Bottom-Up Urbanism "Principles" Within Current Urban Development Trend

The concept of New urbanism is partially founded on the ideologies set out by Jane Jacobs. In this regard Jane Jacobs’ critique of the fundamental tenets of Urban Planning were in essence an assault on the norms of the time as practiced by the orthodox urbanists. Her views alluding to the spontaneity and serendipitous nature of the transformations and evolution of the urban environment were ground breaking at the time. In the cornerstones of the New Urbanism movement, one comes across concepts such as; compactness of neighbourhoods, walkability, dense and mixed use of land. These are synonymous with Jane Jacobs’ ideas indicative of urban vitality. The concept of walkability of the of the urban environment in which the streets along with all the pertinent infrastructure such porches, tree-lined pedestrian streets, the doors and windows that open into a street to mention but a few, are in essence the basis on which the Charter of the New Urbanist Movement are founded. In this regard, one cannot fail to note the other aspects of the new urbanist’s Charter which in essence stream from this initial concept. Such aspect include the connectivity of the Urban Infrastructure. This is reminiscent of Jane Jacob’s idea of ‘foot people’ bringing the urban environment to life. Jane Jacobs believed in the active street - a street that had people walking on it throughout the day, with public characters, who policed the street by watching it and interacting with the people on it. New Urbanists continued Jane Jacobs' advocacy for 'eyes on the street' by activating the streets with doors and windows so that you not only have pedestrians on the streets, but you have people in buildings surveying the street as well. This highlights the core idea of Jane Jacob’s in which she elaborates and stresses the cruciality of mixed use in urban infrastructure (particularly the streets). The New Urbanists in this aspect respect adopted practices which were conceptualised by Jacobs. It is evident that the principles of the New Urbanist movement, particularly the mixed use and diversity within the neighbourhoods and buildings, were rooted in the fore stated. This highlights Jane Jacob’s elucidation of how mixed primary use of city infrastructure including residential, office, entertainment and so forth at the district level. This in essence is what facilitates the diversity of people in the urban environment fostered in part by the proximity of the infrastructure on which the people are dependent. In a more specific scenario, mixed housing can be regarded as a precursor to the concept of a mixed neighbourhood. In a study by Sung et al to identify the applicability of Jane Jacob’s concepts in the Seoul Korea, it was determined that the diversity of the housing types are significantly associated with walking. It was likewise found out that the proximity of commercial buildings actually encourage walking activities. Jacob’s argued that the existence of old buildings plays a significant role in encouraging ‘foot people’ over ‘car people’.

She urged that the existence of old buildings enhances the urban economy by providing suitable office space for small firms and affordable places for living, thus contributing to social diversity. The New Urbanists emphasis that more buildings within a given area encourages walkability through the abundance of more services and facilities, thereby bettering the experiences of everyday activities such as shopping entertainment and others. This results in efficient use of the resources and services, thereby creating a more convenient and more enjoyable place to live. In this regard, it was argued by Jacob’s that the lack of density forces the use of cars over walking, regardless of their travel purposes. In this regard, Jane Jacobs indicates that the density and diversity of buildings attract people. Often New Urbanism is described as having a ‘back to the future’ approach with regards to pre-modernist colonial architectural as ideal design typologies. According to publications by Michael Vanderbeek and Clara Irazabal, New Urbanism is a movement in which the mistakes of the urbanists view are repeated. This is because very often the values of the people are disregarded by the since the issues entailed therein are more often than not solved during the implementation of the chartered practices. On the course of last two decades, New Urbanism is perceived as a panacea for the resulted ‘disaster’ left by Modernists. However, New Urbanism receives harsh criticism, especially Jane Jacobs and her followers. The critique that New Urbanist Movement gets is the fact that they attempts to structure and organise the urban environment, failing to take into account the fact that they were subsequently affecting the people, thereby failing to attend to the needs of the citizens. New Urbanists failed to realise their ideologies, resulting in drop of social diversity, cultural difference, in-affordability of housing (due to popularity of New Urbanism projects) and failing to serve people needs. This is reminiscent of the aspirations of the Modernists in in their attempts to foster urban revolution that failed by causing a greater inequality, segregation, polarisation and emergence of ghetto areas, thereby causing a greater sprawl. The irony in this lies in the fact that the New Urbanists driving force is rooted in ideology that actually formed the core of the Modernists approach.

Essentially, New Urbanists and Modernists are actually basing their ideas on a pre-modernists city all the while basing their principles on the same core values. In the case of New Urbanists, it is a ‘sense of community’ that they aspire to while in the case of the Modernists, the inspiration was the supposed moral foundation. One of the real life examples or implications of the New Urbanists developments is a town called Celebration Town, the aesthetic looks of which create a 'sense of community and the history. It was designed in such a way that provokes walking and social interactions. Critics of celebration have dubbed it “a conventional suburban subdivision”, due to a lack of social diversity, affordable housing and neighbourhood-related retail. The lack of racial diversity has been attested to by Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins having observed that most African Americans appeared to be nannies of white babbies. Conclusion</p>The loops in which the movement of new urbanists reverts to the solutions entailed in the practices of the pre-modernists. It repeats modernisms and follows the path of ‘fallacy’ it is still hard to implement.