What the New Concept in Community Planning Might Mean

According to a January article in the Wall Street Journal, surveys reveal that roughly one-third of Gen Y’ers are willing to pay for the ability to walk to work. Which would explain why a variety of experts — from sociologists to architects to real estate professionals to economists — are re-examining the relevance and desirability of that quintessential American phenomenon, suburban sprawl.

In a blog post on Switchboard, Kaid Benfield breaks down an article by architecture professor Roger Lewis regarding walkable neighborhoods. He boils the zoning and planning of suburban sprawl of the last 60 or so years to four basic assumptions, all of which are now in question:

1. Unlimited land supply— something that even though logically impossible, felt true for most of the 20^th century
2. Unlimited, inexpensive (and presumably harmless) petroleum supplies— allowing a disproportionate reliance on cars and roads rather than public transportation or denser, mixed-use communities
3. Single use land allocation was ideal— the consensus was that separating residential areas from business from commercial would best protect property value
4. The definition of the “American Dream”— to own and live in a mortgaged home

For homeowners and real estate investors, this means a long, hard look at the old  chestnut “location, location, location.” Inman news recently reported that Rosemary Beach, a Florida Panhandle planned community, saw home sales increase 111 percent from 2009 to 2010 — not a sales trend seen many other places in the country.

The designers of Rosemary Beach, which was the location for the movie, “The Truman Show,” define new urbanism as “neighborhoods that are compact, mixed-use and pedestrian-friendly; districts of appropriate location and character; and corridors that are functional and beautiful.”

Rosemary Beach itself, according to the article, is a “dense community of cottages and vacation homes and walkable streets interspersed with common areas, greens, parks, swimming pools, etc., surrounding a city-like interior of shops, restaurants, coffee bars and small office space. Above the ground floor was loft space. All of this built along a gorgeous Gulf of Mexico shoreline.”

To put it in real estate terms, a house recently put on the market there received an offer for nearly asking price. In less than 24 hours.