THE “NATURE” OF URBANISM ON THE NEW URBANIST FRONTIER: SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, OR DEFENSE OF THE SUBURBAN DREAM?

Abstract

This study critically analyzes the ideas about nature within New Urbanism and its principal approach, the Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND). Although the language and appearance of New Urbanism appear quite progressive, this paper demonstrates the ways that New-Urbanism-as-practice is politically conservative and does not constitute a more sustainable pattern of urban development. My argument is twofold. First, using Prairie Crossing, Illinois—a new TND and “conservation community” located in suburban Chicago—I show how the environmentalism of the New Urbanism is narrow in its focus and rooted squarely in the defense of privately defined middle-class amenities and lifestyles. Second, I demonstrate how the nostalgic impulse at Prairie Crossing results in a highly problematic recollection of the Midwestern White-settlement frontier. I conclude by arguing that this type of development does not constitute a good model of sustainability. Rather, nature here is mobilized to defend the essence of the suburban dream. [Key words: sustainable development, urban design, New Urbanism.]

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