While on my way to a dental appointment last week — not my favorite activity, truth be told — I had the distinct pleasure of walking through Georgetown, Washington’s oldest neighborhood and one of its most lovely. As I ambled through the historic, tree-lined residential streets, I was reminded of how our older neighborhoods so often embody the characteristics that we now ascribe to “smart growth,” the kind of urban and compact suburban development that many of us advocate as preferable to expansive, automobile-dependent suburban sprawl.
In particular, Georgetown has a walkable urban density; well-connected streets and sidewalks that make it notably pedestrian-friendly; a central, convenient location just a mile or so from the heart of downtown; good transit service; many shops, restaurants and civic amenities mixed in with, or a ridiculously easy walk from, the neighborhood’s homes. There are also somewhat larger apartment and commercial buildings (including some newer ones), places of worship, parks, and schools, including a major university and world-class hospital, all walkable and fitting within the neighborhood’s charming historic character.
The neighborhood isn’t perfect, of course. It’s two main commercial streets can be choked at times with motor vehicle traffic; not all of its small businesses have fared well during the Covid-19 pandemic; and, as with many “desirable” urban districts, properties can be expensive. But these compactly arranged pedestrian assets are the essence of what those of us who advocate smart growth advocate for. And, while this particular historic district is the one closest to my home, DC certainly has other lovely old neighborhoods with similar features, and so, actually, do most cities in America. Perhaps you have your own favorite.
Imperfections aside, the smart growth characteristics of these older neighborhoods make them terrific for the environment and for public health: their walkable human scale and transit access reduce transportation emissions by obviating driving trips and shortening those that people do take; they save land by keeping development compact and obviating additional increments of sprawl; they promote physical fitness and health by encouraging walking.
Many of these older neighborhoods are also immensely popular with residents and visitors alike. They have endured in part because they are so appealing; they have been cherished and cared for over generations. They are, in short, loved.
What are some of the things that make our best historic districts so appealing? Well, a comfortable human scale rather than an overwhelming one, for starters. Harmonious architecture, for another, much of it built with obvious pride of craftsmanship. A diversity of building sizes and types. The presence of nature, in the case of Georgetown most notably through its mature trees, dispersed throughout the neighborhood. (An even better example of a historic district with integrated nature might be Savannah, with its wonderful green squares punctuating the old city’s inherent urbanism.) A great lovable neighborhood should also have one or more great public spaces to encourage gathering and provide focal points and definition.
Unfortunately, these appealing elements so common to our older neighborhoods are not always found in much of what passes for smart growth today. Consider the photo above of a newer high-rise cluster across the Potomac River in the inner suburb of Arlington, Virginia. It is also a compact, transit-accessible, mixed-use neighborhood: it certainly is popular with its residents and with the businesses located there. It is abundantly convenient, on top of a rail transit station, and functions extremely well on indicia of smart growth performance. It is considered a rousing smart-growth success.
But it looks ordinary to me. Will it survive for centuries, as our best historic districts have? Should it? Would you want it in or next to your own neighborhood?
I think we can do better. In the 1990s, when the smart growth movement coalesced, the building of suburban sprawl still dominated not only the American landscape but also the overwhelming majority of development conversations. It seemed a daunting task to advocate even for the basics, for more compact development, for public transit and mixed use, for revitalization of cities and inner suburbs. We had to settle for what we could get.
But, now, cities are rebounding dramatically, in many regions growing at faster rates than suburbs. The basic tenets of smart growth and urbanism are taught in planning schools across the country. More and more municipalities are on board, too, clamoring to adopt new plans and zoning regimes to encourage exactly the kind of development that seemed so out of reach in the 1990s. While there remains a market for conventional suburban development, demographic analysis shows that the growth in demand is definitely trending toward more walkable and urban preferences. Many trends are now favorable to less sprawling, more walkable neighborhoods.
(There is a glaring exception, unfortunately: the elephant in the room is a lack of affordability in much “smart” development, whether it’s based in a new neighborhood or an older one. That is proving a very tough nut to crack, and I wish I had the answers. The “good” side of this challenge, I suppose, is that it stems from such high demand for these kinds of neighborhoods. It’s a problem of success rather than one of failure.)
Urban development is now moving in a better direction than it was thirty or forty years ago, and I think it’s time to evaluate whether there are some lessons we should be learning from our success. To make places more welcome, more lovable and embraceable – to make places that we can not just accept but also be proud of – we could do a lot worse than to look back at these historic neighborhoods that have in fact been cherished and that have endured over time, and to emulate what has made them so special. (Some newer, in-town smart growth projects do exactly that – Atlanta’s Glenwood Park comes immediately to mind – but many do not.) I’m not saying we necessarily must emulate them in architectural style, by the way; more that we should pay attention to things such as their scale, building diversity, and use of public spaces.
I think that, among other things, making our product more appealing could help sell it. It’s hard to sell a hodgepodge of everyday high-rises with no green space or meaningful public amenities to someone who fears density. We should be better than that, instead advocating appropriate-to-the-context densities but at the same time promoting human-scale walkability and great neighborhood parks and public spaces.
That said, architectural character is only where we should begin. In our new-generation agenda for better places, let’s not only look back: let’s also look forward and borrow from the very substantial advances that are being made in environmental thinking and technology for buildings and infrastructure. Let’s recognize that it is now the twenty-first century; given what we know today, smart growth isn’t very smart if it isn’t also green.
The smart growth movement already advocates, and advocates well, for reducing the substantial portion of our carbon emissions from transportation, through promoting alternatives to driving. This is a very good thing. But residential and commercial buildings, taken together, currently account for a larger share of our carbon emissions than does transportation. Why aren’t we also advocating for green buildings that save energy, water, and material resources as a basic part of our agenda?
Many people already do advocate for green buildings, of course, but such advocacy has never been an explicit part of the smart growth or new urbanist agenda. (I’m not even going to get into more advanced green technology such as on-site renewable energy sources and district energy systems; green buildings would be an important start.)
Similarly, we already advocate for “complete streets,” as well we should. Why aren’t we also advocating for greener streets, as well as other forms of green infrastructure for stormwater management? I could go on and on – the integration of nature and neighborhood parks into the built environment, mentioned above in connection with older neighborhoods, is also important to public health – but my main argument here is not the bill of particulars but the more overarching point: a built-environment agenda for this century must become more holistic and greener if it is to remain relevant to the challenges of our time. We can do this; we will be better leaders if we do; and the places we make will be better for our efforts.
– Excerpted and adapted from the essay “How to Make Smart Growth More Lovable and Sustainable” on HuffPost