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Exploring New Urbanism Principles in the 21st Century

• Written by Kaley Overstreet
• Published on June 18, 2021

The discussion around how we plan the cities we want to live in is a never-ending conversation. As our world experiences shifts that impact urban designs in both predictable and unpredictable ways, some principals have held true- that cities that rely less on private transportation, create walkable neighborhoods, boast a multitude of public parks and spaces, and are designed at a more human scale tend to be favored and well-recieved by the people who inhabit them. Enter the concept of New Urbanism . Backed by these ideologies with a modern spin on is how they might apply to our 21st-century lifestyles, New Urbanism a planning strategy that has been both praised and critiqued since its implementation.

The principles of New Urbanism were first created in the 1980s as an alternative to the suburban sprawl that was characterized by low-density zoning, and single-use buildings and homes that had become popular after the end of World War II. Underscored by the desire to make cities more walkable and remove the dependence upon cars, New Urbanism reflects on historical precedents and seeks to return to a more traditional planning strategy as seen in places like Charleston, South Carolina, and Georgetown in Washington, D.C. Beyond the pedestrian-friendly zones, the idea is that these neighborhoods would be packed with a combination of multi-family housing buildings, flourishing businesses, and commercial sites that line a gridded street system. All of this space would then be bisected with a “Main Street”, where all of the town activities would come together in a central location.

New Urbanism strategies , and their offshoots like the 15 Minute City, have been tested all across the globe. One of the first and most notable projects is the Stapleton neighborhood in Denver, Colorado. It was rezoned to become one of the largest mixes of residential and commercial areas in Denver, with an emphasis on public parks. But the reality of how Stapleton is utilized by its residents has become one of the biggest criticisms of the New Urbanism movements in general. A study from the University of Colorado in Denver concluded that Stapleton actually has higher vehicle speeds, fewer bikers, and fewer public transit users when compared with other neighborhoods in the region.

Despite all of the promise that New Urbanism holds, in recent years, there have been some concerns with how these cities are planned from a density perspective. If they are so dense, how will residents experience a level of privacy? The other concern is that not everyone wants to live in a city like this- some people actually enjoy the suburban and rural sprawl that affords them a large yard and separation from their neighborhoods. Some of the proposed towns also feel like more of a movie set, with their heavily manicured designs, and don’t reflect the way in which cities naturally grow.

Even with these criticisms, the ideas behind New Urbanism have only continued to gain traction, hold promise in the eye of city planners, and its ideas are still implemented into many new developments around the globe- even if at a smaller scale. It’s only a matter of time before more cities are walkable and their policies support high-density designs.

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The New Urbanism: A Better Way To Plan And Build 21st Century Communities

Through the first quarter of the 20th Century, the United States developed mainly in compact, mixed-use neighborhoods. However, the pattern began to change with the emergence of modern architecture and zoning, and automobile ascent. After World War II, a new system of development was implemented nationwide — one that, instead of being based on neighborhoods, was based on a rigorous separation of uses. The separate-use system has become known as sprawl or conventional suburban development (CSD). Most US citizens live in suburban communities built over the last 60 years.

Although CSD has been widespread, it carries a significant price. Lacking a town center or pedestrian scale, CSD spreads out to consume large areas of the countryside even when the population grows relatively slowly. In addition, automobile use per capita has soared because a motor vehicle is required for most household and commuter trips.

Those who cannot drive are significantly restricted in their mobility. The working poor living in suburbia spend much of their incomes on cars. Meanwhile, most people live and work in the American landscape is dominated by strip malls, auto-oriented civic and commercial buildings, and subdivisions without much individuality or character.

The New Urbanism is a reaction to sprawl. A growing movement of architects, planners, developers, and others, the New Urbanism is based on principles of planning and architecture that work together to create human-scale, walkable communities. New urbanists take various approaches — some work exclusively on infill projects, others focus on transit-oriented development, and others attempt to transform the suburbs. Many are working in all of these categories. The New Urbanism includes traditional architects and those with modernist sensibilities—however, all believe in traditional neighborhoods’ power and ability to restore functional, sustainable communities. The trend had its roots in the work of visionary architects, planners, and developers in the 1970s and 1980s who merged into a unified group in the 1990s. From modest beginnings, the trend is growing to have a substantial impact. More than 500 new towns, villages, and neighborhoods are built or under construction in the US, using principles of New Urbanism. Additionally, hundreds more smaller-scale new urban projects are restoring the urban fabric of cities and towns by reestablishing walkable streets and blocks in communities throughout the US.

On the regional scale, New Urbanism greatly influences how and where metropolitan regions choose to grow. Large-scale planning initiatives now commonly incorporate new urban planning ideas — such as walkable neighborhoods, transit-oriented development, and friendly, pedestrian-scale streets. Form-based codes and better-connected street networks are two instruments by which new urban ideas can be implemented at the scale of the region.

Principles of the New Urbanism Let’s look more closely at the core beliefs of new urbanists. Richard Bernhardt, a leading new urbanist who heads the Nashville-Davidson County Planning Department in Tennessee, has identified seven fundamental principles.

• The basic building block of a community is the neighborhood.
• The neighborhood is limited in size, with a well-defined edge and a center. The size of a community is usually based on the distance that a person can walk in five minutes from the center to the edge — a quarter-mile. Neighborhoods have a fine-grained mix of land uses, providing opportunities for young and old to find places to live, work, shop, and be entertained.
• Corridors form the boundaries between neighborhoods — both connecting and defining the areas. Passages can incorporate natural features such as streams or canyons. In addition, they may include parks, natural preserves, travel paths, railroad lines, major roads, or a combination.
• Human scale sets the standard for proportion in buildings. Buildings must be disciplined in how they relate to their lots if public space is to be successfully demarcated. Because the street is the preeminent form of public space, buildings are generally expected to honor and embellish the road.
• Providing a range of transportation options is fundamental. For most of the second half of the 20th Century, transportation agencies and companies that supports auto users, like https://floridainsurancequotes.net/florida-auto-insurance/ , focused on optimizing the convenience of automobile travel. We must consider all modes of transportation equally to relieve congestion and provide people with real choices.
• The street pattern is conceived as a network to create the most significant number of alternative routes from one part of the neighborhood to another. This has the effect of providing choices and relieving vehicular congestion. The streets form a hierarchy, from broad boulevards to narrow lanes and alleys.
• Civic buildings (town halls, churches, schools, libraries, museums) belong on preferred sites such as squares or neighborhood centers or where the view down a street terminates. Such placement helps turn civic buildings into landmarks and reinforces their symbolic and cultural importance.

New Urbanist Prototypes

The first full-size new urbanist community was Seaside, the 80-acre resort development that Robert Davis began building on the Florida Panhandle in the early 1980s with lead designers Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk.

Seaside is a fantastic project, both in its style and in its pursuit of community interaction. Davis’s pioneering project demonstrated that New Urbanism (or Neotraditional planning, as it was first called) can revive many of the best elements of small-town design.

New Urbanism has always been concerned with cities as well. At around the time Seaside was being planned, architects like Daniel Solomon and Raymond Gindroz applied similar ideas to revive neighborhoods in historic towns.

Solomon partially honed his architectural approach to building design by closely observing traditional development patterns, especially those in his own city, San Francisco. Solomon recognized that the essential elements of the old ways could be perpetuated if new construction followed the correct principles.

While Solomon explored how San Francisco could redevelop satisfyingly, similar work was underway on the East Coast. In 1979 in New York, a group of architects that included Alexander Cooper and Stanton Eckstut produced a revised master plan for Battery Park City. This 92-acre endeavor was destined to become the most significant Manhattan development in half a century. Cooper and Eckstut had seen that the city loses some attractive, walkable qualities when street walls are interrupted too frequently — as happened in the 1960s and 1970s when office towers with barren plazas proliferated.

Battery Park City was enormously successful as a real estate venture and was celebrated for rediscovering critical elements of effective city planning. The complex along the Hudson provided a case study of how a large, dense urban precinct, or several of them, could respect the human scale and enhance the public realm.

A catalyst to this movement arrived in 1993 when leaders in urban design came together to form the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), now based in Chicago. The founders were Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Peter Calthorpe, Daniel Solomon, Stefanos Polyzoides, and Elizabeth Moule, all practicing architects and town planners. CNU has grown to more than 2,500 members and is now the leading international organization promoting new urbanist design principles.

It did not take CNU long to impact public policy significantly. In the mid-1990s, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) adopted the principles of New Urbanism in its multibillion-dollar program to rebuild public housing projects nationwide. Gindroz of Urban Design Associates in Pittsburgh was one of the influential new urbanists who helped set the design guidelines for redeveloping public housing.

Redesigning Commercial Centers

Another setting in which New Urbanism has proven helpful is the single-purpose retail center. During the postwar decades, Americans threw up thousands of shopping and business centers that catered to the automobile at the expense of pedestrians and community life. One of the first attempts to transform a suburban commercial district occurred in the Town of Mashpee on Cape Cod. In the mid-1980s, developers Buff Chace and Douglas Storrs acquired a generic shopping center and then set about altering and adding to it — a process that has continued for over 20 years.

The result, Mashpee Commons, is a town center serving a community that previously lacked one. At the impetus of Chace and Storrs, the sixties shopping center added a post office; a cinema complex that opens onto a public square; narrow streets and wide sidewalks comfortable for pedestrians; second-floor offices; apartments and live/work units; and civic and religious structures, including a public library and a church. The center has acquired many of the traits that made 19th-century downtowns appealing.

About half the new urbanist projects in the US are on land previously built upon. Many of these occupy polluted land (“brownfields”) or fit into existing neighborhoods (“infill”) or convert failed shopping centers (“gray fields”) into social, mixed-use developments or renovate subpar urban buildings. Most early new urbanist projects were on “greenfield” sites — virgin soil.

The first sizeable suburban greenfield project to employ New Urbanism principles was Kentlands, a 352-acre project in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Designed for developer Joseph Alfandre by Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company in a charrette in 1988, Kentlands demonstrated that some development components common to the Washington, DC, region could be assembled in a more attractive and much more pleasant manner.

Alleys And Accessory Units

This was made possible partly by placing most residents’ parking behind the houses, along alleys. When Kentlands and other early greenfield new urbanist projects were underway, there was doubt that galleries would ever catch on in the suburbs; in fact, alleys have become a well-accepted part of contemporary development, helping the facades of the houses to form visually appealing streetscapes.

Another innovative feature of Kentlands is the accessory unit — small quarters above a garage or in some other portion of a single-family home. Since the units are small, these apartments provide opportunities for homeowners to obtain some rental income and offer relatively inexpensive housing for the renter — usually a single tenant or a couple. Initially (and incorrectly) viewed as an assault on the character of suburban neighborhoods, auxiliary apartments are now standard in new urbanist developments, adding to diversity, density, and affordability.

Many of the best-known examples of New Urbanism are early greenfield developments like Seaside; Celebration, Florida; Harbor Town in Memphis, Tennessee; and Kentlands. New towns on greenfield sites continue to be built — more recent examples include New Town at St. Charles in Missouri, Seabrook on the Washington coast, and The Waters in Montgomery, Alabama.

New urban infill developments in older cities and towns are also increasing — probably to a greater degree than greenfield developments. Redevelopments of suburban sites are also increasingly common. Some of the infill communities occupy formerly industrial properties. Others are redevelopments of public housing projects, shopping malls, apartment complexes, or military bases. Still, others consist of the revitalization of underpopulated parts of cities. The diversity of new urban developments is steadily growing.

The new urbanists have taken on three other projects worth mentioning in this brief report. One is the zoning code reform, which was established in the first half of the 20th Century to separate uses and restrict density. Zoning has played a significant role in suburban development for the last six decades.

The problem of codes has inspired some of the most innovative work by new urbanists. A reform movement toward “form-based codes,” so-called because they regulate the three-dimensional shapes or forms of buildings and the public realm, has taken hold in recent years. These codes focus less on a property’s uses than on factors that determine the character of places — such as building frontage and placement. Many municipalities adopted the SmartCode — available in 2003 — and other form-based codes. But many more cities still have conventional codes.

Streets For People, Not Just Cars

The second project is the reform of thoroughfares. The conventional street design focuses primarily on the expeditious and safe movement of automobiles. The concerns of pedestrians and mass transit are secondary. However, that single-minded focus is fading, partly due to New Urbanism. Since the 1980s, new urbanists have made radical arguments in the context of late 20th Century street planning.

• Mobility is not measured primarily by automobile movement. Other modes of transportation, such as walking and mass transit, should be prioritized equally on all but the highest-speed thoroughfares.

• Streets must have character as well as capacity. Streets consist of two-dimensional pavement and building frontages, landscaping, sidewalks, lighting, and street furniture. The ensemble gives the road its character.

• Streets serve a vital social function. They are the heart of the public realm — the glue that holds communities together — and should be designed as pleasant places to interact, to see and be seen, and just to be.

• Streets should be highly interconnected. Conventional planning employs a dendritic (tree-like) pattern, with local streets branching off arterials and collectors. As a result, the blocks tend to be large, connectivity is low, and traffic is concentrated on major roads. New urbanists argue for well-connected street layouts that disperse traffic and allow for narrower, more human-scaled thoroughfares.

Finally, new urbanist designer Peter Calthorpe and others have strongly advocated transit-oriented development (TOD). In the last five years, mixed-use, higher-density TODs have been successfully built across America.

We have come a long way in urban planning in the last two decades. In the 1991 book Edge  City , author Joel Garreau said Americans have not built “a single old-style downtown from raw dirt in 75 years.” Today we can see new mixed-use centers and downtowns in many US, Canadian, and abroad places. There are strong indications that this return to urbanism will carry on well into the future. In the deep housing recession that began in 2006, urban housing has generally outperformed that of the distant suburbs. Demographic trends, such as the aging of the Baby Boomers and the emergence of the Millennial generation, promise to make urban places even more popular in the decade to some.

The looming climate and energy crises, likely dominant forces in the next half Century, also favor the prospects of walkable, urban, mixed-use places. It appears that the 21st Century will be a new urban one.

Robert Steuteville is the editor and publisher of New Urban News. Philip Langdon is the senior editor at New Urban News. Steuteville and Langdon are coauthors of New Urbanism: Best Practices Guide, published in 2009.

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section New Urbanism: Expansion of a Principle-Based Planning Movement

Introduction, general overviews—academic perspectives.

• General Overviews—Practitioner Perspectives
• Origins and Aims of New Urbanism
• A Principle-Based Movement
• Testing the Claims of New Urbanism
• The Geographies of New Urbanism in North America
• “Worlding” of the Movement
• Broader Critiques of New Urbanism
• De-universalization of New Urbanism

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New Urbanism: Expansion of a Principle-Based Planning Movement by Dan Trudeau , Susan Moore LAST REVIEWED: 29 November 2018 LAST MODIFIED: 29 November 2018 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199874002-0197

New Urbanism is a contemporary urban planning and design movement that aims to change the ways in which urban development takes shape. Originating as a critique of suburban sprawl in the United States during the 1980s, the movement advocates development that produces mixed-use, mixed-income, pedestrian-oriented neighborhoods. While US-style suburban sprawl serves as a visible target, the planners, architects, and urban designers who champion New Urbanism see it as a counter-movement to the Congrès internationaux d’architecture moderne (CIAM) whose rational functionalist principles of urban design generated the automobile-oriented, single-use, and socially segregated landscape of postwar suburbia in the United States. Proponents thus organized the New Urbanism movement in order to displace CIAM. As such, New Urbanism offers a set of normative design principles that stipulate how development should look and function at multiple scales, from the block to the district and city-region. This strategy is at the intellectual heart of the New Urbanism movement. The main advocacy apparatus of the movement, the Congress of the New Urbanism (CNU), has proceeded with framing this strategy as a relevant response to a variety of problems associated with ongoing urbanization, including environmental degradation, concentrated poverty, disaster resilience, suburban decline, and sustainability. Such adaptability of the movement has led to its adoption in development efforts in over thirty countries on six continents. As it has spread, both globally and to different development contexts within metropolitan areas of a single country, it has diversified such that there are now multiple New Urbanisms. The rising influence of the movement has also attracted academic critique. Much of the work in this vein has been quite critical of the movement, though there is debate about its impact. To this end, there are many efforts to test the claims of New Urbanism, which speak to our evolving and multifaceted understanding of its influence in the wider world.

The literature on New Urbanism has emerged from a diverse array of vantage points, both within and outside of academia. As a subject of academic inquiry, New Urbanism has been examined from a number of disciplinary and applied disciplines, each of which consider different facets of the movement, though tend to offer critical perspectives. From a planning studies perspective, Grant 2006 examines the origins and global spread of New Urbanism, providing one of the few existing attempts at a comprehensive examination of the movement. From a similar perspective, Talen 2005 chronicles the problematic way in which New Urbanism ideology interfaces with paradigms of modernist planning practice that have been entrenched for decades in North America. McCann 2009 provides another overview of the movement’s emergence and resulting impact. There are three special issues of academic journals that focus on New Urbanism, each of which provides helpful overviews to New Urbanism at different moments in time. Harvey 1997 collects a number of criticisms of the movement’s intellectual foundations and provides a constructive yet skeptical orientation to the movement’s aims. In this collection Harvey 1997 gives an especially insightful appraisal of New Urbanism’s intellectual heritage and what one can expect from the movement. Falconer Al-Hindi and Till 2001 is an edited issue in Urban Geography that provides a mix of skeptical and appreciative perspectives on the movement’s aims and different aspects of how it has been implemented in North America. Marshall 2003 offers similar perspectives in an edited issue of Built Environment , in which Hebbert 2003 provides a particularly helpful contextualization of New Urbanism. Outside of these collections, Brain 2005 offers a sympathetic critique of the movement’s aims and impact. The movement’s ideological underpinnings are discussed in Beauregard 2002 , which adds to the appreciation of New Urbanism’s intellectual heritage and how that articulates with the movement’s avowed aims.

Beauregard, Robert. “New Urbanism: Ambiguous Certainties.” Journal of Architectural and Planning Research 19.3 (2002): 181–194.

Article reviews the basic principles of New Urbanism from its roots to its implementation in a critical manner. The author argues that the design principles and implementation processes of New Urbanism are in some cases contradictory to the broader concepts and ideologies of the movement. By contrasting New Urbanism to modernism and postmodernism, the author concludes that New Urbanism has not completely detached itself from, nor avoided completely, either movement.

Brain, David. “From Good Neighborhoods to Sustainable Cities: Social Science and the Social Agenda of the New Urbanism.” International Regional Science Review 28.2 (2005): 217–238.

DOI: 10.1177/0160017605275161

Article offers an instructive introduction to New Urbanism and its social agenda and follows a range of applications in planning and design practice. Author contends that research has revolved around testing the movement’s claims rather than examining the movement’s effects through questions grounded in sociological theory. Posits that studying New Urbanism in practice affords the opportunity to research the politics of place making. A great starting place for beginners.

Falconer Al-Hindi, Karen, and Karen Till. “(Re)Placing the New Urbanism Debates: Toward an Interdisciplinary Research Agenda.” Urban Geography 22.3 (2001): 189–201.

DOI: 10.2747/0272-3638.22.3.189

Article introduces a special issue on New Urbanism. It begins with a timeline and the movement’s roots followed by a brief overview of the multifaceted literature on New Urbanism. The authors advance an interdisciplinary framework for studying New Urbanism beyond its claims, which they argue is required in order to apprehend its use and impact with regard to environmental, social, and economic concerns.

Grant, Jill. Planning the Good Community: New Urbanism in Planning and Practice . London: Routledge, 2006.

Book provides a comprehensive overview of the movement, discussing its origins and spread globally. The discussion places special attention on situating New Urbanism within a broader context of planning theory and examines the gaps in theory and practice of New Urbanism. A helpful introduction to the movement, suitable for undergraduates.

Harvey, David. “The New Urbanism and the Communitarian Trap.” Harvard Design Magazine 1 (Winter/Spring 1997): 1–3.

The article praises New Urbanism’s “organic” and “holistic” vision to generate a sense of place that American cities have lost through postwar modernist design, but criticizes the movement’s generalization of what society ought to become, its capacity to respond to crises, and the assumptions that design is able to solve socioeconomic and political issues and that “community” is a universally inclusive notion.

Hebbert, Michael. “New Urbanism—The Movement in Context.” Built Environment 29.3 (2003): 193–209.

DOI: 10.2148/benv.29.3.193.54285

This article explores New Urbanism through three perspectives: (1) analysis of the Charter for New Urbanism that positions the movement within several policy alternatives to sustainable development; (2) comparison of New Urbanism with earlier urban strategies that have shaped modern town planning; and (3) evaluation of the effectiveness of the movement to alter the trajectory of urban sprawl. Article provides a helpful orientation to conceptualizing the movement.

Marshall, Stephen. “New Urbanism: An Introduction.” Built Environment 29.3 (2003): 188–192.

DOI: 10.2148/benv.29.3.189.54279

Introduces a special issue of Built Environment by placing the emergence of New Urbanism within broader developments in planning theory. Focuses on how New Urbanism, as a principle-based movement, departs from many trends in planning, yet is comparable to its foil, Congrès internationaux d’architecture moderne (CIAM).

McCann, Eugene. “New Urbanism.” In International Encyclopedia of Human Geography: People, the Earth, Environment, and Technology . Edited by Rob Kitchin and Nigel Thrift, 438–443. Boston: Elsevier, 2009.

DOI: 10.1016/B978-008044910-4.01067-1

Brief essay that provides a helpful introduction to New Urbanism, covering its origins, including its key theoretical influences, and the geographical mechanisms of how the movement’s influence spreads. Frames New Urbanism as a type of religious movement that provides a compelling analysis of how charismatic individuals lead a larger cadre of devotees who help link the movement to new development around the world.

“New Urbanism: Urban or Suburban? A Roundtable Discussion.” Harvard Design Magazine 1 (Winter/Spring 1997): 46–63.

A critical discussion between practicing architects and planners and architectural critics regarding New Urbanism’s aspirations and how it is actually implemented at the dawn of the movement. The article is a transcript of the discussion between these individuals with invited commentary from figures in Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Considers diverse viewpoints about the extent to which New Urbanism offers a departure from the conventional suburban development.

Talen, Emily. New Urbanism and American Planning: The Conflict of Cultures . New York: Routledge, 2005.

DOI: 10.4324/9780203799482

Book presents an historical review of four currents of thought in urban planning in the United States and discusses how New Urbanism articulates with each of these: incrementalism, plan-making, planned communities, and regionalism. Frames New Urbanism as facing opportunities to build on the successes of each approach and overcome the tensions that exist between these. A suitable resource for more advanced students who are familiar with urban planning history.

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1: Changing Cities plus the New Urbanism, Gender and Design S/S 1997

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This issue focuses on the changing nature of cities worldwide, a subject of concern for our broad range of readers. Without our having encouraged any one more specific focus, a dominant note has been sounded in our essays: alarm about pernicious urban conditions endured by the poor worldwide.

Review: Elizabeth Wilson

Sexuality and Space edited by Beatriz Colomina

1: Changing Cities plus the New Urbanism, Gender and Design

Essay: Mike Davis

Ozzie and Harriet in Hell

The new urbanism and the communitarian trap.

David Harvey

Essay: David Harvey

Essay: Lawrence A. Herzog

The Transfrontier Metropolis

Table of contents, a decent life: dilemmas of urbanization.

Mona Ismail Serageldin

A Modest Proposal for a New Sub-Urbanism

A prospect of st. louis.

Richard M. Sommer

Cities after the End of Cities

Robert Fishman

Cities of Impossibility

Michael Kirkland

Empowerment in Abidjan

Francois Vigier, Mona Ismail Serageldin

Modern and Asian

Peter G. Rowe

Modern and Islamic

Mina Marefat

One Space, Two Worlds

Rahul Mehrotra

Skid Row, Los Angeles

Camilo José Vergara

The Architecture, the Book, and the Diskette

Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani

The Revanchist City

Lawrence A. Herzog

Urban or Suburban?

Alex Krieger, Andrés Duany, Carol Burns, Daniel Solomon, Edward Robbins, Ellen Dunham-Jones, Gerald E. Frug, Gretchen Schneider, Gwendolyn Wright, Jerold S. Kayden, John O. Norquist, Robert Campbell, William Morrish

Architecture and Feminism edited by Debra Coleman, Elizabeth Danze, and Carol Henderson

Diane Ghirardo

Architecture: In Fashion edited by Deborah Fausch, Paulette Singley, Rodolphe El-Khoury, and Zvi Efrat

Lauren Kogod

Discrimination by Design by Leslie Kanes Weisman

Grahame Shane

Feminism and Geography by Gillian Rose

Linda Pollack

Not At Home edited by Chris Reed

Joan Ockman

Safe Cities edited by Gerda R. Wekerle and Carolyn Whitzman

Elizabeth Wilson

Space, Place and Gender by Doreen Massey

Stud edited by joel sanders.

George Wagner

The Architect: Reconstructing Her Practice edited by Francesca Hughes

Susana Torre

The Sex of Architecture edited by Diana Agrest, Patricia Conway, and Leslie Kanes Weisman

Sharon Harr

Women and Planning by Clara Greed

New Urbanism: Resources for further reading

If you’ve read David Wang’s essay “ Meditations on a Strip Mall ,” you’re already aware that, while it may not be controversial, New Urbanism enjoys less than universal favor among architects and/or urban planners.  So we offer three sources for information on the subject-one neutral, one that strongly advocates NU, and one that offers a trenchant criticism of NU’s ability-or lack thereof-to create community.

We don’t know how you feel about Wikipedia , the online encyclopedia, but it’s the best place we’ve found for getting an overview of the new urbanism-what it is, where it comes from, its main advocates, and some of the things it’s criticized for.  While the Wikipedia article is still under development, more or less, it contains a lot of information and provides any number of links for continued exploration, as well as other suggestions for further reading.  Just click here.

According to its homepage, the Website NewUrbanism.org “was started in 1998, and has since grown to become a leading and well respected informational website promoting good urbanism, smart transportation, transit oriented development, and sustainability.  NewUrbanism.org is independently owned and operated and is not connected to any organization, corporation, or public entity.” We take them at their word, especially as the the site serves as a gateway to a massive amount of information. A “featured books” page provides an extensive listing of book and films on urbanism, transportation, and sustainability. A good entry point to the website is its page on the principles of New Urbanism. Enjoy .

Back in 1997, David Harvey, a professor pf geography at Johns Hopkins University, published an article in Harvard Design Magazine titled, “The New Urbanism and the Communitarian Trap.” Anticipating Wang, Harvey was critical of what he saw as the movement’s underlying assumption that “proper design and architectural qualities will be the saving grace not only of American cities, but of social, economic, and political life in general.”  But Harvey doesn’t stop here.  He goes on to question some of our most cherished assumptions about “community” in our increasingly materialistic and atomized society, and explores what he calls “the darker side” of communitarianism-community as a means of exclusion, rather than the reverse.  Scholarly in tone, it’s nevertheless a fairly profound exploration of the subject and well worth reading.  A PDF version is available here .

OK, we said three, but to be fair, we’ll add one more reference. In an article in Comment , an online magazine from Canada, Eric O. Jacobsen offers a rebuttal to the critiques of Harvey and others. But he then goes on to consider the charge of elitism that’s often been leveled against New Urbanism. He takes this charge seriously, and rather than attempting to rebut it, offers some considered thoughts about the ways NU could avoid the pitfall of elitism. The success of New Urbanist developments, he says, “should be evaluated not on market value or housing starts, but rather on how their existence improves the quality of our older urban environments. . . . Without the vital connection to the broader public welfare, the movement could truly be in danger of utopianism, nostalgia, and elitism. If New Urbanism is to avoid this fate, it must take seriously the perspectives and experience of those living in paleo-urban environments.”

Click here to read the article.

This is just a smattering of the many online resources available on New Urbanism. We could have included any number of other articles for you to read and sites to explore-such as the Online NewsHour’s   special report on NU-but you know the drill: just do a Google search for “New Urbanism,” and see what turns up.

Read David Wang’s “Meditations on a Strip Mall”

Koolhaas Versus New Urbanism Essay

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Recently a movement known as New Urbanism has emerged in the field of architecture. In other circles, New Urbanism is also known as ‘neo-traditional planning’. The main purpose of the New Urbanism movement is to act as an alternative to the existing patterns of ‘auto-dependent land developments’ that target low-density areas. New Urbanism has a retinue of supporters within planning and design professionals. However, there are those who feel that New Urbanism is an outdated concept that has no place in modern architecture and design. One of the critics of New Urbanism is Rem Koolhaas. Most of Koolhaas’ views are expressed in the article titled “What Ever Happened to Urbanism”. Koolhaas is of the opinion that New Urbanism will eventually become obsolete as a result of the current growth in global economy. Koolhaas is a well-respected architect, designer, and educator who has made considerable contribution to modern architecture. Koolhaas believes that architects have to move away from the traditional architectural values to ensure that modern urban designs are enhanced. On the other hand, New Urbanism (previously referred to as Traditional Neighborhood Development) reiterates the need for conventional urban development. New Urbanism supports renewed urbanism based on a reestablishment of the forms and functions of the contemporary city as opposed to Koolhaas’ call for an end to this practice. Both of these arguments have their merits but considering today’s environment, Koolhaas provides the more practical and sound solutions to urban development.

New Urbanism in the United States dates back to the 1970s and the 1980s when developers began to incorporate historical patterns into modern urban designs. The most prominent representative of New Urbanism is the CNU (Congress for New Urbanism) a body that has outlined the principles that pertain to this concept. The CNU also addresses most of the challenges that are associated with urban development such as education, environment, community, inner cities, transportation, and social equity. New Urbanism is made up of universally acceptable principles and sample urban designs. Some of the manifestations of New Urbanism include well-designed city metropolitans, well-demarcated neighborhoods, cities, towns, compact developments, preserved environments, farmlands, interconnected streets, infill developments, and cyclist friendly transportation.

Furthermore, New Urbanism tends to concentrate on connections between geographical and administrative units. By the year 2000, the number of New-Urbanism traditional neighborhood developments in the United States was estimated to be around 150. On the other hand, Koolhaas cites global capitalism as the main motivation behind modern urban development. According to him, the global capitalist environment of the 20 th Century provided means of developing speculative urban designs to replace the 19 th Century contemporary city. This argument interprets the modern developments of cities as reflections of the needs of the urban population and the abilities of the city developers. Koolhaas’ idea of urban development articulates the need to substitute New Urbanism with a structural process of development. Therefore, a single structure should be able to give its residents the feel of a generic city experience.

New Urbanism has been known to be a source of sprawl within urban developments. According to most developers, it is hard to control growth management when adapting to New Urbanism. On the other hand, the concept of smart growth is hard to achieve using New Urbanism. Koolhaas’ school of thought argues that New Urbanism cannot provide a reliable foundation for the development of any urban area. Koolhaas’ argument is that developments that are characterized by a capitalistic agenda are more sensitive to expansion. Therefore, unlike New Urbanism Koolhaas’ urban development model can be able to solve the problem of sprawling in cities. Today’s urban development favors the free-market enthusiasts whose initiatives have helped ease concentration in urban areas. Proponents of New Urbanism defend their development model by arguing that compared to the others, it has done more to solve urban problems. New Urbanism has also led to overreliance on automobiles and their accompanying infrastructure. The urban centers of the 1980s and 1990s have burdened city residents with strenuous commuting needs. However, Koolhaas’ urban development provides a solution to this problem through the development of comprehensive city-like structures. An example of a New Urbanism model is the Transit-Oriented-Development. This city development model is synonymous with huge traffic jams among other commuter problems. New Urbanism attributes the problem of traffic congestion to poor planning. However, this argument proves that New Urbanism is more susceptible to the problems of poor planning compared to other models of development.

While Koolhaas’ model represents progressive architecture, New Urbanism is mostly an exercise in nostalgia. New Urbanism represents the need to maintain traditional and less complex ideologies. Furthermore, New Urbanism represents a falsification of historical settings and the failure to face reality on the part of urban designers. On the other hand, Koolhaas suggests a reestablishment of urban architecture. Koolhaas promises a city building model that changes quantity into quality just like New Urbanism. Nevertheless, the architect notes that this cannot be achieved through repetition and abstraction. New Urbanism has relied on familiar aesthetics, ideas, and strategies to transform cities but this has not worked. Koolhaas also notes that while architects are ready to switch to newer and practical models of urban development, other city planning stakeholders are determined to maintain the status quo. Proponents of New Urbanism maintain that their model of development is applicable to all levels of city development. However, this argument is nullified by the constant shortages that dominate modern urban centers. The alternative to New Urbanism follows a strict path of capitalism where city development goes hand-in-hand with the needs of the population. On the other hand, New Urbanism is constantly battling undersupply and in rare cases oversupply of city resources. From Beijing to Lagos, cities all over the world are battling problems of inadequacy in infrastructure and resources, which are all related to New Urbanism.

Another shortcoming of New Urbanism is that it tends to ignore the needs and realities of the modern world. The modern world is dominated by economic and social realities that New Urbanism has been unable to solve. Some of these realities include cheap energy, computer networks, and a globalized economy. These realities are continuously rendering the city-building concept irrelevant. Furthermore, residents prefer individuality and privacy to community settings. Residents also tend to favor sparsely populated areas over the congested city environment. Koolhaas’ model considers and tries to align itself with these realities. For instance, some urban centers have become completely undesirable after some popular ‘New Urbanism’ additions. For example, the construction of Crawford Square in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania increased the hardships of the Hill District considerably.

Both Koolhaas and proponents of New Urbanism highlight pertinent matters in their arguments. However, the reign of New Urbanism has come an end due to the advent of globalization. Koolhaas provides a city development model with a sound solution to the problem of sprawling in modern cities. This model is also in terms with the realities of modern city development.

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• The City Beautiful Movement and Urban Planning
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Introductory essay

Written by the educators who created Ecofying Cities, a brief look at the key facts, tough questions and big ideas in their field. Begin this TED Study with a fascinating read that gives context and clarity to the material.

Right now, our economy operates as Paul Hawken said, "by stealing the future, selling it in the present and calling it GDP." And if we have another eight billion or seven billion people, living on a planet where their cities also steal the future, we're going to run out of future really fast. But if we think differently, I think that, in fact, we can have cities that are not only zero emissions, but have unlimited possibilities as well. Alex Steffen

The urgency of urban planning today

Within a few decades' time, we can expect the planet to become more crowded, resources more precious, and innovative urban planners increasingly important. By midcentury, the global population will likely top nine billion, and more than half will live in cities. What will these cities look like? Will we have the resources to power them and comfortably provide for their residents? Will global urbanization harmonize with efforts to curb climate change and secure a sustainable future, or are these forces hurtling towards a head-on collision?

The TED speakers featured in Ecofying Cities underscore the urgency, but also suggest that some optimism's in order as they outline the issues and offer imaginative solutions.

There's no single reason for or response to the complex environmental, economic and social challenges that are part of our future in cities. They call for multiple approaches, originating from different sources — individuals, communities, governments, businesses — and deployed at different levels — in the home, the neighborhood, the city, region, nation and across the globe — to respond to the challenges at hand. As Alex Steffen reminds the urban planners, architects, designers, elected leaders and others involved in the effort, "All those cities are opportunities."

Urbanism and the environment: A brief history

For centuries, successful city-building has required careful attention to the environmental consequences of urban development. Without this, as Jared Diamond demonstrated in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed , a city inevitably ended up fouling its nest, thus entering a spiral of epidemics, economic hardship, decline and, ultimately, oblivion. Civilizations evolved different ways of dealing with environmental considerations — some with more success than others. For example, thanks to elaborate aqueducts and sewer systems, the Romans were able to build and sustain for centuries large cities that featured a reliable public water supply and state-of-the-art public health conditions.

In other civilizations, however, residents simply abandoned cities when they could no longer rely on their environment to supply the resources they needed. Often this was a direct result of their own activities: for example, deforestation and the attendant erosion of fertile soil, epidemics due to contaminated water and, with the advent of coal-fired industrialization, air pollution.

Urban planning got its start as a profession largely dedicated to averting different types of crises arising from urban growth and providing conditions for public health. This was particularly true in the many 19th century European and North American cities transformed by industrialization and unprecedented rates of population growth. Rapidly deteriorating air and water quality made it necessary to introduce regulations to protect the health of the residents of these cities.

The planners' first-generation improvements included sewers, water treatment and distribution, and improved air quality through building codes and increased urban green space. It's especially remarkable today to think that these interventions were adopted in response to observable health consequences, but without knowledge of the contamination mechanisms at work: germ theory didn't arrive on the scene until Louis Pasteur published his work in the 1860s. From the late 19th century onward Pasteur's findings bolstered the case for even more urban sanitation improvements, particularly those designed to improve water quality.

Starting in the 1950s, however, planners no longer narrowly targeted immediate health effects on urban residents as their chief environmental concern. Their work also absorbed and reflected Western society's deeper understanding of, and respect for, natural processes and growing awareness of the long-term environmental impacts of cities from the local to the planetary scale.

Rachel Carson is often credited as the first to popularize environmentalism. Published in 1962, her landmark book Silent Spring sounded a warning call about how pesticides endanger birds and entire ecological systems. Soon after, air pollution became a rallying point for environmentalists, as did the loss of large tracks of rural and natural land to accelerated, sprawling development. Today, sustainable development and smart growth, which largely overlap and address multiple environmental considerations, enjoy wide currency; most urban planning is now based on these principles.

Today, as we reckon with population growth, advancing rates of urbanization, and widespread recognition of climate change, we know that the cities of the future share a common destiny. The choices we make about how we build, inhabit and maintain these cities will have global and long-term effects.

Sustainable development: Two schools of thought

In modern urban planning, there are two general categories of sustainable development. The first doesn't challenge the present dynamics of the city, allowing them to remain largely low-density and automobile-oriented, but still makes them the object of measures aimed to reduce their environmental load (for example, green construction practices). Ian McHarg spearheaded this approach as a way to develop urban areas in harmony with natural systems; the planning principles he formulated gave special care to the preservation of water and green space. His lasting influence is visible in many of the more enlightened suburban developments of recent decades which respect the integrity of natural systems. Today, the Landscape Urbanism movement promotes these same ideas.

A second school of urban development focuses on increasing urban density and reducing reliance on the automobile. This approach advocates transit-oriented and mixed-use development along pedestrian-friendly "complete streets." On a regional scale, it aims to reduce sprawl by creating a network of higher-density multifunctional centers interconnected by public transit. Today, it's common for plans with a metropolitan scope to follow this approach.

Studying the city: About these materials

Cities are arguably the most complex human creation (with the possible exception of language) so it's not surprising that we study them at multiple scales and from diverse perspectives. We can approach cities through a narrow focus on an individual building or a neighborhood, expand the investigation to consider a metropolitan region in its entirety, or study the global system of cities and its interconnections. What's more, we can think about cities as built environments, social networks, modified ecologies, economic systems and political entities. Aware of the multiple ways that we engage with cities, the Romans had two words to refer to them: urbs referred to the physical city with its wall and buildings, and civitas , the city as a collection of residents.

Ecofying Cities explores urban areas at different scales. In some cases, the TED speaker focuses on a neighborhood project, like The High Line in Manhattan; others describe city-wide transformation, as in Curitiba, Brazil, or a regional or national initiative like China's plan for a network of eco-cities to house its growing urban population. Likewise, the talks explore cities from different disciplinary perspectives including urban planning, urban design, transportation planning, architecture, community organization and environmental science. What unites them all? A commitment to sustainability and a belief that sustainability is more about creating positive effects rather than reducing negative impacts.

The message emanating from Ecofying Cities is one of complexity, optimism and uncertainty. We can't be sure that the changes these speakers suggest will be enough to help us balance supply and demand in the sustainability equation. But we can expect that their ideas and efforts will improve the built environment — as well as quality of life — in cities, thereby providing hopeful perspectives for a sustainable future.

Let´s begin with writer and futurist Alex Steffen´s TEDTalk "The Sharable Future of Cities" for a look at the interplay between increasing urban density and energy consumption.

Alex Steffen

The shareable future of cities, relevant talks.

Ellen Dunham-Jones

Retrofitting suburbia.

Jaime Lerner

A song of the city.

James Howard Kunstler

The ghastly tragedy of the suburbs.

Majora Carter

Greening the ghetto.

Michael Pawlyn

Using nature's genius in architecture.

Robert Hammond

Building a park in the sky.

William McDonough

Cradle to cradle design.

EssayEmpire

New urbanism essay.

This New Urbanism Essay example is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic, please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.

New urbanism , a movement in architecture and planning, grew out of a belief that postwar suburban sprawl in the United States would not be able to sustain growth without adversely affecting the environment. It was a response to urban development accompanied by environmental degradation, a declining public realm, and the rise of edge cities. The principles of new urbanism were delineated by a group of architects, planners, developers, scholars, and elected officials between 1993 and 1996 and defined by the Congress of New Urbanism (CNU) Charter, which summarizes each of the 27 new urbanist design principles. These design principles are organized into three main categories that guide development at various scales: The region (metropolis, city, and town); neighborhood, district, and corridor; and block, street, and building.

The key idea behind new urbanist design principles is to promote organized development in the form of neighborhoods that are diverse, compact, mixed use, pedestrian-friendly, and transit-oriented. The neighborhood is a crucial building block within which there are different housing types, shops, services, and civic spaces and amenities. Buildings are lowto mid-rise and high densities create a compact urban form suited to pedestrians. This helps to reduce auto dependence and promote the use of alternative forms of transportation. Civic institutions and parks occupy prominent sites. In dense urban areas, the neighborhood center is usually the commercial corridor and residential areas are arranged in semicircular patterns radiating from the center. Such patterns are often modeled on traditional U.S. villages, towns, and cities, some of which were built before World War II, including historic sections of Annapolis, Maryland, and Savannah, Georgia. The principles also emphasize that it is essential for new developments to take into consideration the local history, culture, geography, and climate of a place so as to create a distinct architectural style that is unique to the place.

Many cities and counties in the United States are beginning to incorporate new urbanist design principles not only in new suburban developments but also in urban infill developments and urban transitoriented developments. New urbanist design principles also resonate with environmental protection, sustainable development, historic preservation, smart growth, and pedestrian and bicycle planning programs. In the field of housing, new urbanism got a major boost when Henry Cisneros, former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), signed the CNU Charter in May 1996. Cisneros also initiated the Homeownership Zone program, which offered grants and loans to cities for redevelopment based on new urbanism. Principles of new urbanism have also been adopted in Hope VI, a HUD program that uses public and private development resources to replace distressed public housing with new mixed-income housing.

New urbanism may help minimize land consumption through increased density. Moreover, the emphasis on environmentally sensitive building techniques and on transit-oriented development may conserve energy. New urbanists point out that the combined effect of the two most important characteristics of new urbanist projects-pedestrian-oriented design and infill development-could have an ecological footprint that is almost 20-30 percent less than that of conventional suburban developments. Although such claims have yet to be proven by empirical research, studies have found new urbanist projects to protect and restore ecologically sensitive areas and reduce impervious surfaces, which have helped improve watershed protection.

Although the principles of new urbanism recognize that physical planning means going beyond just interesting architecture and good site planning, one of its major criticisms is that it tends to rely on the long-discredited concept of “physical determinism” and discounts the importance of developing social relationships for creating a sense of community. Other criticisms relate to social equity and gentrification of inner-city neighborhoods, which displaces low-income and minority households. For instance, critics note that celebrated new urbanist projects such as Seaside, Florida, have become gentrified, high-priced resorts for the rich. New urbanist projects also face opposition in the form of NIMBYism as high-density and mixed-use developments are contested by neighboring communities.

Bibliography:

• Peter Calthorpe, The Next American Metropolis: Ecology, Community, and the American Dream (Princeton Architectural Press, 1993);
• Congress for the New Urbanism, Charter of the New Urbanism (McGraw-Hill, 2000);
• Andres Duany, Elizabeth PlaterZyberk, and Jeff Speck, Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream (North Point Press, 2000);
• Ajay Garde, “New Urbanism as Sustainable Growth? A Supply Side Story and Its Implications for Public Policy,” Journal of Planning Education and Research (v.24, 2004);
• Peter Katz, The New Urbanism: Toward an Architecture of Community (McGrawHill, 1994).
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U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District Of New Jersey, Justice Department and Department of Housing and Urban Development Secure over $15 Million from OceanFirst Bank to Resolve Redlining Claims in New Jersey

NEWARK, N.J. – The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, and Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced today that OceanFirst Bank, N.A. has agreed to pay over $15 million to resolve allegations that it engaged in a pattern or practice of lending discrimination by redlining predominantly Black, Hispanic and Asian neighborhoods in Middlesex, Monmouth and Ocean Counties in New Jersey. Redlining is an illegal practice in which lenders avoid providing credit services to individuals living in communities of color because of the race, color or national origin of residents in those communities.

In October 2021, Attorney General Garland and Assistant Attorney General Clarke launched the Justice Department’s  Combating Redlining Initiative , a coordinated enforcement effort to address this persistent form of discrimination against communities of color. The initiative is expanding the department’s reach by strengthening partnerships with U.S. Attorneys’ Offices around the country, regulatory partners, and its partners in state Attorneys General offices. Since 2021, the department has announced 13 redlining resolutions and secured over $137 million in relief for communities of color that have been the victims of lending discrimination across the country.

“This settlement, and the over $137 million in relief the Justice Department has secured for communities across the country, will help to ensure that future generations of Americans inherit a legacy of home ownership that they have been too often denied,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “Redlining is unlawful, it is harmful, and it is wrong. The Justice Department will continue to hold banks and mortgage companies accountable for redlining and to secure relief for the communities that continue to be harmed by these discriminatory practices.”

“Redlining creates an unequal playing field that unfairly prevents many persons of color from achieving the American dream of home ownership, and this type of systemic and intentional discrimination cannot and will not be tolerated. It is wholly unacceptable that redlining persists into the 21 st  Century, and we are committed to ensuring that all of our citizens have the chance to put down roots in their own home as this helps build stronger communities for all of us. This agreement is a major step forward in removing illegal and discriminatory barriers in residential mortgage lending in New Jersey.”

“Far too often, communities of color have been denied equal access to credit and the opportunity to build generational wealth,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said. “Through our historic efforts to combat modern day redlining, we have opened up new homeownership opportunities for impacted families and communities. This agreement underscores the Justice Department’s commitment to holding banks and financial institutions accountable for their discriminatory actions while ensuring racial and economic justice for all Americans.”

“Redlining is not only illegal, but it unfairly closes doors of economic opportunity for thousands of families of color in this country,” said HUD Acting Secretary Adrianne Todman. “Together with our partners at the Justice Department, HUD remains committed to enforcing the Fair Housing Act by rooting out all forms of discrimination in housing. Today’s announcement underscores our shared commitment to achieving justice and creating equitable opportunities for Americans, particularly those who have historically been denied access.”

The Justice Department’s complaint, which was filed today in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, alleges that, from 2018 through at least 2022, OceanFirst Bank failed to provide mortgage lending services to predominantly Black, Hispanic, and Asian neighborhoods in Middlesex, Monmouth, and Ocean Counties and discouraged people seeking credit in those communities from obtaining home loans. Specifically, the complaint alleges that OceanFirst disproportionately focused its outreach and advertising on majority-white communities, placed its branches in majority-white neighborhoods, and closed its only branches in the majority-Black, Hispanic, and Asian neighborhoods in those counties.

The Justice Department has resolved its claims via a proposed consent order, which is subject to court approval. Additionally, OceanFirst and HUD have entered into a conciliation agreement with equivalent terms. In those resolutions, OceanFirst has agreed to do the following:

• Invest at least $14 million in a loan subsidy fund to increase access to home mortgage, home improvement, and home refinance loans for residents of majority-Black, Hispanic, and Asian neighborhoods in Middlesex, Monmouth, and Ocean Counties;
• Spend $400,000 on community partnerships to provide services related to credit, consumer financial education, homeownership, and foreclosure prevention for residents of predominantly Black, Hispanic, and Asian neighborhoods in those counties;
• Spend $700,000 on advertising, outreach, consumer financial education, and credit counseling focused on predominantly Black, Hispanic, and Asian neighborhoods in those counties;
• Open a loan production office and maintain the bank’s recently opened full-service branch, both located in predominantly Black, Hispanic, and Asian neighborhoods in those counties, with at least one mortgage loan officer assigned to each location;
• Conduct a community credit needs assessment, evaluate its fair lending compliance management systems, and conduct staff trainings on fair lending; and
• Hire a director of community lending who will oversee the continued development of home mortgage lending in communities of color.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division opened their investigation into OceanFirst’s lending practices after receiving a referral from the bank’s regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). OceanFirst cooperated with this investigation and worked with the Department of Justice and HUD to resolve the redlining allegations.

Information about the Justice Department’s fair lending enforcement work can be found at  www.justice.gov/fairhousing . Individuals may report lending discrimination by calling the U.S. Justice Department’s housing discrimination tip line at 1-833-591-0291 or submitting a report online . Information about the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s civil rights enforcement may be found at www.justice.gov/usao-nj/civil-rights-enforcement . Individuals in the District of New Jersey may also report civil rights violations here or by calling the U.S. Attorney’s Civil Rights Hotline at (855) 281-3339.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Susan Millenky of the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Civil Rights Division and Trial Attorney Nathan Shulock, U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Housing and Civil Enforcement Section.

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New York City hosts inaugural 'Urban Rat Summit' in hopes to combat rodent problem: 'Quality of life issue'

According to pest control company mmpc, there are an estimated 3 million rats in new york city.

NYC Mayor Adams addresses 'Mickey and his crew' at inaugural Urban Rat Summit: 'Public enemy number one'

The very first Urban Rat Summit kicked off on Wednesday in Manhattan, where Mayor Eric Adams declared a "war on rats."

New York City kicked off the very first Urban Rat Summit on Wednesday with Mayor Eric Adams declaring "War on Rats" while giving opening remarks for the event. The two-day event is being held at Pier 57 in Manhattan, with officials and scientists from cities across the U.S. and Canada present. "Wow, I didn't realize we were going to get so many people showing up to talk about rats," said Mayor Eric Adams during his opening remarks. STAFFER FOR NYC MAYOR FIRED AMID EXTORTION REPORTS AFTER NYPD COMMISSIONER RESIGNS There are an estimated three million rats in New York City, according to pest control company MMPC. The National Park Service reports that rats can also carry the pathogens hantavirus, leptospirosis, rat bite fever, and salmonellosis to human populations. "I’m excited to welcome my fellow generals in the ‘War on Rats’ to our great city for the inaugural National Urban Rat Summit," said Mayor Adams in a press release. "We’re looking forward to sharing new strategies and best practices for rat mitigation and reduction over the course of the summit." New York City Mayor Eric Adams has made mitigating rats a priority during his administration, appointing Citywide Director of Rodent Mitigation Kathleen Corradi in April 2023. Adams also established a fourth "Rat Mitigation Zone" in Harlem last year.

Mayor Eric Adams flanked by City Commissioners is pictured during his week off topic press conference at City Hall Blue Room, Tuesday November 21, 2023. During the press conference Adams discussed recent budget cuts, the migrants crisis and recent raids by the FBI to persons connected to his mayoral campaign.   (Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Daily News via Getty Images)

Another weapon in the "war on rats" comes from New York City Department of Sanitation (DSNY) Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who plans to containerize the 14 billion pounds of trash that the city produces annually, ending the "all-you-can-eat rat buffet." Mayor Adams calls the rodent problem in the Big Apple a "real quality of life issue." According to his opening remarks on Wednesday, he has been in talks with city leaders around the world who face similar concerns. RESIDENTS AND LAWMAKERS NEAR THE BRONX'S 'OPEN-AIR DRUG MARKET' DEMAND IT BE SHUT DOWN: 'HELL ON EARTH' "I was speaking to the mayor of Paris where, you know, they just use their sewage system and just, you know, put the garbage down there," said Adams. "So there are different methodologies to address a real quality of life issue." Adams also offered anecdotes of residents sharing horror stories with rats in their homes and around their families.

Rats are seen in a street of New York, United States on October 19, 2022. New government statistics show that there have been 71% more reports of rat sightings in the city overall since this time in 2020. There were almost 21,000 reports by the end of September. (Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

"I remember as board president, a group of mothers came to me showing me photos of rats that would get into the cribs of their babies and eat the food on their faces," recalled Adams. "So it impacts the health and it also impacts our mental stability." "And you could only imagine, you know, lifting of your toilet seat in the morning and seeing a rodent come out or your garbage bag. You take the garbage, you put it outside and you see a rat run across your feet. You think about that all day," said Adams. The Urban Rat Summit continues on Thursday, with programming focusing on "a framework for urban rat mitigation challenges, encompassing parks, sewers, construction sites, public housing, yards and alleys, and trash containerization," according to a press release from City Hall. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP   "Thank you for being here. Let's be energetic. Let's share our ideas. Let's figure out how we unify against what I consider to be public enemy number one, Mickey and his crew," concluded Adams.

Jasmine is a writer at Fox News Digital and a military spouse based in New Orleans. Stories can be sent to [email protected]

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Transcript: Mayor Adams Delivers Opening Remarks at National Urban Rat Summit

September 18, 2024

Kathleen Corradi, Citywide Director of Rodent Mitigation: All right, so welcome once again to the National Urban Rat Summit hosted in New York City. My name's Kathy Corradi, citywide director of Rodent Mitigation. And I am delighted to start our summit with a welcome from the 110th mayor of New York City, a big advocate in this work, Mayor Eric Adams. Good morning, mayor. Welcome.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Wow, I didn't realize we were going to get so many people showing up to talk about rats. But we sometimes make light of the conversation as part of various ways we let go of the stress. But our director of Rodent Mitigation, Kathy, really understood how important this issue is. 

If you just think about it, those who are used to any form of pests, my family, we had a farm in Alabama. So we always had something scurrying around. But rats impact the quality of life more than we realize. As a police officer in this city, I remember we used to tell people the tips of not going out at night, be careful what you do, and public safety tips. 

As I move throughout the city and hear families talk about how they alter their behavior, how they refuse to go out during the dark, how traumatizing it is, and you could only imagine lifting up your toilet seat in the morning and seeing a rodent come out. Or your garbage bag, you take the garbage and put it outside, and you see a rat run across your feet. You think about that all day. You will never walk again near that garbage pail without thinking about it. And you will never even want to go into your restroom. You'll never feel comfortable again in that bathroom or in your kitchen. 

There are stories I hear from residents who talk about there are parts of their house that they won't enter. They won't go inside. And it's just so traumatizing of that experience. And that's why we became extremely serious about rodent mitigation. Because it was not just this passing conversation. People used to come to us shaking, and tears in their eyes. Their homes were being hijacked, that they no longer could enjoy the quality of life that they deserve. And I'm just a real believer that if you have one space that you should feel extremely comfortable in, that's your home. 

And that's what this is about, the cross-pollination of ideas from across the country to state. How do we deal with a problem that has always been here? Rodents have always been here from the beginning of times. I don't know if it's the Pied Piper or all the stories we heard. But how do we really have a real approach of using scientific methods, using what you're doing in your cities or across the entire country, if not the globe? I was speaking to the mayor of Paris where they just use their sewer system and just put the garbage down there. 

So there are different methodologies to address a real quality of life issue. And that is what our director has been doing. We call her the rat czar because of the work that she has been doing. And combining with our Department of Sanitation, where we realized from our analysis that one of the major problems is the all-you-can-eat buffets that we have in our plastic bags. When I go to European cities and we say we have plastic bags, they say, plastic bags? You have plastic bags on your streets? Everyone is containerizing their garbage. And we're seeing a decrease in rat sightings because of the containerization of garbage. And I don't know who was the character that made up these mint plastic bags. Those rats laugh at those mint plastic bags. 

So that's what this is about. And that's what our pursuit is. And I see we have Dr. Vasan here, our commissioner of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, because it impacts both. It impacts the health, the diseases, less carry. I remember as borough president, a group of mothers came to me showing me photos of rats that would get into the cribs of their babies and eat the food on their faces. So it impacts the health. And it also impacts our mental stability. 

I don't think there's been a mayor in history that says how much he hates rats. I dislike rats. And I am so happy I have a four-star general who is working on finally winning the war on rats. We will make an impact. And if we do so, we're going to improve the health and the mental stability of everyday people in this city. 

Thank you for being here. Let's be energetic. Let's share our ideas. Let's figure out how we unify against what I consider to be public enemy number one, Mickey and his crew. Thank you so much. 

Corradi: Thank you, Mayor Adams. We are certainly in a unique position to have a mayor so committed to this goal. So again, I want to welcome everyone to the inaugural National Urban Rat Summit. I'm honored and humbled to stand in front of this remarkable group and open up two full days of content and collaboration. 

Under Mayor Adams, New York City has a clear mission, build a safer, more affordable city with better, cleaner public spaces for all. And that's exactly what we're doing here. We're here standing on the shoulders of giants, many of whom are in this room now, taking a bold step forward in advancing the understanding of municipal rat management with a collective commitment to lead with science and put research into action. 

We are on the precipice of a remarkable period in the world of urban rats, a period where political, scientific, public health, municipal, and public interests are activated and aligned, a period where the research that highlights the complexity of urban rat management is considered in municipal solutions and scale is viewed as an asset, not an afterthought, a period where fascination and fear will be cultivated into empowerment and action. 

These next 48 hours are part of a much larger dialogue, a centuries-long conversation between humans, their urban spaces, and the rats who have eagerly exploited them both. It is through understanding this history that we can join confidently in community to look forward to a new paradigm in urban rat management, a future where all, academics and advocates, cities and citizens, are working in partnership to achieve our common goal. 

I want to thank all of you for taking the time to come together with us and move this field forward. Now I have the distinct honor of welcoming the commissioner of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Dr. Vasan. Thank you.

Commissioner Ashwin Vasan, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene: Hello, everyone. Good day. I'm Ashwin Vasan. I'm the New York City Health commissioner. It's great to be here today. 

I can't say this was my dream when I went to medical school to think about rats, but it has become a real passion for my team, for my department. And we're so glad to be working with all of our city agencies on this today. It's an opportunity to celebrate this work and to learn. And it's work that is deeply core to public health. 

Since the 14th century, when fleas traveling on rats were linked to the Black Death, rat control, the control of rats, has been inextricably linked to the control of infectious diseases and, of course, to public health. Thankfully, those days are long behind us, although lots of work on zoonoses these days. But rat control is no less important, not just to disease prevention. It's also about a sense of freedom, freedom from stress, from fear, and from the feeling that the place you live is in some state of disrepair or disregard. 

Yes, this work is core to public health and it's core to public policy here in New York City and throughout our rapidly urbanizing world. By 2050, it's estimated that 70 percent of the world's population will live in cities. In the industrialized world, that could reach up to 90 percent. So the way in which we control rat populations, especially in older cities with aging infrastructure, will continue to be important to public policy, frankly, to global public policy, to global public health. 

Not because rats, day on day, represent a clear and present danger to human health, although the mayor is correct, the sense of safety and mental health and stress is real. But also because failure to manage the problem contributes to a sense of unease at an already uneasy time. It contributes to a sense of mistrust at an already historically mistrustful time and divided time. And controlling our rat population builds confidence, confidence in our leadership, confidence in our institutions, confidence in each other that our city, our cities, our country, our nation, and our world is headed in the right direction, whatever the turmoil that might appear. 

That's why I'm so grateful for this work, especially that of my colleagues in the New York City Health Department. No shade on anyone else, the best health department in the world, sorry, guys, who bring scientific rigor and stubborn commitment to our efforts to end the reign of rats in our city. 

Pest control is also a core issue of health equity. The burden of rat infestation in New York City neighborhoods is not equally distributed. That's why we work hard to target our efforts to where they're most needed. And often, that means in communities that have been historically neglected or disinvested in. Those targeted efforts are rooted in data and in evidence to help us determine what our priorities are and the most effective methods to stop rats and to interrupt their life cycle. 

We've invested in a comprehensive integrated pest management strategy that emphasizes inspections, monitoring, and removal of the conditions, including trash, that rats need in order to survive in New York City. This holistic strategy includes rat indexing, a process that allows us to identify and address all of the properties in a particular neighborhood with high rat activity and to ameliorate those conditions together, simultaneously. 

Engaging the public via our rat information portal, featuring current rat inspection results and follow-up actions. Targeting rat mitigation zones. These are areas with extremely high burden of rat activity, where we focus on coordinated multi-agency effort to address rats and, of course, the conditions in which they thrive. And perhaps our most important strategy of all, robust community engagement. That involves everyday New Yorkers. That empowers everyday New Yorkers with best practices for controlling rats in and around the places they live. 

Our health department's nationally acclaimed Rat Academy provides free training for community members in how to keep rats out of their homes, businesses, and neighborhoods. This year alone, we've had about 800 participants. And since it started in 2019, we've had 6,000 New Yorkers participate in our training and to take that back to their communities to make a difference. 

Of course, the challenge is enormous. As my scientists always say, I see Bobby there, we will never get rid of rats altogether, particularly in a city as old with infrastructure like New York. It's not about eliminating rats to zero, as much as that's a laudable goal. It just doesn't work with the kind of aging infrastructure, sewer systems, and environment density of living that we have in a place like New York City. But we can keep them out of our everyday lives. And people from all walks of life coming together to make sure they live in a city that's cleaner, safer, and more livable is part, the core pillar of that strategy. Their commitment and hard work make all the difference for fellow New Yorkers. 

But this is not a problem, of course, that will be solved overnight. So the more that we collect research and best practices, the more that we share those findings with each other. And I'm so glad to be here today, because we get to not only share our work, but to learn from all of you, the better we'll all be as we tackle this interesting intersection of public health, safety, well-being, and frankly, just community standards. How do we want to live? What kind of cities and what kind of places do we want to live in? And what are we willing to do about it? 

I want to thank you all for coming all this way to New York City. We're eager to learn from you. We're eager to share our work. And mostly, we're eager to put rat control on the agenda, on the municipal agenda, which is truly the national and global agenda. So thank you so much. I'm looking forward to a debrief on the whole day. Unfortunately, I can't be with you. But really exciting. And thank you to Kathy for your leadership.

Corradi: Thank you, Dr. Vasan. Our Health Department is peerless in many ways. And we're grateful for your leadership. I want to now invite up Dr. Matt Frye from New York State Integrated Pest Management Program at Cornell. Not only is he a leader in this field, but he was part of the conference committee who helped this come to action. So thank you, Matt. 

Matt Frye, New York State Integrated Pest Management: Thank you, Kathy and good morning, everyone. I'm really excited to be here today with all of you. This is a wonderful opportunity for us to be together and discuss a topic that is near and dear to so many of us that we rarely get the opportunity to spend two full days discussing rats. 

So at the New York State IPM program, as part of Cornell University, we're really appreciative of the efforts of the mayor's office and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene for their continued efforts to address rat issues and for their collaboration on this project. 

So for my comments today, in terms of an introduction, I wanted to say that this is awesome, right? Getting all of these people together in the same room, we have the preeminent scientists that are studying urban rats throughout the country and the world. We have municipalities from primarily the states, but all over the world as well, bringing their expertise. And representatives from state and federal agency. And we're all here to talk about rats. So we're very happy that everyone is here. 

The only thing that I wanted to do is just sort of summarize what we'll be hearing about today and put into context the topics. Because we're going to start from the beginning and talk about how we got to this problem. What is the issue with rats? Why do we deal with rats in cities? What are the problems that extend beyond just gnawing damage and resident complaints extending into public health issues? 

We'll take a look at why the war on rats mentality may not be the best approach for our urban areas, and how we can use science to inform and implement better management strategies. So with that brief introduction, I want to welcome you all. I hope that everybody takes the opportunity to engage, to learn, and to participate, and just have a blast the next couple of days. So thank you so much.

Corradi: Thank you, Matt. Again, thanks everyone for being here. That's the end of our opening remarks.

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Your guide to a unifying urban theory

Transect Urbanism: Readings in Human Ecology,  describes itself as “The definitive reference on the Rural-to-Urban Transect.” Edited by Andres Duany and Brian Falk, the book fills a gap in the planning literature. The Rural-to-Urban Transect—which I will refer to as Transect with a capital T—is one of the most influential planning theories in recent decades. 

Prior to this, no books have been devoted entirely to the Transect—although many have touched upon it (I included a section in  New Urbanism: Best Practices Guide ). Published by Oro Editions and the Center for Applied Transect Studies,  Transect Urbanism  comprises eight new essays, 100 pages of images—many fascinating and some amusing—by artists and designers, and six of the best previously published academic articles on the topic. An excellent two-part introduction by Duany—an architect and planner with DPZ CoDESIGN—is worth the price of the book.

“ The Transect is a unifying theory, which serves as a framework for the various disparate fields affecting urban design,”  Transect Urbanism  explains. The Transect is an organizing principle for hundreds of new urban zoning codes, adopted in recent years, that are  raising the level  of urban design and the public realm in many cities.  

Transect Urbanism  tells the story of how this idea came together as a practical theory. Douglas Duany, brother to Andres, demonstrated the idea of ecological transects to Duany in 1980, as the pair walked a straight line up the beach and over dunes in Seaside, Florida. Later they crossed a section of Miami on foot, while Douglas explained how a city could be analyzed in a similar way. Andres realized the Transect could be used to design urban places. He employed it in planning starting in the late 1980s, and the idea grew into an organizing theory. 

In the mid-1990s, a “eureka” moment came as Duany used the Transect to organize  The Lexicon of the New Urbanism ,  a DPZ document defining the key elements of walkable urbanism. That exercise highlighted the Transect’s power for classification of the built environment. Duany  first presented The Transect  to CNU V Toronto in 1997, and it was fully incorporated into a code in 1999 in Onondaga County, New York. Other new urban firms immediately picked up on it.

Transect Urbanism  gives credit to many people who have contributed to this theory, some of whom lived a long time ago, like biologist Patrick Geddes and planner Benton MacKaye—both drew versions of landscape transects. Art from many cultures depicts rural-to-urban transects, and the idea is imbedded in traditional cities. Not merely a design concept, The Transect is more like a tool that has always been there, used informally by humanity. Duany describes the Transect as “natural law,” and this book makes the case for that description. Duany writes:

It is time now with this book to explain the universality of this taxonomic engine; to showcase the many firms and colleagues who work with the Transect technology; and most important to show that there were predecessors and simultaneous discoveries— that it wasn’t the concoction of DPZ. And if no explicit precedent, it was innate in the work of Krier, Unwin, Schinkel, Vitruvius, and others, as shown by their illustrations. To this may be added the photographic evidence of the existence of the Transect in the structure of cities—even unplanned cities. It seems that the Transect is confirmed as an instance of immanence as a natural law. 

The SmartCode  incorporated this tool into modern zoning, and through similar form-based codes the Transect has become fundamental to urbanism practice. The Transect is a theory that can compete with sprawl, Duany explains.

Sprawl has persisted, despite its many failures, due to its bureaucratic advantages, he says. The underlying theory for sprawl was “promoted since the 1930s by Le Corbusier and his fellow polemicists of CIAM.” Since sprawl development became dominant, an alternative theory for urban form has been lacking, Duany says. Ian McHarg came up with an environmentally oriented planning hypothesis in his 1969 book  Design With Nature . That book had a big influence, but McHarg offers no proposition for the human habitat, Duany says—in practice,  Design With Nature  creates a more environmentally conscious sprawl. “What remains to be done is to extend the environmental protocol of McHarg into the city. This can be accomplished by deploying the Rural-to-Urban Transect.” The Transect connects nature to the most intense human places along a continuous gradient—hence the subtitle,  Readings in Human Ecology .

Duany believes that the Transect will overtake the theories that produce sprawl, because urbanism  performs better . 

The current dominant theory does not process authentic urbanism. An alternative, based on the Transect, would. The Transect should be neither imposed nor protected, but confirmed through empirical success. With time and the contributions of many representatives of the specialties, it could become as comprehensive as the current standard, as convenient to implement, and it would result in better places to live. 

The Transect makes the case for applying different environmental standards relative to the intensity of urban places.

For every environmental condition (and every element of the built environment), there should be at least six standards generated. To take the preservation of wetlands as an example: For the set-back from a river running through T-1 (natural lands), a mile or two is a reasonable expectation. When the river comes into T-3 (sub-urban), however, it becomes a “riparian corridor” and the set-back requirement could be decreased to 50 feet of intact nature. As the river passes through a T-6 urban core, it makes no sense to keep to a standard that prevents humans the reward of access to the water as a feature that enhances the urbanism. At the most urban end of the Transect, an embankment—as in Paris, London, Chicago, Amsterdam, Rome, or Charleston—should be permitted.

Applications

Transect Urbanism explains many uses of the Transect. A diagram by architect Seth Harry correlates urban retail types to the Transect and community types. Harry writes:

The Rural-to-Urban Transect ... provides an effective tool for reintroducing traditional retail formats into a regional context. It does so by proportionally allocating land uses and transportation infrastructure in such a way that the retail uses can appropriately be distributed, in both scale and location, relative to the sources of demand for goods and services. This model is consistent with historical urban land use practices, generates a system that is optimized around locational efficiencies, and is, in effect, self-regulating.

Conventional suburbia can be slowly transformed, at least in part, through “sprawl repair.” Urban designer and author Galina Tachieva relates sprawl repair to other transformations of the built environment over time, from villages to city neighborhoods, and from walled European cities to the cities of today. Sequence images show how Transects can emerge and evolve over time. In that way, the theory can help to transform badly designed single-use sprawl into Transect zones with specific character.

An essay explaining the “Synoptic Survey” will prove useful to planners. This process is used to “calibrate” the Transect of particular communities for coding. Sandy Sorlien, an editor of the SmartCode, boils down the steps involved in observing and sampling the Transect locally. This highly technical chapter is short but pithy. Sorlien explains the  dissect  and the  quadrat,  techniques borrowed from ecological analysis. “These techniques have been adapted by Transect planners for the human habitat in urbanized areas. The urban Synoptic Survey has three purposes: analysis, coding, and evidence.”

The Transect of Speed Limits, another Sorlien essay, is a lighter read. It describes Sorlien’s observation of the Transect imbedded in historic towns across America as she took photographs for a book. She first learned of the theory in a presentation in 2000: 

This Transect had an elegant new six-zone model, but it wasn’t a new phenomenon. I recognized it from my travels.

When I left my big city’s orbit, the Transect was more evident than it was in the metropolis, though it’s here too. Back in the 1980s and ‘90s, I’d approach small towns from the countryside, and began to notice a pattern. The speed limit signs would change predictably: first 55 mph, then 45, then as the houses appeared, 35, then as the houses got closer together and closer to the street, 25, and maybe even 20 on the main street. With a manual transmission, you couldn’t miss the downshifts. I’d explore the town on foot or bike, photograph buildings, eat in a downtown diner, then drive on out. Then the signs went up: 25, 35, then 45 where you could see open country ahead, then 55 and a rural highway again.

Twenty-plus years after the Transect was introduced, is there a planner or urban designer in America that isn’t at least somewhat familiar with the concept? If so, they are few and far between. And yet  Transect Urbanism  is essential for both novices and highly experienced planners to deepen their knowledge of this useful theory.

Note: I know, personally, most of the writers included in this book—all of whom contributed to Transect theory and its applications. Authors not mentioned in this review are Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Charles Bohl, Bruce Donnelly, Emily Talen, Daniel Slone, Sidney Brower, and Philip Bess. ​

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Greetings from WBUR's new Morning Edition host, Tiziana Dearing

• Tiziana Dearing

When I moved to Greater Boston in 1994, one of the first things I did was find my new public radio station on the dial: 90.9 FM. WBUR.

I’d first learned about public radio from the women I worked for in high school at the Battle Creek public library in Michigan. They’d talk about Carl Kasell and what they’d heard that day on something called “ Morning Edition .” It sounded very grown up, and very smart.

My senior year while house sitting, the owners left me their car. I turned on the engine one morning, and there it was – Morning Edition . I was hooked. When I moved out on my own after college, listening to Morning Edition in Chicago and then Boston, was, to me, a hallmark of becoming an adult. I’ve been listening ever since.

Now, I can’t quite believe I’m the show’s new host on WBUR, joining you at what we like to think of as our shared kitchen table. Whether you’re just getting up, heading home from a night shift, or grabbing a few minutes of news in the middle of 12 other things at the start of your day, thank you for letting me, and us, be a part of your morning.

You might know me most recently as the host of Radio Boston , but I’ve lived in and loved the Boston region for thirty years. Throughout those three decades, I’ve worked in nonprofits and businesses. I’ve taught at a university, and run a foundation. I’ve studied here, built a family here, prayed and struggled here, and I have lived through the highs and lows that make us who we are in this place we all call home.

I love this community. And I believe we are stronger when we understand each other and the world around us.

So here is my, and our, commitment to you. We’ll be that Morning Edition that’s kept so many of us listening since we were teens — whether that was five years ago or 50. Every day, the WBUR Morning Edition team will get up early and work hard to bring you what you need to know from around the corner and around the world. We’ll bring you stories of comfort when you need them, and concern when it’s warranted. Stories that will make you laugh, and some that might make you cry; stories that will tell you something new, or explain something you wanted to understand. And we will do that with facts, and without favor, through the excellent reporting of WBUR and NPR.

On this first day as your new Morning Edition host, I am so happy to say this:

Good Morning, Greater Boston. I’m Tiziana Dearing. Thank you for inviting me to be part of your day.

• WBUR names Tiziana Dearing new 'Morning Edition' host

Tiziana Dearing Host, Morning Edition Tiziana Dearing is the host of WBUR's Morning Edition.

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Guest Essay

Gen Z Has Regrets

By Jonathan Haidt and Will Johnson

Dr. Haidt is a social psychologist at New York University’s Stern School of Business; Mr. Johnson is the chief executive of the Harris Poll.

This article has been updated to reflect news developments.

Was social media a good invention? One way to quantify the value of a product is to find out how many of the people who use it wish it had never been invented. Feelings of regret or resentment are common with addictive products (cigarettes, for example) and addictive activities like gambling, even if most users say they enjoy them.

For nonaddictive products — hairbrushes, say, or bicycles, walkie-talkies or ketchup — it’s rare to find people who use the product every day yet wish it could be banished from the world. For most products, those who don’t like the product can simply … not use it.

What about social media platforms? They achieved global market penetration faster than almost any product in history. The category took hold in the early aughts with Friendster, MySpace and the one that rose to dominance: Facebook. By 2020 , more than half of all humans were using some form of social media. So if this were any normal product we’d assume that people love it and are grateful to the companies that provide it to them — without charge, no less.

But it turns out that it can be hard for people who don’t like social media to avoid it, because when everyone else is on it, the abstainers begin to miss out on information, trends and gossip. This is especially painful for adolescents, whose social networks have migrated, since the early 2010s, onto a few giant platforms. Nearly all American teenagers use social media regularly, and they spend an average of nearly five hours a day just on these platforms.

So what does Gen Z really think about social media? Is it more like walkie-talkies, where hardly anyone wished they had never been invented? Or is it more like cigarettes, where smokers often say they enjoy smoking, but more than 71 percent of smokers (in one 2014 survey ) regret ever starting?

We recently collaborated on a nationally representative survey of 1,006 Gen Z adults (ages 18-27). We asked them online about their own social media use, about their views on the effects of social media on themselves and on society and about what kinds of reforms they’d support. Here’s what we found.

Daily time spent by Gen Z on social media

For 18- to 27-year-olds who use social media

4 to 6 hours

3 hours or less

7 hours or more

Source: Harris Poll/Zach Rausch

Note: Figures may not add up to 100 percent due to rounding.

What type of impact has social media had on your emotional health?

For 18- to 27-year-olds

Non-L.G.B.T.Q.

Almost half of Gen Z wishes social media platforms like X and TikTok didn’t exist

Percentage of Gen Z respondents who agree with the statement “I wish ___ had never been invented”

Smartphones

Messaging apps

The internet

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