(cont)

Evidence that new urbanism does not address the issue of providing a place for lower income people is in the literature surrounding it. For instance, an article in the New York Times entitled “Why New Urbanism Isn’t for Everyone” discusses downfalls of these developments that include people wanting big back yards, swimming pools, and the desire to escape high density living” (Johnson). The article also discusses the inconveniences of the new urbanist lifestyle, such as increased walking and more emphasis on community oriented thinking. These are the moans of the rich and the lazy. Other problems include quarrels between residents. “Developers have found that residential, retail, and office users compete for parking, the essential columns in multi-story buildings interfere with an open-store layout used by retailers, and residents complain about noise from delivery trucks” (Gogoi). What is ignored in all this is that along with any new theory comes the need to work out problems that are only found when test of the theory are carried out, in this case when people inhabit the development. New urbanism demands for its residents to work collectively to solve these problems instead of people pointing out annoyances while doing nothing to change them. New urbanism is a design that is supposed to encourage community involvement and local mindedness, yet people who inhabit these developments seem to live partitioned off from one another. The focus of society, especially in (progressive and) planned communities needs to be taken away from individual wealth and status with those same values placed on a network of people. If people were spending a much higher percentage of their money within a mile or two from their residence they will be more likely to see that money spent benefiting both directly and indirectly. The beauty of new urbanism is not the architecture, but how people interact with one another within their social environment.