ABSTRACT
New urbanism has become an influential force in planning practice, especially in North America, yet it has made relatively little impact on international planning theory. New urban approaches are important rhetorically in many regions, extensively affecting planning discourse in Europe, Australia, and South Africa, for instance. Yet the effects on mainstream development practices – at least in the countries we have considered here – are more limited. Indeed, we might predict that the fate of new urbanism will likely parallel that of the garden city. In North America, for several decades it will shape physical form in a reduced and simplified way, gradually bereft of its mission and vision. As J.J. Stevenson said in a lecture in 1874 about the Queen Anne style (which had recently replaced Gothic revival at the time), ‘the movement has become fashionable, and consequently in danger of becoming vulgarised’ (quoted in Rubinstein 1974:60). Plus que ça change. New urbanism’s original principles are already being watered down in practice as developers ‘cherry-pick’ the saleable parts of the concept. North American New Urbanism has been transformed to a broader and more marketable concept of generic new urbanism in application, as urban village models and smart growth notions set aside some of the initial principles. In Europe and Asia, new urbanism may well become lost amidst the many urban traditions that preceded it. In much of the developing world I suspect that new urbanism will find itself unable to compete with gated communities in appealing to new urban élites.
