Accessibility of Neotraditional Neighborhoods: A Review of Design Concepts, Policies, and Recent Literature

Neotmditional Neighborhood Design (NTND) has gained increasing attention from professional, academic, and popular circles during the past ten years. This review establishes a baseline evaluation of NTND, with the goal of providing the background for more specific research in the future. The first section of the paper orients NTND in a historical context, reviewing the main subdivision design trends of the past century and how NTND has either diverged or borrowed from them. The second section of the paper focuses on a review of current issues and policie,~; related to this planning trend, with special attention directed toward transportation and land use research and the effect of neotraditional design on accessibility of the transportation system. The paper concludes by offering an assessment of the potential of NTND to address growth-related problems in suburban areas and by identifying key unmet research needs. INTRODUCTION The neotradifional design movement was largely originated by two urban designers, Peter Calthorpe and Andres Duany. Although their approaches are often described with different language, "Transit-Oriented Development" and "Neotraditional Neighborhood Design" respectively, the content of the underlying concepts is very similar. This concept can be generalized as an attempt to reorient subdivision development oward patterns reminiscent of the United States’ pre-World War II traditional communities. These patterns are based on mixed land uses, a highly interconnected street network (often in the form of a gridiron), and street design that accommodates the pedestrian and bicyclist as equally well as the automobile. Neotr,,~ditionalist are generally concerned with issues like the degraded quality of life in the suburbs, a lack of conveniently assembled land uses and the domination of automobile travel. The following literature review is divided into three parts. Part One places Neotr;~ditional Neighborhood Design into an historical context. This type of approach provides the reader with an understanding of past subdivision design trends, thereby establishing some basis for dealing with current neotraditional design theories. Part One will attempt to accomplish three goals: firstly, identify the predominate trends in subdivision design over the past century; secondly, identify the social, political, or technical concerns these concepts were attempting to address; and thirdly, discuss how each design trend relates to Neotradifional Neighborhood Design. This background should describe where neotraditional design concepts sit within a broad historical context, and ideally enhance our ability to evaluate and criticize. It is important to note that exploring the evolution of land use practices and design in this manner is a crucial and often overlooked preparation for the thorough assessment of transportation related issues. Part One, therefore, prepares the reader for Part Two, which offers a review of the transpor*,ation and planning issues related to NTND that have been discussed in the existdng literature and research. The focus of this second section will be to sort out the different approaches and reactions found thus far in the professional and academic arenas, again with an emphasis on the field of transportation. In Part Three, the paper concludes by offering an assessment of the potential of NTND to address growth-related problems in suburban areas and by identifying key unmet research needs. PART 1 HISTORICAL REVIEW 1. PRINCIPLE DESIGN TRENDS OF THE PAST CENTURY The review identifies five principal trends in subdivision design and regulation. For the sake of clarity, design trends have been forced into defined periods of time. This is a somewhat artificial representation, but was necessary to evoke a sense of continuity. In actuality, many of the trends overlapped and were being practiced simultaneously. The periods identified, therefore, will refer to the time in which the trend in question first appeared or became manifest in an actual land development° Table 1 lists the dates and design trend corresponding to each period. Exemplar subdivisions will be illustrated and used as tools to expand upon the key issues of a particular concept° TABLE 1. Trends in Suburban Subdivision Design Period Design Trend 1. Pre 1928 2. 1928-1945 3. 1945-1960 4. 1960-1980 5. 1980-present Traditional Gridiron "Garden City" Build-out Planned-Unit-Development, Cluster development Neotraditional Neighborhood Design As mentioned in the introduction, each design trend has unique implications for the state of the transportation system. This discussion of the evolution of land use design is intended to reveal a broad spectrum of important issues which is often missing from the transportation professional’s general understanding and approach to problem solving.