to finish college and get to work fixing them. Damn the designers of the 60's/70's!

Where did you? or can you get that "every day is your chance to make this city a little better" poster? I want to get it for someone to hang in their classroom

it looks very Stepford wives town. Some of my coworkers wanted to move to Celebration . I guess they realized it was too expensive for them.

We have to abolish parking minimums , road standards and zoning , leave it for the developer to decide.That way we can increase density and walkability. Local governments must also improve transit within the city and with the suburbs.Its the only way our cities can become cities again

Can you do a video on Robert Moses?

Serenbe in Chattahoochee Hills, GA is a good one to check out. Beautiful design but its remote location and lack of diversity has garnered some criticism. Definitely worth checking out

"new urbanism" let's just build cities like in late 19 century in europe

Just sounds like pricing out everyone but boomers and the nouveau rich with extra steps.

I am very sympathetic to New Urbanism, but public transit is also very important. Workers need access to a wider region for employment which may not be available in a mixed-use New Urbanist town. For that reason, TOD (transit-oriented development) is becoming more popular in New Jersey where development is now encouraged around rail stations.

New Suburbanist has a nice ring to it. Sounds like something I'd like for my mountain town of 8000. (More bike paths, more hiking trails accessible right from town, walkable community, mixed use, bus service. Already have a modicum of all that, and people who make use of it. ) Not everything needs to be New York City or Paris.

"Wholesale changes to how land is developed in the United States" Maybe you could expand on what changes you would propose??

This reminds me a lot of the community I live in, which was built in the 1960s. My community has a well documented history of trying to build a community based on new urbanism, even if they never used the term themselves. My community definitely gives off a very different vibe than celebration, FL tho. Celebration seems to be perfectly manicured and uniform, which is definitely not how reston looks. Reston, developed over the course of 50-60 years and has greater variety of styles and housing. Reston definitely meets the affordable housing criteria that celebration doesn't meet, but it does have a few other issues with public transport and walkability that the Reston Association and county government have been trying to fix in the past 10 years. I'm curious how City Beautiful would assess communities like mine that actually do try to meet the principles of new urbanism, instead of just stopping at the aesthetics like celebration did.

The problem with these places is that they are both regulated, and planned. You won't get a good town until you get rid of most zoning, including minimum lot sizes, and minimum setbacks. And planners are just gum in the gearing. As long as a few constants are required, things should take care of themselves. Require a grid, don't let there be dead end areas that fail to do their part in moving traffic across town. Keep roadways for cars down to one lane each way. Plant trees along the streets. Set aside paths for cyclists and pedestrians. And splotch parks around at reasonable intervals. Only the basic, common sense, zoning laws would apply; no dangerous, smelly, or noisy, industries would be located near homes, otherwise, let people decide what to build on their property.

I am interested in visiting these “new urban” sites but wonder if living there is different from visiting. I have been to Prospect New Town in Longmont Colorado (North East of Boulder) and I really liked the diverse architecture. At the time felt like the commercial businesses in Prospect Newtown would struggle to survive given how small the community was - perhaps my assumption was misplaced.

There is a new urbanism development outside of Ottawa in Chelsea Quebec called Hendrick Farms. The houses are SO beautiful and the location is only about 5-10 minute walk from Old Chelsea which is a cute little town with restaurants, hiking trails and an amazing Nordik Spa. I don't care that new urbanism is really just new "sub-urbanism", anything that moves us away from houses that look like their 90% garage is a step in the right direction.

Celebration, Seaside, Lakewood Ranch, and they're all in Florida. I never personally had to much issue with heavily planned communities but maybe that's because I really like Epcot (forever the GOAT Disney theme park).

7:47 Oxford comma 😂❤