The Impact of New Urbanism on Cities in the United States of America

Introduction

New Urbanism, the sustainable development of cities based on minimizing the carbon footprint of the cities, has had a weighted effect on American cities. This urban design movement started in the early 1980s as a reaction to urban sprawl and promotes an environmentally clean city by improving walkability, mixed land usage, and connectivity between streets, similarly to a pre-automobile society. New Urbanism can help stop climate change. According to the Weather 2050 project, a projection of what America’s temperature would look like in 2050, created by Vox and NASA, they predict almost a four-degree rise in temperature by 2050. New Urbanism’s intended purpose was to help stop this and facilitate development. Two essential stakeholders in this issue appear - the cities and their residents. The buildings in these New Urbanist American cities became more socially friendly, and the research showed residents gaining an increase in health.

Perspective One: Cities

Cities became more socially friendly as a result of New Urbanism. City streets in New Urbanist are supposed to promote walking with shops near houses and interconnected grid of streets which helps to eliminate traffic along with a centre in the middle of the city along with the more efficient use of buildings. In a report compiled by Yan Song, the professor of Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Mark Stevens, the Associate Professor in the School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia, the layout of roads in the New Urbanist city helps promote social interaction with mixed land usage and buildings designed as pedestrian-friendly.

The mixed land usage increases the social activity of the city along with creating a sense of nationalism within the city, which all help promote economic activity. Upon analyzation of the research, the building style helps contributes to the heightened sense of security within the city. New Urbanist cities are meant to encourage this sense of family, with smaller blocks and interconnected streets. Committing a crime in these kinds of cities means that you are seen doing these crimes because of the open streets, which deters people away from crime and instead to social interaction. There will be increased visual effects and more social interaction within the city from New Urbanism.

Perspective Two: City Residents

Residents will be directly impacted by New Urbanism because they live in these cities affected. Hamad Irvani, an engineer at the firm Parsons and Venket Rao a biomedical scientist at the same firm, did a study on the effects of New Urbanism on public health, finding there was a substantial positive correlation between health and city connectivity. A key characteristic of New Urbanist cities, city connectivity can help these residents, who have to pay high taxes because of how much cities have to spend on New Urbanism. A study done in Toronto about the same issue saw a decrease in diabetes and obesity from these New Urbanist policies. In a world with rising healthcare bills and an increase in diseases resulting from our sedentary life, where we spent almost 53.8 billion dollars on these new sedentary diseases. New Urbanism forces us so, we have to walk - this keeps residents healthy and saving them money. City locals are affected by New Urbanism by showing a direct increase in health.

Conclusion

In cities, buildings became more abstract along with residents showing a definite increase in health. New Urbanism did what it meant to do, lower the carbon footprint of our country; however, there are implications and limitations. In the same study from above done by Yan Song and Mark Stevens, they saw an increase in regulatory costs along with an increase in personnel for maintaining the city. A study done by the Association of Chief Police Officers in of Bedfordshire found that the city spent almost two million dollars compared to the city pre-New Urbanism, where they spent almost four hundred fifty million dollars on security. People might even be against implementing New Urbanism due to the high costs associated with it. New Urbanism has a varied effect on cities and their residents, such as increased health and social effect of buildings, yet there are still some adverse effects such as higher costs to pay for all of this.