New Urbanism or sell-out?

The Charlotte region gets a lot of positive national attention for its examples of New Urban-style development: Vermillion, Fort Mill’s Baxter, Birkdale Village, Concord’s Afton Village and the municipal ordinances of places such as Davidson, Belmont, Huntersville, etc. But if you live here you’re more likely to hear from people who are either convinced New Urbanism is socialism in disguise and means we’ll all be rounded up somehow and forced to live in high-rise tenements, or they’re confused by developers who advertise typical suburban subdivisions as New Urbanism because they’ve thrown in sidewalks and front porches.


Reality is more complex. Today’s Next Big Thing article by Doug Smith about Vermillion is one example. Is it a sell-out of New Urban principles that developer Nate Bowman is building or planning nearly 250 single-family homes that will exceed 4,000 square feet and sell in the high $400,000s?


I suspect plenty of developers who’ve gotten rich with a formula of conventional suburban subdivisions will point and say, “Told you so. New Urbanism doesn’t sell.” And plenty of New Urban zealots will want to kick Bowman out of the New Urbanist club and will point out how environmentally unsound it is to build gigantic houses on single-family lots out in the suburbs.


Reality? The whole point of New Urbanism is to mix it up. No monocultures, of housing type or income. That means you want houses of different sizes at different price points. You also want apartments and townhouses, garage apartments, carriage houses. And you want stores, offices and as many other uses as you can get to co-exist comfortably with one another. A neighborhood of nothing but townhouses, even if they look just like Beacon Hill, is not New Urbanist.


Do I, personally, think most people need 4,000-square-foot houses? No way. I, personally, think that unless you have five or six kids, you’re wasting materials and energy and you should be ashamed of yourself for being that profligate. (Hypocrisy disclosure: If I won the lottery there is a reasonable chance I'd get a mansion-esque place. Biltmore maybe? Or maybe not. I don't like dealing with window treatments.)


Although it happens that pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods are a lot more energy efficient, the underlying point of New Urbanism is neighborhood design, not energy-efficiency or having to meet all of my particular pet peeves – or yours, or anyone’s.


The new phase of Vermillion will also include more townhomes and three-level dwellings, and Bowman is planning to add more retail. It’s within walking distance of a planned transit stop and the core of old, downtown Huntersville. Sounds to me as if it passes the test.


And as to whether the market wants only suburban subdivisions? Get hold of today’s newspaper and notice all the ads around Smith’s piece on pages 4D and 5D. “Introducing Southborough, a new urban village,” “New condos in Davidson’s South Main Arts District,” “Condo Flats As Cool As the Neighborhood Around them.” A lot of developers seem to believe there’s a market for urbanism, too. Here's the big Vermillion plan that ran in today's paper, but isn't online: