With the New York Times reporting that personal bankruptcies have skyrocketed in the past few months and that many of the bankruptcies are related to people facing foreclosure in the fast growing Sunbelt states of Florida, Nevada, and California, I have been wondering about how the crisis has affected New Urbanism developments.
During the 1990s and early 2000s, New Urbanist developments were proliferating across North America–and were quite prevalent in the Sunbelt. For the uninitiated, “New Urbanism” refers generally to a design strategy that mixes land uses, utilizes a relatively high density form of development, and is built to accommodate multiple modes of mobility (public transit, walking, cycling). One of the debates amongst New Urbanist theorists and practitioners centers around whether or not these communities have contributed to the sprawling conditions they are meant to counter. If these walkable communities are isolated and are being built on the suburban fringe, aren’t they just contributing to unsustainable patterns of regional development? [As an aside, I would recommend Jill Grant's recent book, Planning the Good Community: New Urbanism in Theory and Practice, which is a great primer on the movement.]
The foreclosure crisis has given rise to a whole host of related questions on New Urbanist development. One theme, we have seen in some news reports is that traditional suburbia is dead. High petrol prices, traffic congestion, and long distance commutes are making cities and urbanism the new choice for consumers. This, of course, augurs well for cities–but what are the implications for New Urbanist developments? Are they immune to the foreclosure crisis ?
I haven’t seen any academic studies, but Mike Thomas of the Orlando Sentinel had a thoughtful column yesterday on the eastern Orange County New Urbanist development, Avalon Park. This development is a good example of a large New Urbanist community being built on the metropolitan fringe. Internally, it has good design and development, but its integration into the larger metropolis is lacking. As such, according to Thomas the community is suffering in the current crisis with large numbers of foreclosures and a decrease in home prices.
It would be interesting to see if other exurban New Urbanist developments are similarly feeling the pinch. Also, how are the exurban developments stacking up to New Urbanist infill projects? I would think that infill projects might be more resilient. As a comparison, Baldwin Park–which is an infill project much closer to downtown Orlando–saw the region’s second highest number of closings in the first half of 2008. Obviously, the foreclosure crisis heated up over the summer, but these initial numbers suggest some resiliency.
In the absence of a systematic study of whether the exurban New Urbanist communities face smaller numbers of foreclosures than in conventional developments, it is hard to authoritatively comment. However, I would speculate that these communities are not immune–and may even be more adversely affected–given their higher costs, making such communities less competitive in a sellers market.
The advantage of NU communities might be that one only needs the car to go to work, unlike some communities where people get in the car to do everything. That maybe enough to let them evolve into small towns instead of bedroom communities.
Donal, That clearly is the advantage in theory–the problem is how it works in practice. Developers tout the amenities (shops, stores, etc…) in their sales materials, but many business owners are reluctant to open new stores in places where few people live. People move in, but become disappointed when stores aren’t there or are so specialty-oriented, they are of little everyday use. Merchants, in turn, can’t hold on until the critical mass develops.
The places where this tends to work seem to be either in 1) infill projects, 2) suburban developments near highways or high-traveled arterial roads, 3) where developers give merchants a heavy subsidy.
I haven’t been to Orlando in a couple of years, but I have a friend who lives in Baldwin Park who tells me–anecdotally–that it is thriving.
The key, for me at least, is to link land use decisions with multi-modal transport infrastructure development. That can only be done at the regional level–which is difficult given the power of municipalities in determining land use policy.
I live in Avalon Park.
While it’s a hotspot for foreclosures, it also represents huge value, and is leading Orlando in new home starts; the turnaround does seem to be coming pretty quickly to AP, despite what Mike Thomas seems to think.
It’s not really fair to use AP as an example of suburban sprawl, since Orlando in general isn’t a hugely dense downtown surrounded by suburbs….these days, Central Florida is pretty much a giant neighborhood from the Space Coast to Tampa. I moved here from Atlanta 6 years ago, and was surprised to find my commute double. East Orlando,home to UCF and where AP is, is far enough away from Orlando that it’s its own entity.
Chris
Chris, Thanks for your first-hand report! Keep us updated on what’s happening down there.
I would have to disagree with your contention that AP is not an “example of suburban sprawl.” I used to work at UCF so I am pretty familiar with that part of Orange County.
What *precisely* constitutes “suburban sprawl” is clearly debatable. However, the fact that AP was built on the eastern fringe of low-density development in the county and that the development itself is relatively low-density and not adequately integrated into a multi-modal transportation network makes it sprawl in my book.
The satellite image from google maps is telling. The picture is undated, but if you zoom out you clearly see the community being constructed in an area surrounded by undeveloped land, on the fringe of Orlando’s suburban morphology: http://tinyurl.com/65em4o
You are correct that Orange County is largely a “giant neighborhood”–although I would call it more of a giant suburb, with commuting and mobility patterns being dispersed throughout the county. The reason that’s the case is basically due to a lack of regional planning and little significant efforts made at coordinating land use and transportation networks.