BULLETIN

gust 2000
Kelbaugh
ISM, POST
OF SCIENCE,
/ URBANISM
NEW URBANISM,
TECHNOLOGY
EVERYDAY
& SOCIETY
URBAN-
/ Au-

Three Paradigms: New Urbanism, Everyday

Douglas Kelbaugh
University of Michigan

Although New Urbanism has enjoyed meteoric suc- ethic that builds new or repairs old communities in
cess in the American media, it is far from the centerline ways that equitably mix people of different income,
of either the academic or the real estate development ethnicity, race, and age, and because it promotes a
world. However, it is fast becoming the norm for civic ideal that coherently mixes land of different uses
greenfield development in North America. Nonethe- and buildings of different architectural types. It is
less, conventional suburban development continues to inspirational because it sponsors public architecture
envelop the American metropolis. And conventional and public space that attempts to make citizens feel
urban development is fast changing our downtowns they are part, even proud, of both a culture that is more
into giant entertainment/tourist/convention/ significant than their individual, private worlds and a
sports/office centers. These radical changes are hap- natural ecology that is connected in eternal loops,
pening piecemeal, without much input from urban cycles, and chains of life. New Urbanism also eschews
designers and planners in general, much less from the physical fragmentation and the functional
New Urbanists. New Urbanism enjoys little and often compartmentalization of modern life and tries “to
begrudging respect in academia, especially in most make a link between knowledge and feeling, between
schools of architecture, where poststructuralist and what people believe and do in public and what
avant-garde theory continue to dominate. obsesses them in private” (Zeldin, 1994). It is
In addition to the conventional un-self-conscious structuralist (or at least determinist) in the sense that it
urbanism that is willy-nilly changing the face of maintains that there is a direct, structural relationship
American downtowns and suburbs, there are at least between social behavior and physical form. It is nor-
three self-conscious schools of urbanism: New Urban- mative in that it posits that good design can have a
ism, Everyday Urbanism, and what I call Post Urban- measurably positive effect on sense of place and com-
ism. They run parallel to contemporary architectural munity, which it holds, are essential to a healthy, sus-
paradigms, although there would be additional schools tainable society. The physical model is a compact,
of thought defined by tectonics, environmentalism, walkable city with a hierarchy of private and public
regionalism, historicism, and so on. There are other architecture and spaces that are conducive to
urbanisms and architectures, such as environmentally face-to-face social interaction, including background
inspired ones (which here, is subsumed under New housing and gardens as well as foreground civic and
Urbanism), but these three cover most of the cutting institutional buildings, squares, and parks.
edge of theoretical and professional activity in these Everyday Urbanism is nonutopian or atopian, con-
two fields. All three are inevitable and necessary versational, and nonstructuralist. It is nonutopian
developments in and of the contemporary human con- because it celebrates and builds on everyday, ordinary
dition. A brief synoptic view of the three paradigms life and reality, with little pretense about the possibility
follows. of a perfectible, tidy or ideal built environment.
New Urbanism is utopian (or at least idealist and Indeed, as John Kaliski, Margaret Crawford, and oth-
reformist), inspirational in style, and structuralist in ers in Everyday Urbanism (1999) point out, the city
conception. It is utopian because it aspires to a social and its designers must be open to and incorporate “the
Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, Vol. 20, No. 4, August 2000, 285-289
Copyright  2000 Sage Publications, Inc.
286 BULLETIN OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY / August 2000

elements that remain elusive: ephemerality, cacoph- As Andres Duany has pointed out, there is a wide-
ony, multiplicity and simultaneity.” It is this openness spread tendency within the architectural avant-garde
to populist informality that makes Everyday Urbanism to equate order with repression and, by extension, dis-
conversational. It is nonstructuralist because it order with democracy. However, the modern concep-
downplays the direct relationship between physical tion of democracy, as set out by Western philosophers
design and social behavior. For instance, it delights in such as John Locke, has been about civic responsibil-
the way indigenous and migrant groups informally ity as well as personal rights and freedoms. Only in this
respond in resourceful and imaginative ways to their century in America have individual freedom and
ad hoc conditions and marginal spaces. Appropriating license trumped civic responsibility and duty. Private
space for commerce in parking and vacant lots as well rights now overwhelm group rights, at great cost to
as private driveways and yards for garage sales can be community. This trend has helped jump-start
urban design by default rather than by intention. Form countermovements such as communitarianism and, to
and function are seen to be structurally connected in an some extent, New Urbanism.
open-ended way that highlights culture more than Post Urbanism is stylistically sensational because it
design as a determinant of behavior. Vernacular and attempts to wow an increasingly sophisticated con-
street architecture (“quotidian bricolage” by one sumer in and of the built environment with ever-wilder
account) in vibrant, ethnic neighborhoods with public and more provocative architecture and urbanism. Like
markets rather than chain stores and street murals modernism, its architectural language is usually very
rather than civic art are held up as one instructive abstract, with little reference to surrounding physical
model. Everyday urbanism could be easily confused or historical context. It also continues the modernist
with conventional real estate development, but it is project of avant-garde shock tactics, no matter what
more intentional, ideologically egalitarian, and the building site or program. It is sometimes hard to
self-conscious than the generic “product” that main- know if it employs shock for its own sake or whether
stream bankers, developers, and builders supply to an the principal motive is to inspire genuine belief in the
anonymous public. possibility of changing the status quo and of resisting
Post Urbanism, which could also be labeled controls and limits that are thought to be too predict-
Koolhaas Urbanism among design professionals and able and even tyrannical. Koolhaas, Eisenman, Hadid,
academicians, is heterotopian, sensational, and Libeskind, Tschumi, and Gehry are poststructuralists,
poststructuralist. Rem Koolhaas’s Generic City pro- many of them in the thrall of Derrida and
jects welcome disconnected hypermodern buildings Deconstructionist literary philosophy. Gehry
and shopping mall urbanism. They are also describes his exuberant insertions into the city as
heterotopic because they discount shared values or examples of open, democratic urbanism, despite that
metanarratives as no longer possible in a fragmenting they usually ignore and overpower any local discourse.
world composed of isolated zones of the “other” (e.g., De Con projects are usually self-contained and
the homeless, gays, communes, militia, prisoners, microcosmic, with little faith in the work of others to
minorities, etc.) as well as mainstream zones of complete the urban fabric, even a fragmented one. Post
atomistic consumers, Internet surfers, and free-range Urbanist work embodies and expresses a more
tourists. Outside the usual ordering systems, these dynamic, destabilized, and less predictable architec-
liminal zones of taboo and fantasy and these commer- ture and urbanism. The personal design portfolio of
cial zones of unfettered consumption are viewed as signature buildings, which are typically more self-
liberating because they allow “for new forms of referential than contextual, and a sprawling,
knowledge, new hybrid possibilities, new unpredict- auto-centric city such as Atlanta are held up as the pro-
able forms of freedom. It is precisely this distrust of fessional and physical model, although the very idea of
‘ordering’ that makes the post-structuralists so against type or model might be rejected outright by Post
conventional architecture and urbanism” (Ellen Dun- Urbanists.
ham-Jones, personal communication, January 2,
2000). Traditional communities based on physical
place, and propinquity are claimed to be stultifying,
repressive, and no longer relevant in light of modern
technology and telecommunications.
 Kelbaugh / NEW URBANISM, EVERYDAY URBANISM, POST URBANISM 287

Three Sensibilities, Methodologies, mative and doctrinaire than New Urbanism, because it
and Outcomes is more about reassembling and intensifying existing,
everyday conditions than about overturning them and
The differences in these three architectures and starting over with a different model. It is also more
urbanisms run consistent and deep. The divergence modest and compassionate than either of the other two
probably starts with the designer’s aesthetic sensibili- paradigms. If the New Urbanist romanticizes a mythic
ties, which are arguably more basic than his or her past, the Everyday Urbanist overestimates the mythic
design values. Sensibilities often come down to early aspect of the ordinary and ugly, much as Robert
experiences and memories, such as toilet training and Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, in my opinion, have
childhood play. They are less conscious and harder to tended to overpraise the arterial strip and entertain-
change than cognitive knowledge and learned values. ment districts in places such as Las Vegas.
How messy and complex a world a designer can toler- Post Urbanism claims to accept and express the
ate is probably harder wiring than how much injustice techno-flow of a global world, both real and virtual. It
she can tolerate or how many problems he can justify is explorative rather than normative and likes to sub-
passing on to the “seventh generation.” Where design- vert codes and convention. Perhaps Post Urbanists do
ers fit on the spectrum of these three paradigms ulti- not engage the public as directly in open dialogue
mately may have to do with whether in the gut they because they feel the traditional “polis” is obsolete and
prefer to spend time, for instance, around the grand its civic institutions too calcified to promote liberating
monuments and boulevards of 19th-century Paris, or possibilities. They tend rather to operate as “lone
in the medieval streets and buildings of its Marais dis- geniuses” contributing a monologue, often an
trict, or in the free-standing high-rise complex of La urbanistically selfish one, to the media marketplace.
Defense, its 20th-century office complex. (In fact, they Koolhaas claims there is no longer any hope of achiev-
may enjoy hanging out in two or all of these places, ing urban coherence or unity. His own architecture,
depending on mood, time of day, etc., but a single port- like Libeskind’s, Hadid’s, Eisenman’s, and others’, is
folio rarely if ever spans this range.) Theoretical and internally consistent—elegantly so in some
ethical discourse of course tempers these gut feelings. cases—but has little interest in weaving or reweaving a
For instance, the very different political regimes and consistent or continuous urban or ecologic fabric over
philosophical systems that gave rise to each of these space and time. Projects tend to be Large or X-Large,
Parisian urbanisms would no doubt color their visceral denatured, bold, and overwhelming to their contexts.
design sensibilities, in addition to shaping their design If the New Urbanist tends to hold too high the best
values, which are learned and cerebral. practices of the past and the Everyday Urbanist over-
In addition to varying sensibilities, designers use rates a prosaic present, the Post Urbanist is overcom-
different methodologies. New Urbanism is the most mitted to an endlessly exciting future.
precedent based of the three. It tries to learn and The three paradigms lead to very different physical
extrapolate from the most enduring architectural outcomes. These outcomes vary with whether the cli-
types, as well as the best historical examples and tradi- ent is public or private, but remarkably little. The New
tions as they intersect contemporary environmental, Urbanism, with its Latinate clarity and order, achieves
technological, social, economic, and cultural prac- the most aesthetic unity and social coherence, as it
tices. It is also the most normative, often adopting pre- mixes different uses at a human scale in familiar archi-
scriptive codes rather than proscriptive zoning. Over- tectural types and styles. Its connective grids of pedestrian-
all, coherence, legibility, and human scale are highly friendly streets look better from the ground than the
valued. New Urbanists see themselves as urban design air, from which they can sometimes look overly for-
“experts” who lead the public debate and try to demo- mulaic, neobaroque and slavishly symmetrical. Every-
cratically shape the dialogue (often through commu- day Urbanism, which is the least driven by aesthetics,
nity design charrettes) into holistic design and planning. has trouble achieving beauty or coherence, day or
Everyday Urbanism is the most populist, with the night, micro or macro, but is egalitarian and lively on
designer seen as an empirical student of the common the street. Post Urbanist site plans always look the
and popular rather than the ideal and pure. The design most exciting, with their laser-like vectors, fractal
professional is more of a coequal participant who feels geometries, sweeping arcs, and dynamic circulatory
privileged to enter the public dialogue, which aspires systems. However, they are overscaled and unreward-
to be very open-ended and democratic. It is less nor- ing for pedestrians. Tourists in rental cars experiencing
288 BULLETIN OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY / August 2000

the architecture and urbanism through their wind- ossify and lose its meaning and value as it degenerates
shields are a better served audience than residents for in the usual historical course from archetype to type to
whom there is little human-scale nuance and architec- stereotype), but it is far superior to what passes for new
tural detail to reveal itself over the years. Are local citi- brownfield, grayfield, and greenfield communities in
zens meant to become tourists in their own city, just as America today.
tourists are now, conversely, citizens of the world? Despite its comparative advantages over Everyday
Fundamental values can be loosely assigned to Urbanism and Post Urbanism, New Urbanism has
these three paradigms apropos of their relation to com- some inevitable, structural limitations. Some people
munity, sustainable order, and the human spirit. New want to cherry-pick what they feel to be the positive
Urbanism, with its emphasis on environmental values parts and reject the objectionable parts. Accept the
and ecological design, most fully embraces sustain- walkability but reject the narrow lots; mix uses but mix
able order. Everyday Urbanism is most aligned with them gently, and upscale (a mix no messier than a
community and Post Urbanism with the human spirit, “Benetton and a multiplex theater,” Michael Sorkin
especially freedom. Everyday Urbanism is more has quipped); keep the overall coherence but dilute the
driven by the compassion of agape, and Post Urbanism symmetry in town plans; include the single-family
by the freedom of arete, whereas New Urbanism seeks dwelling but reduce social elitism; keep it urban but
to balance these two basic human values. All three par- make it greener and more pastoral; build rapid transit
adigms have intrinsic worth, and their virtues may be but do not take away the second car; and so on. Unfor-
necessary and even liberative at the right time and tunately, communities come in packages. They cannot
place. be ordered up à la carte. Community design consists of
Everyday Urbanism makes sense in developing complex tradeoffs, with a limited number of win-win
countries where global cities are mushrooming with solutions. For the most part, it is slow, arduous, itera-
informal squatter settlements that defy government tive, and contested, punctuated by creative break-
control and planning and where underserved popula- throughs from time to time. It is not exact work. Com-
tions simply want a stake in the economic system and munity design is an approximation, community
the city. But it does not make sense in the cities of development a compromise. But that is not to say that
Europe, where a wealthy citizenry has the luxury of it is casual or provisional. Once adopted—however
fine-tuning coherent mature and urban fabric, freely imperfect—comprehensive plans, neighborhood
punctuating it with monumental, civic buildings that plans, and design guidelines need to be implemented
can be Post Urbanist counterpoint. In American cities, with consistency and conviction. (Leon Krier has sug-
which lack the continuous fabric of European cities gested that violations should be treated as a criminal
but have the economic wherewithal to build a coherent offense.)
urban fabric, New Urbanism offers just such a possi- New Urbanism’s biggest mistake at this point in its
bility. In the ecology of cities, development in the evolution, in my opinion, is its unwillingness and
Third World and in poor American neighborhoods inability to accept and include “star” architects and
represents early successional growth, whereas middle- contemporary architectural languages and tectonics.
aged American cities try to thicken their stand of mid Some New Urbanists, including myself, are willing
successional growth. European cities are more like cli- and eager to include, at the right time and place, fore-
max or late successional forests, where there is little ground civic and institutional buildings by leading
room for growth except clearings for experimentation “star” architects who are modernist (few of whom are
with new forms of urban life. left, e.g., Gunnar Birkerts), neomodernist, or high
Everyday Urbanism is too often an urbanism of tech. But most New Urbanist designers and planners
default rather than design, and Post Urbanism is too seem either unwilling or unable to convince their pub-
often an urbanism of sensational trophy buildings in an lic and private clients to commission such designers.
atrophied public realm. We can build a more Why would a Norman Foster post office, a Rafael
sustainably ordered and emancipatory commons than Moneo city hall, a Cesar Pelli office building, a Rich-
the latter two models promise. Although Europe may ard Rogers courthouse, a Herzog and deMeuron
hanker for Post Urbanism and the developing world museum, a Glenn Murcutt public market, or a Renzo
may accept Everyday Urbanism, the typical American Piano airport not be a positive addition to many a New
metropolis needs and would most benefit from New Urbanist project or town?
Urbanism at this point in its evolution. It may not be an Here is the rub: Even though there is no room for
absolute or ultimate fix (indeed, it will eventually New Urbanism in most “star” architect’s portfolios,
 Kelbaugh / NEW URBANISM, EVERYDAY URBANISM, POST URBANISM 289

there is room, in my opinion, for their foreground sig- lenge of repetitive social housing in places such as
nature buildings in New Urbanism, assuming they Holland and Scandinavia.) There is no reason that tal-
would be willing to sincerely work within an urban ented designers cannot put it to use in New Urbanist
design code (which however, can be more lax for the town and city developments.
honorific buildings they would likely be commis- “Why build new suburbs at all?” some die-hard
sioned to do). I could also see a Robert Venturi Every- urbanists ask. We have no choice because not all
day Urbanist library, a postmodernist Michael Graves American suburbanites and their offspring are going to
winery, or a Rem Koolhaas Deconstructivist, Post return to the urban or rural communities from which
Urbanist convention center, or entertainment complex. they migrated. Nor would they fit. There simply is not
There could even be a Frank Gehry concert hall, if enough room even in the vast, underprogrammed and
there was plenty of elbow room for something “that sometimes empty American city. Although urban
looks like a drunken barn dance as it might be repre- infill should be our highest priority, we clearly need
sented in a Disney cartoon,” as critic Robert Campbell New Urbanist developments on the periphery of our
(1999) described his design for a new MIT building. cities. Imperfect as it is, the New Urbanism is substan-
Because many of these architects have trouble doing tially, in many cases, spectacularly better than conven-
urbanistically responsible designs, especially the tional suburbs. TODs and TNDs are far superior in
Americans, and especially for housing or any building economic, social, environmental, and urban design
type in residential neighborhoods, I would want to see terms to the prevailing models of development, espe-
most of them commissioned in the town center, out on cially in the suburbs and exurbs. Sound design and
the highway, or at the airport—and not too many in one community planning, healthy and sustainable ecology,
town, as in Celebration, Florida, or Columbus, Indi- economic and social coherence, and good governance
ana. all fit happily into the New Urbanist canon. Rarely do
Equally important, there is the related problem of so many ethical, environmental, social, and economic
integrating contemporary building materials and prac- entries fall on the positive side of the ledger.
tices into Neotraditional architecture, whether fore-
ground or background. Notwithstanding the Krier References
brother’s hypnotic and seductive argument for reviv-
ing traditional building craft, it is very unlikely that our Campbell, R. (1999, November 16). “MIT’s design plan: Genius at
work.” The Boston Globe.
industrial economy will bring back cut-stone and
Kaliski, J. (1999). Everyday Urbanism. New York: Monacelli.
handcrafted wood buildings in the literal sense he pro- Zeldin, T. (1994). An intimate history of humanity. New York:
poses, even if natural capitalism tames this technologi- HarperCollins.
cal juggernaut into more benign and efficient habits.
Nor would such a revival, for all its architectural pres- Douglas S. Kelbaugh, F.A.I.A., is dean and professor of ar-
ence and tectonic integrity, necessarily be an improve- chitecture and urban planning at the University of Michi-
ment. (The revival of a cut-stone architecture would gan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban
probably require, as Cesar Pelli has pointed out, the Planning. He received his B.A. Magna Cum Laude and M.A.
return to, among other anachronisms, an indentured in architecture from Princeton University in 1972, after
class of workers.) When designed and executed with which he worked for 5 years for the City of Trenton, New
York, as a planner and architect. In 1978, he founded
skill, contemporary construction, especially
Kelbaugh and Lee, a firm whose work won over 15 regional
high-tech, can be beautifully composed and hand- and national design awards and competitions, was pub-
somely crafted. Somehow, New Urbanism must find a lished in more than 100 books and magazines, and featured
way not only to use the latter-day marvels of industrial in many exhibitions in the United States and abroad. In
production, new materials, and green building prac- 1985, he moved to Seattle to chair the University of Wash-
tices but also to architecturally express them (but not at ington’s Department of Architecture, where he edited The
the expense of context). Otherwise, too much human Pedestrian Pocket Book, a national bestseller that helped
talent, technical prowess, and scientific breakthrough jump-start the New Urbanism and authored Common
is being overlooked or denied. Although the syntax of Place: Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design. Re-
modernist architectural language was not conceived cently, he chaired the 1999 American Institute of Architects
for traditional infill urbanism, its vocabulary is versa- National Urban Design Awards jury and the 1999 adminis-
tile and can work successfully and sensitively. (It has trator’s conference of the Association of Collegiate Schools
of Architecture, which focused on urban design education.
even been applied to the more difficult design chal-