Your point here is an important one, that connectedness is the underlying boon and walkability an effect is spot on. Walkability has become the catchphrase for determining good urbanism, something tangible that people can experience. As you say, it is certainly an element within the design. What’s left out of that talking point, though, is the recognition that when the various elements are well-assembled, a whole emerges that is greater than the sum of its parts – and therein lies the difference between urbanism and a collection of things – a place. Suburban environments have all of the same elements. What they lack is a coherent assemblage. There is no “there” there. Thanks for reorienting this conversation from one talking point to the bigger issue.
I’d like to push back gently on two points you made. First, this isn’t a new understanding, but our conversations do need to be re-centered. Many people have been circling this same idea for decades: urbanism isn’t a checklist, it’s an emergent condition. We shift the language (walkability, placemaking), but the underlying principle is consistent. Spatial definition + proximity + permeability = social life. I offer a couple of examples of how long this has been known, even if we have stopped talking in this way. James Howard Kuntsler’s 2004 TED talk. I’m sure you’re familiar with his writings that first gave voice to the New Urbanist movement. In this, he reminds us that buildings are the connective tissue that defines space. It is our ability to define space that allows this “place” to emerge. These places permit for what Jan Gehl called the “life between buildings.” Leon Krier taught us that public spaces need to be formative, not residual, as evidenced in your examples of public trails along waterfronts vs Main St. Those trails can be pleasant, even beautiful, but are typically linear, optional, and episodic. They don’t structure everyday life in a way that fosters connection. Krier’s distinction gets at the same subtle thing you’re pointing to. Places we're required to pass through (squares, main streets, markets), generate unplanned encounters. Places that we choose to visit (trails, parks at the edge) tend to filter them. That’s the difference between a collective awareness, or shared sense that we’re in this together, and recreational coexistence. Gehl’s “Life between buildings” depends on friction, not just amenity. As Kunstler states at the end of his TED talk, these public spaces may actually be necessary to foster some sense of the common good. The second example (easily googled) is a 1989 talk by Andres Duany that details all this beautifully. This notion has always been at the heart of New Urbanism, or traditional neighborhood design.
Which brings me to my second pushback: New Urbanist places are theme parks. I think that’s unfair, a bit of a lazy shorthand, though I grant you an important downside. I see two problems that inhibit New Urbanist developments from becoming more. One, they are highly sought after because they're so pleasant to be in, and two, they comprise a small percentage of the built environment. So, even when designed for mixed incomes, the prices quickly soar and become unaffordable for many. That’s not a downfall of the design; it’s a downfall of the number of well-designed places available. Also, they are often encapsulated as they bump up against the zoning and preexisting, poorly planned land use that abuts them. In fairness, so do Charleston, Savanah, and New Orleans. Their cores are world-class urbanism, but once outside of that core, they devolve into suburban anywhere. I agree that places need to be able to iterate over time and grow, to an extent. I also agree with Leon Krier’s idea of duplication rather than hypertrophy or overexpansion.
Where your criticism of New Urbanism rings true is that, unlike Savanah or Charleston, the New Urbanist developments do seem to arrive too complete, too resolved, overdetermined. Those older cities feel authentic not just because of their design, but because they embody layers of time, conflict, adaptation, and even inconsistency. That messiness (love that description, Kevin Klinkenberg) isn’t incidental; it’s constitutive. However, it’s not their fault that we’ve only gotten back to building quality habitats in the past 40 years. Human scale seems to be another essential element in creating that sense that connection. The hope is that when people have the opportunity to experience good urbanism, they will demand changes within their own habitats so that well-built places can continue to grow and evolve.
It strikes me that these two constraints of scarcity and encapsulation point to something structural. Scarcity: demand coupled with regulatory friction. Encapsulation: a product of the discontinuity of underlying systems (zoning, financing, street hierarchies). A New Urbanist development next to conventional suburbia isn't just visualy different. It operates on a different logic, and the seam between them is often hostile.
The last attachment here is a brilliant piece of writing by Anthony Eagan, a review of Jorge Almazan’s book Emergent Tokyo. In it, he compares St. Petersburg’s top-down planning with the organic, incremental iterations of ever-evolving Tokyo. Through the lens of complexity, Eagan suggests that maybe the best approach to good design is the framework within which all living systems exist; a scaffolding of structure that remains open and adaptive to change. Suburbia is chaos and noise, unable to cohere into something distinct. Top-down, solidified planning is rigid and eventually collapses. The trick is to find that flow between those two banks.
Reminds me of this Vonnegut quote about buying an envelope. He references computers but it works equally well about cars:
“I once told my wife I was going out to buy an envelope:
“Oh,” she said, “well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet?” And so I pretended not to hear her. And went out to get an envelope because I have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope.
I meet a lot of people. And see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And I’ll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know.
The moral of the story is – we’re here on Earth to fart around.
Of course, the computers will do us out of that. But what the computer people don’t realise, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And it’s like we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.
Let’s all get up and move around a bit right now…or at least dance.”
Yes, I wish I could have interactions with my environment while driving through it. Usually, though, it's best to be focused on the road, so you're prevented from even looking. I have missed several consecutive times something my kid wants to point out, still haven't seen it, because I always "can't look now" or can't look in time. What our "non-city" but "not really suburban" place relies on for what you write about is common places to stop. The hardware store that everyone in my neighborhood goes to because it is small and stocks just what our particular house types need. The grocery store. The, yes, Chick-Fil-A that always sponsors fundraising nights. A density of these can proxy the social by making them common places to meet all the other car-travelers in your neighborhood. Especially if they are places you linger in, to shop or eat.
Thanks, Tina. That’s kind of my point. You can still have the “nodes” in the network, even when each one is isolated by infrastructure. But I think that lack of social space in between destinations makes a real, qualitative difference in experience, and in the civic life of a community.
Excellent post. This reminds me of what our colleague philosopher Andrea Hiott calls 'way-ability' when it comes to designing all our daily environments. As you say, the point is what ways paths cross, connect, share and intersect.
Thanks for this. I wonder how a city like mine, which hasn't made sure enough housing is in and very near the downtown core, can adjust to be more connected. There are empty office buildings, which the experts say are too expensive to make into housing. Yet, the fact that there is not much housing in the area makes it less appealing for businesses. Vicious circle. How does a city break out of this cycle?
I still think that "Walkable City" by Jeff Speck is one of the best intro-to-urbanism texts, and that walkability is a pretty good guiding light for building towards quality urbanism.
And there is a spectrum of walkability/car-dependence. My parents live in a suburb where the worst "stroad" through town is mostly only 3 lanes wide, they can easily walk to a grocery store, a convenience store, a couple bars and restaurants, a Starbucks. It is more walkable than a lot of other suburban places, and that's good! It is still far from the threshold of what I would call "urban"... but I think I would define the urban/not-urban divide as being a point on the spectrum of walkability!
New York is also /more/ walkable than San Francisco or DC or Boston (more destinations in close proximity at any given point), and yet all those cities are at least walkable enough to be urban.
To use a point from CityNerd, being able to carve out an "urban" life for oneself is very granular down to the neighborhood, not determined by the city as a whole. I think you mentioned Houston and Montrose in your previous post, even though most people in Houston aren't living urban lives. I think one could also carve out a pretty urban lifestyle living in close proximity to some high quality suburban downtowns, and that does pretty much come down to what we call "walkability."
Your point here is an important one, that connectedness is the underlying boon and walkability an effect is spot on. Walkability has become the catchphrase for determining good urbanism, something tangible that people can experience. As you say, it is certainly an element within the design. What’s left out of that talking point, though, is the recognition that when the various elements are well-assembled, a whole emerges that is greater than the sum of its parts – and therein lies the difference between urbanism and a collection of things – a place. Suburban environments have all of the same elements. What they lack is a coherent assemblage. There is no “there” there. Thanks for reorienting this conversation from one talking point to the bigger issue.
I’d like to push back gently on two points you made. First, this isn’t a new understanding, but our conversations do need to be re-centered. Many people have been circling this same idea for decades: urbanism isn’t a checklist, it’s an emergent condition. We shift the language (walkability, placemaking), but the underlying principle is consistent. Spatial definition + proximity + permeability = social life. I offer a couple of examples of how long this has been known, even if we have stopped talking in this way. James Howard Kuntsler’s 2004 TED talk. I’m sure you’re familiar with his writings that first gave voice to the New Urbanist movement. In this, he reminds us that buildings are the connective tissue that defines space. It is our ability to define space that allows this “place” to emerge. These places permit for what Jan Gehl called the “life between buildings.” Leon Krier taught us that public spaces need to be formative, not residual, as evidenced in your examples of public trails along waterfronts vs Main St. Those trails can be pleasant, even beautiful, but are typically linear, optional, and episodic. They don’t structure everyday life in a way that fosters connection. Krier’s distinction gets at the same subtle thing you’re pointing to. Places we're required to pass through (squares, main streets, markets), generate unplanned encounters. Places that we choose to visit (trails, parks at the edge) tend to filter them. That’s the difference between a collective awareness, or shared sense that we’re in this together, and recreational coexistence. Gehl’s “Life between buildings” depends on friction, not just amenity. As Kunstler states at the end of his TED talk, these public spaces may actually be necessary to foster some sense of the common good. The second example (easily googled) is a 1989 talk by Andres Duany that details all this beautifully. This notion has always been at the heart of New Urbanism, or traditional neighborhood design.
Which brings me to my second pushback: New Urbanist places are theme parks. I think that’s unfair, a bit of a lazy shorthand, though I grant you an important downside. I see two problems that inhibit New Urbanist developments from becoming more. One, they are highly sought after because they're so pleasant to be in, and two, they comprise a small percentage of the built environment. So, even when designed for mixed incomes, the prices quickly soar and become unaffordable for many. That’s not a downfall of the design; it’s a downfall of the number of well-designed places available. Also, they are often encapsulated as they bump up against the zoning and preexisting, poorly planned land use that abuts them. In fairness, so do Charleston, Savanah, and New Orleans. Their cores are world-class urbanism, but once outside of that core, they devolve into suburban anywhere. I agree that places need to be able to iterate over time and grow, to an extent. I also agree with Leon Krier’s idea of duplication rather than hypertrophy or overexpansion.
Where your criticism of New Urbanism rings true is that, unlike Savanah or Charleston, the New Urbanist developments do seem to arrive too complete, too resolved, overdetermined. Those older cities feel authentic not just because of their design, but because they embody layers of time, conflict, adaptation, and even inconsistency. That messiness (love that description, Kevin Klinkenberg) isn’t incidental; it’s constitutive. However, it’s not their fault that we’ve only gotten back to building quality habitats in the past 40 years. Human scale seems to be another essential element in creating that sense that connection. The hope is that when people have the opportunity to experience good urbanism, they will demand changes within their own habitats so that well-built places can continue to grow and evolve.
It strikes me that these two constraints of scarcity and encapsulation point to something structural. Scarcity: demand coupled with regulatory friction. Encapsulation: a product of the discontinuity of underlying systems (zoning, financing, street hierarchies). A New Urbanist development next to conventional suburbia isn't just visualy different. It operates on a different logic, and the seam between them is often hostile.
The last attachment here is a brilliant piece of writing by Anthony Eagan, a review of Jorge Almazan’s book Emergent Tokyo. In it, he compares St. Petersburg’s top-down planning with the organic, incremental iterations of ever-evolving Tokyo. Through the lens of complexity, Eagan suggests that maybe the best approach to good design is the framework within which all living systems exist; a scaffolding of structure that remains open and adaptive to change. Suburbia is chaos and noise, unable to cohere into something distinct. Top-down, solidified planning is rigid and eventually collapses. The trick is to find that flow between those two banks.
Thanks for your work. I enjoy your essays.
https://www.city-journal.org/article/liminal-urbanism
Reminds me of this Vonnegut quote about buying an envelope. He references computers but it works equally well about cars:
“I once told my wife I was going out to buy an envelope:
“Oh,” she said, “well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet?” And so I pretended not to hear her. And went out to get an envelope because I have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope.
I meet a lot of people. And see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And I’ll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know.
The moral of the story is – we’re here on Earth to fart around.
Of course, the computers will do us out of that. But what the computer people don’t realise, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And it’s like we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.
Let’s all get up and move around a bit right now…or at least dance.”
That’s a wonderful quote, I love it. Thank you for sharing!
Yes, I wish I could have interactions with my environment while driving through it. Usually, though, it's best to be focused on the road, so you're prevented from even looking. I have missed several consecutive times something my kid wants to point out, still haven't seen it, because I always "can't look now" or can't look in time. What our "non-city" but "not really suburban" place relies on for what you write about is common places to stop. The hardware store that everyone in my neighborhood goes to because it is small and stocks just what our particular house types need. The grocery store. The, yes, Chick-Fil-A that always sponsors fundraising nights. A density of these can proxy the social by making them common places to meet all the other car-travelers in your neighborhood. Especially if they are places you linger in, to shop or eat.
Thanks, Tina. That’s kind of my point. You can still have the “nodes” in the network, even when each one is isolated by infrastructure. But I think that lack of social space in between destinations makes a real, qualitative difference in experience, and in the civic life of a community.
Excellent post. This reminds me of what our colleague philosopher Andrea Hiott calls 'way-ability' when it comes to designing all our daily environments. As you say, the point is what ways paths cross, connect, share and intersect.
Thanks for this. I wonder how a city like mine, which hasn't made sure enough housing is in and very near the downtown core, can adjust to be more connected. There are empty office buildings, which the experts say are too expensive to make into housing. Yet, the fact that there is not much housing in the area makes it less appealing for businesses. Vicious circle. How does a city break out of this cycle?
The graphics for this are top notch!
I still think that "Walkable City" by Jeff Speck is one of the best intro-to-urbanism texts, and that walkability is a pretty good guiding light for building towards quality urbanism.
And there is a spectrum of walkability/car-dependence. My parents live in a suburb where the worst "stroad" through town is mostly only 3 lanes wide, they can easily walk to a grocery store, a convenience store, a couple bars and restaurants, a Starbucks. It is more walkable than a lot of other suburban places, and that's good! It is still far from the threshold of what I would call "urban"... but I think I would define the urban/not-urban divide as being a point on the spectrum of walkability!
New York is also /more/ walkable than San Francisco or DC or Boston (more destinations in close proximity at any given point), and yet all those cities are at least walkable enough to be urban.
To use a point from CityNerd, being able to carve out an "urban" life for oneself is very granular down to the neighborhood, not determined by the city as a whole. I think you mentioned Houston and Montrose in your previous post, even though most people in Houston aren't living urban lives. I think one could also carve out a pretty urban lifestyle living in close proximity to some high quality suburban downtowns, and that does pretty much come down to what we call "walkability."