New Urbanism: After Katrina there is the question of how best to rebuild permanent communities. The coastal areas in Gulf Coast States were poorly planned and development sprawled to high-hazard areas. Low-density developments caused by growing commercial strip and suburban-style developments expanded into rural areas. Compact urbanism is rooted in the dense pedestrian scale towns of the nineteenth century. It mixes land uses, including homes, shops, schools, offices, and public open spaces. Streets are narrow and encourage bicycling and walking in place of driving. A major benefit of New Urbanism is to maximize open space without reducing the number of dwelling units that can be built1. The goal in this case is to restrict development into safe sites, protecting sensitive ecosystems and avoiding hazardous locations such as floodplains. The main concern is however that with greater dependence on technological systems and much higher population densities, extreme events can cause more lasting harm to urban populations than their rural counterparts2.
I am not positive how relevant this will ultimately be.
Information Sources
1. Berke, Philip R., and Thomas J. Campanella. 2006. Planning for Postdisaster Resiliency. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 604, (, Shelter from the Storm: Repairing the National Emergency Management System after Hurricane Katrina) (Mar.): 192-207.
2. Colten, Craig E. 2009. Vulnerability and place: Flat land and uneven risk in new orleans. American Anthropologist 4, (6 Jan 2008), http://www3.interscience.wiley.com.proxy.lib.uwaterloo.ca/cgi-bin/fulltext/120127630/PDFSTART.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
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