The claim of Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox that census figures show growth primarily in "the suburbs" is little more than a truism. Growth simply occurs where there is room to grow on a clean slate, whether that growth is in high-density or low-density form. Click to expand...

These are all fair criticisms. (Far more insightful and meaningful than the criticism that emanates from the architecture academies: "Ohmygod! Ionic columns and front porches! Ahhhh! Evil historicist pastiche!)But some uncomfortable questions have to be directed the other way too: The common meme is that all/most NU work takes places on greenfields, but as Duany exasperatingly argues, half their work has been urban infill. This stuff gets little attention because it's often contextual and quiet. But as for the greenfield "new towns:" could it be that a lot of NU work (andsuburban/exurban construction per se) takes places on greenfields because the planning/procedural rigamarole in built-up areas is just too much to handle?Existing suburban areas are understandably designed for stasis: people move here because theywant to see densification. Little NU infill can occur here - NIMBYism will block it, and it's arguably not all that unreasonable. As forinfill, well that's even harder. A builder has to juggle redevelopment under the impossible burdens of absurd taxation schemes (which is why TIF and PILOTs are increasingly used as desperate workarounds), racial politics and minority contracting rules, minimum parking mandates and egress codes (good look working with narrow, small urban lots if most of the space has to be dedicated to parking and circulation; this is why these lots are combined into "superblocks" to lure in giant national developers, thus squeezing out the small-time guys), historic preservation scriptures, and aarray of other bureaucratic obstacles. And NIMBYism is still in force. Every urban infill project thatoccurred has been a small miracle!In the US at least, I think this thoughtful post is dead on: we see mostly greenfield development becauseAs for the lack of transit, well the NU guys can't work miracles! Building and running a new transit line is a nearly impossible task in the US anymore - these are no longer the days when private streetcar companies could freely build speculative lines to their new suburbs! The aforementioned racial and class politics are still in force, plus there are funding issues (who's going to pay to run the transit?) and crime concerns. At this stage, simply enabling/allowing/legalizing hack cabs, dollar vans, and Chinatown buses to service NU "new towns" may be the best way forward for improving their transit access.Finally, about the "bad" higher-income residents in the typical NU new town: New construction is almost always pricier than old construction. And like all housing developments, "new town" houses are bought and sold on a free market (or as "free" as the US housing market currently is with all the FHA/HUD distortions out there). Maybe supply is short and demand is high? If this is the case, wealthier people will naturally out-price poorer people who want to live in the same developments and - presto! - you'll have a development dominated by a single class of people! This isn't all that strange: the same problem afflicts prewar urban neighborhoods like Greenwich Village, Beacon Hill, or Georgetown.All in all, I think the whole NU thing has been a big plus, even if it's been somewhat transitional and incomplete. At least it's not peddling in utopian 1950s/1960s visions where people with no housing choice are forced into isolated superblocks. (BTW, I think NU's most encouraging success has been in the redevelopment of old housing projects under the federal 'HOPE' program: so far their traditional low-income/mixed-income rowhouse developments have held up fine for a couple decades now, whereas the stuff that preceded them often failed in the same period of time (or less). If people have a sense of ownership and control over their physical settings (their own rowhouse and yard), if there is a connection to "eyes on the street" street frontage, and if the development is properly cared for under a "Broken Windows" strategy, then it seems to age much better than the old anomalous, placeless, ownerless tower blocks that fell apart so quickly.)