New Urbanism Principles and Urban Sprawl Effects

With the rising levels of new urbanism around the world, it is becoming increasingly necessary for urban planners to put more emphasis on creating a conducive urban setup for both business and social operations. The streets are no longer the calm and beautiful places that they used to be a few years ago. This has been a result of the growing levels of pollution, traffic jams, population density, and poor urban planning. This has triggered the need to reverse such negative effects.

In a move to address the above issues, Howard Kunstler has brought forward a number of principles on new urbanism that can mitigate the negative effects of urban collapse. One of the principles brought forward is the creation of places where people can spend their time for leisure. This is based on the fact that most of the urban centers are highly congested, where even pathways are being converted into shops. This calls for the creation of specific zones in order to bring order to urban centers. This makes it easy for people to identify specific places where they can get certain products. For instance, zoning separates noisy and pollutant industrial operations from cleaner operations such as banks.

A second factor considered in this case is planning in terms of neighborhood. This forms the basic unit of planning, which allows easy navigation of people within the city while searching for specific places to spend their time or shop. Howard brings forward the idea of customized urban design. This implies that building structures meant for recreation may differ in design from those intended to harbor banks. This ensures that all buildings are well-designed to serve specific needs. According to Howard, this goes hand in hand with the development of a standard in city decorations to bring harmony to the city landscape. He also emphasizes the need to establish street pavements and spaces that the public can utilize as a sidewalk to positively influence urban life. This avoids congestion.